Why we don't volunteer
I've been volunteering for Mobile Meals of Trenton/Ewing off and on for a couple of years now. It's actually more off than on -- though I like the organization I don't treat that hour or two I spend driving meals around to shut-ins as a high priority in my life. If anything comes up, I beg off -- even at the last minute. I would probably even quit as a volunteer, except I feel a slight tug at my heart indicating that if I'm not giving something back to my community, I'm becoming more like Snidely Whiplash (pictured) every day. But isn't that pathetic? A slight tug at the heart? C'mon.
Well, now it hits close to home. I have the responsibility for finding and training at least seven volunteer conversation partners for TCNJ freshmen from other countries who need a little help picking up the language. And I anticipate problems with both getting and keeping these volunteers, even though their service is only one hour per week for a single semester. (This is part of a larger project, for which I am likely to start a separate blog.)
The problems come not only from my poor motivation as a volunteer -- which I must find ways to conquer in others -- but in the methods that nearly everyone else in the USA who hosts a conversation partners program motivates their own volunteers:
- resume bullets
- lifelong friends
- cultural exchange
- warm fuzzies
I contend that Mobile Meals of Trenton/Ewing does not. That's not to say it's their fault I have little more than this pathetic heart tug holding me to the organization. It's just that they could do more to increase volunteer value, without spending money or even much time. Consider the following:
- We aren't always given what we need. I don't know Trenton as well as maybe I should. Mobile Meals does provide driving directions, but no map. And many streets -- maybe two or three per meal route -- don't have signs. So I miss a direction at least once per route. When I'm lost, I call them -- and their phone number is always busy at lunch time, while meals are being delivered. Once, I lost half an hour on a route trying to find my way around when I couldn't call the office. Afterwards I told them that if they wanted to keep me as a driver, they had to either (a) give me only experienced meal runners, to help me find directions, or (b) give me a cell phone number I can call when I am lost. They made a note of this, but to date I have not been given either.
- We don't have any say in how it's done. That's not to say the way meals are delivered could be improved, but as you see above, some administrative functions could be. Mobile Meals, like most volunteer organizations, has its jobs compartmentalized and dumbed-down. It's possible that volunteer suggestions are valued, but my experience above has told me otherwise. And I don't normally give out many chances to people who don't listen to me.
- We are loved for the moment then forgotten. Sometimes we aren't loved at all. This quote comes from the Mobile Meals Web site:
We wish it were possible for you to hear the high praise the participants on your routes give us about the people who deliver their meals. We would like you to know that their appreciation and gratitude is deep and sincere.
Well, WHY isn't it possible for us to hear this "high praise?" Why isn't it up on the Web site? Why isn't it printed on a periodic flyer (say, of half-a-page) and given to all volunteers during a given week? Let me tell you what I see: I delivered to a house once, knocked, and was greeted by "who the f*ck is that?" When that happens, I don't feel loved. If I volunteered for, say, the Special Olympics, there's a fair chance I'd get a HUG from some participant and have my picture in the paper for it. I want to feel some love. And I am betting most volunteers want to feel it too.
Labels: character
posted by Ron @ 8:50 PM
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I realize this entry was written over two years ago, but I ran across this and just had to post. I volunteer (actually, I was 'volunteered' by my wife) at my church doing sound for one of the Sunday morning services. It used to be a pretty simple thing really. Bring out the sound board, do the necessary cable patch backstage, setup, plug in and test about three mic's. Then make sure the associate pastors wireless works and is turned on. Then after that, I taped down my cables and was good to go. All was easily done within the space of 20 minutes.
The music leader for this particular service was fairly new when I started volunteering, but over time, as she began to settle into her position, she started requiring more and more complicated sound setups often coming dangerously close to taxing the limitations of our equipment. Eventually found myself having to come in earlier and earlier to make these setups happen.
If that wasn't enough, they brought in another associate music leader who has had all of these great ideas including the formation of additional music groups which often perform simultaneously with the groups of the other music leader. as a result, that little sound box has been replaced by a rack of sound equipment that weighs about 75 pounds which I have to lug down a small stairway and I regularly have to be at the church no less than an hour to an hour and a quarter before the service in order to have enough time to get everything up and running before prelude (I have two small children that I have to get ready for church as well).
It all kind of came to a head a few weeks ago, when I had some difficulty setting up for sound due to a miscommunication regarding where to put a particular mic. I thought the Associate Pastor was telling me one thing and the Music Leader was telling me another. when I NICELY brought this to the Music Leaders attention, she copped an attitude and made some catty sarcastic remark to me about who's the boss (I had always kind of assumed that the Pastor kind of had the final say, this is a CHURCH after all). I basically served it right back to her (much to her dismay) and went about other business until it could be cleared up. Remember, I don't get paid for this crap. If I were a more hateful person, I'd have told the music leader to set it up herself and walked out. But, I am in church afterall, and I didn't. :)
Well, we finally got the miscommunication cleared up and as it turns out the problem was coming from both sides. They were speaking to me in some sort of code or abbreviated lingo that they use amongst themselves and I was interpreting it literally, thus causing the problem.
To make matters worse, I showed up the following week to do my usual thing and got the cold shoulder from everyone involved in last weeks SNAFU.
It's gotten to the point that the only reason I do this is that the guy who coodrdinates the volunteers for doing sound is a really nice fellow, though I think at times he doubts my capabilities and that can be a little hard to swallow. And on top of that, he's not really aggressive about finding a larger pool of volunteers for doing sound. Unfortunately, that's very common in the culture of this particular church, they get one person to volunteer for something and then stop looking for more volunteers (or so it seems) and thus wind up using these same people over and over again to the point that they get fed up and quit.
And this church wonders why they have so many problems getting people to volunteer for things like sound and ushering (before I did sound, I ushered for awhile, and man, that is a story unto itself, you would not believe how petty some people can be about sitting in church. Then again, maybe you would.)
Sorry, I didn't mean to go on so long. I suppose I had to vent. But when I read this particular blog entry about volunteering (and how it's so easy to feel un/underappreciated as such) it really struck a chord in me. :)
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