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Guest Post by Melissa Boyd

I have been volunteering for over twenty five years. Looking back on all the places I have volunteered, the ones I remember the most are the ones where I was under-utilized.

Once when asked to volunteer at a large one-day event in Boston, I showed up at 5am to the volunteer tent. There were over one hundred volunteers there and not one person organizing to tell us what needed to be done. Over 10,000 people were expected to attend the event and with all the organization of bands, displays, food and vendors the volunteer portion was unplanned. As the hour unfolded, half of the volunteers ended up finding things to do, while the other half left frustrated that their precious time had been wasted. I’m quite sure many of the volunteers never returned again.

My experience illustrates that many people assume that volunteers understand what is expected of them,. There are many levels of volunteerism as we know. There are one year service commitments such as VISTA, AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, and there are one-time events such a conference, and then there are those weekly and monthly volunteers who are always there to help with a mailing and phone calling.

One of the most important areas of volunteer management which can often get overlooked is having a clear direction which includes a volunteer job description and expectations of service. This includes how long the volunteer opportunity will last, what tasks volunteers should complete and what skills they will need to have.

The World Volunteer Web offers a framework to developing a job description and expectations.

Remember that volunteers can serve anywhere and if you would like them to continue to serve with your agency having clear goals and guidelines helps both of you to have an enjoyable experience.

Melissa Boyd is the Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Maine Chapter. She also serves on the Maine Commission for Community Service.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 7:28 pm and is filed under Managing Performance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.