Volunteer burnout happens all too frequently. I see it and have been subject to it. I volunteer with several organizations and have left many over the years as I got tired of the way the typical organization treats people.. There are soooo many reasons that it happens, and soooo much wasted time and talent when it happens. It’s time to put a stop to it. So I decided to craft a presentation as a keynote and workshop on how to reduce volunteer burnout.
One of the first and possibly the most impactful things we can do is to stop calling them volunteers. The word ‘volunteer’ is too impersonal. They, we, are people. When we determine we are working with people on behalf of people our focus changes. We then begin to look at resources in a different light.One of the most powerful reasons people burnout is the lack of vision on the part of leadership. I am not talking here about the typical vision that’s written in the form of “We will be known as the greatest non-profit in the region providing excellent service and generating funding to advance our cause blah, blah, blah…” I am talking about a vision that answers the questions “What are we promising people?” AND “What does that look and feel like in a tangible way such that people own the idea that we will be the best of the best?”
I was recently working with a non-profit group to help them sort out a conference for next year. As it turns out, the date for the conference had been postponed several times to the point that it is now set at 1-1/2 years after the original date and people are talking about changing that date yet again. Furthermore, the original volunteer (people) committee had been working on the idea for a year before I got involved. And they were getting tired and frustrated, even non-responsive. We finally pushed through and got some of the basic hard-fact stuff complete. A budget, a venue chosen, committees were being formed to help with marketing and logistics, finance and legal, but there was an element that stopped them dead when this was done. Not only did it stop them dead, but when they realized they couldn’t answer the questions above (promises and look/feel) they also realized that all the work they had put into it may be subject to change.
Now, I want you to know that several of us saw this coming. We knew this moment would happen and had pushed to answer those questions early on. But resistance was great. So we plugged along. I knew the moment would come, and so as their adviser I pushed to get the tangible stuff done quickly so that they would have to face that Aha! moment. That moment came and almost cost us some people. It almost cost us some of the brightest, hardest working, well-connected people we had. It almost cost us these people because it dawned on them that they had put over a years worth of monthly meetings and conference calls and time and energy into this and still didn’t know what what this thing looked like. Burnout wasn’t going to happen. Flameout, on the other hand, was imminent.
But it didn’t because instead of choosing the next item they had on the agenda, the business plan, I chose to work on the feel of the event. The nuts and bolts, to get people to begin to own a real vision of what we were working towards.
If you need help reducing volunteer burnout and not living up to the promises your organization has made to the board and the end-recipients of the program, give me a call. Let’s see if we can help you keep good people around, not just for this term, but for the next. And possibly to the point that people want to volunteer for you.
Bart Gragg
925.757.7473
or contact me here
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Volunteers are vulnerable to burnout, and for all the obvious reasons.
Yes, but the problem is, many ‘managers of volunteers’ don’t see the obvious. Or forget that there ARE more trees in the forest, they just have to look for the right ones. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Bart