Volunteers make nonprofits work

In addition to searching listings of job vacancies and doing household chores, I've been keeping busy with a variety of volunteer work. Holding down a full-time job makes volunteering more difficult, and I salute all who give their time, despite the lack of free time, to make nonprofit agencies work.

This week has been particularly busy for me. I attended two meetings on Tuesday, one on Wednesday and another on Thursday. Last year, I resigned from one board because its meeting time conflicted with the meetings of another board. I had to choose between the two. The tasks associated with serving on a volunteer board are not terribly time consuming. One IRS form I was reading recently cited the hours per week of the volunteer chairman and the volunteer treasurer as two hours per week. Other board members with less time-consuming tasks spend even less time in pro bono work. But volunteers are essential. Events such as Special Olympics, Relay for Life or the Memorial Day celebration simply wouldn't happen without volunteers. A recent study put the value of each volunteer hour at $20.25. Multiply that by the millions of volunteers in this country, and you'll find an economic impact in the billions of dollars. Volunteers, as any nonprofit director will tell you, are invaluable.

But, as Ambrose Bierce reminded us, "no good deed goes unpunished." This post will likely get a comment from an anonymous critic who'll complain that the same "aristocrats" who run local businesses also run the local nonprofits. There is some truth to that. A handful of people (though I wouldn't call them aristocrats) serve on several volunteer boards. It's not because they have nothing else to do. It's because they're willing to do it, and they're capable. They show up for meetings. They do what needs to be done to solicit contributions, to set up tables at fund-raisers, to balance the bank account for an agency, to cheer on a Special Olympics athlete, to make difficult decisions about budgets and services. They give of their time. They take time away from work or family to do things that need to be done. Their reward might be a certificate or a plaque at the end of their term. Few of those mementos end up on office walls. Most go into a drawer somewhere because to post them on the wall would be presumptuous. Besides, that's not why you volunteer.

If the same names tend to appear on a number of boards, it's because those people are willing to do the work that needs to be done. A number of these are retirees, who, freed from daily work, have more time to devote to volunteer activities. Many retirees tell me they've never been so busy. Each year, boards struggle to find new people willing to fill positions being vacated on the board. Many names might be offered, but few are willing to attend the meetings and contribute to the agency's goals. Most people are just too busy, or they think they are because volunteering is not high enough on their priority list.