[hvert]

I have been trying to use volunteering as a way to meet new people and do something constructive at the same time. The number of frustrating experiences I have had as a volunteer at different organizations is just overwhelming

I've run into

• people who don't return calls or answer emails,

• professional consulting reports being discarded for political reasons,
• organizers who schedule a group work day and show up three hours late... and want to break for lunch,
• organizations that schedule 2x as many volunteers as are needed on a regular basis,
• paid staff fooling around in front of groups of volunteers performing manual tasks (and then asking the volunteers to clean the bathrooms???),
• hostile, disruptive volunteers or coordinators who are allowed to scare away customers and other volunteers.

And I'm not even getting paid?! I worked for a nonprofit which treated volunteer time the same way we treated employee time - like it was valuable.

[kaliope]

im sorry that you have run into such horrible experiences when you are donating your valuable time to do something constructive for the community. I wish you were more appreciated.

[H3rmit]

Sounds like some of these organizations could use your help as a volunteer coordinator - a paid one. They need to get a clue.

[Perna]

I use Volunteer Match for my jobs VolunteerMatch - Where Volunteering Begins and when I find one I am interested in, I don't just apply for it there on that site, I go to the organization's site and get some sort of idea what they do/want/how they operate, etc. I vet my volunteering as hard as I do my regular jobs. Yes, just like with regular jobs there are a lot of clueless, "wasteful" organizations out there that just throw bodies/numbers/money, etc. at things and hope something sticks.

I hear you. In the past, I've been fortunate enough to volunteer for some excellent organizations. Lately I've been very disappointed because I've requested to volunteer with NAMI (submitted a volunteer form), but no one has contacted me and when I talk with someone from NAMI they've very vague. Seems like such a huge organization would have their volunteer segment more in check.

[Little Lulu]

hvert - I do a lot of volunteer work (currently at a soup kitchen and a free clinic for the uninsured) and I have seen all of the things you have outlined. I can see how they can be frustrating but here is where I am with the volunteer thing - I am mostly retired now and I tell myself that I will gladly take the downside of volunteer work before going back to paid full-time work. I was completely ready to let go of my full-time, stressful paid position. That doesn't mean that I don't still want my life to be meaningful.

Perhaps there would be another way to meet new people and create relationships and depth to your life i.e. social groups, hobbies, sports, book club, walking/hiking group, etc. Volunteer work isn't for everyone. My husband has been retired for several years and does no organized volunteer work. It just isn't for him. He does help elderly neighbors out with projects. Same thing, unscheduled.

Figuring life out is a constant process.

(((Hugs)))

[hvert]

Thank you all! I am still trying to find an organization that's a good match - it just gets frustrating! I had a volunteer gig I loved a few years ago, but when they replaced their coordinator with someone who wasn't competent (or friendly), I quit (along with half the other volunteers).

Perna, thank you for the link. The suggestion about vetting these organizations ahead of time is a good one. I do look at websites and financial records on Guidestar (I don't want to volunteer for an organization that pays their CEO $500,000). I also try to scope the place out in person.

I think I need to start volunteering for one off types of projects at an organization before signing up as a volunteer. That would probably weed out some of these more ridiculous scenarios I've encountered recently.

Sister Rags, in my experience, even though you'd think a large organization would have their volunteer process nailed down, they can be just as disorganized as a tiny non-profit. I hope NAMI gets back to you soon -- although from now on, when an organization doesn't get back to me, I'm crossing them off my list. I 'chased' the last organization I was trying to sign up with and the more involved I got, the more I realized that I could not cope with that level of chaos.

H3rmit, I don't think anyone could pay me enough to be a coordinator myself I actually interviewed for a job doing that and decided in the middle of the interview that there was no way I wanted to do it. It just sounded like torture, dealing with both customer and volunteer complaints!

Little Lulu, I think you are right that volunteering is not for everyone, and it may not be for me at the moment. There's something about writing off volunteer work that makes me feel selfish, but maybe it's easier to get over that than to keep banging my head against the wall Like your husband, I do help out elderly neighbors and it's much more fun than waiting for someone to get back to me.

[hvert]

I just wanted to update this thread.

I finally found a volunteer gig that's a great fit. I'm maintaining a garden at a local animal park. I can go in for as long as I like, when I like (every 10 days or so). I really click with the volunteer coordinator and everyone else I've met so far. It's also a place that I spend a lot of time anyway-- and now I can do things like feed the animals and see the babies that the general public doesn't get to meet.

My other attempt at volunteering ended in a really weird way. Last fall I submitted an application to work with an animal rescue group. It took four months for them to give me something to do. I quickly realized that I could not do what they wanted me to (trapping animals and dealing directly with unpleasant people) and volunteered to transport animals instead.

Even that proved to be more than I bargained for. Do you know what it smells like to have seven cats in your car during rush hour traffic when it's raining so hard that having your windows down leaves you drenched? I chose to be drenched.

Anytime I volunteered to do something, the terms would change. If I volunteered to drive two cats at 3 PM, the next thing I knew, it was 5 cats at 5 PM (rush hour). If I volunteered to take a cat to a vet the next town over from me, the next thing I knew, the vet was located in a town 30 miles away. I started replying to calls for volunteers less often.

I guess it's too late for long story short, but something kind of ridiculous happened. After not volunteering for a month because I was out of town for two weeks and all of the things they wanted done were in a town far away from me, I got a message asking if I wanted to be removed from their mailing list for trapping animals. I said yes, that I was unable to trap animals, but that I would still be available for transporting them occasionally, so I'd like to stay on that one. They removed me from all their mailing lists!