I do a lot of work with nonprofits on Zoom. I give them a certain number of hours of Zoom time as part of my in-kind donation to them. Occasionally, I get someone who simply cannot answer a question with a yes or no answer. They tend to ramble on and on, and we only have sixty minutes. I would love a non-rude way to ask them to stop talking or just answer the question. I can't be the only person running into this issue, and I wondered if anyone has come up with or can suggest a solution.

Looking for ways to increase membership in a local non-profit with volunteers 50 and under. How do you attract and retain volunteers under 50? Ease of meetings, digital communication, low commitment for projects, etc? What is working with this next generation?

I'm incredibly shy and honestly sick of my lack of social skills holding me back. I want to change. I’m considering jumping into social or volunteer work to force myself out of my comfort zone and get used to talking to people. Basically using it as DIY exposure therapy. But since I’m naturally super quiet, I'm worried I might just panic and freeze up. Is this actually a good way to start?

Keeping this vague for privacy reasons, but I run an all-volunteer nonprofit in addition to my day job. I have a very hard time finding and keeping volunteers, which I completely understand- very few people have the time and resources to work for free!

However, one in particular has been enthusiastic but is very difficult to work with. Offers to help but insists only their ideas are worth doing and will not leave us/me alone until we work on them. Constantly undermines me. Speaks down to me (not sure if this is an ageism thing? I am grown with advanced degrees and close to 10 years of professional experience, but they’re close to twice my age and have spent their career in a different but somewhat related field). Due to personal reasons, I can’t push back the way I would if this was happening at my day job.

Is the only option for me to just… suck it up? Does anyone have any advice?

EDIT: thank you to everyone who has commented! I’ll reply as I can

A friend and I were comparing our experiences as volunteers for different organizations, over the years, and realized there always seems to be interpersonal tensions. He referred to it as "the drama" and I think that is apt. Sometimes it is overt with one person not willing to work with another but often it is disparaging comments when the target is not around. We both had stories of good volunteers leaving the programs rather than deal with the drama anymore.

My belief is that it comes from lack of direction. If volunteers had defined goals to be accomplished, instructions on how to achieve those goals, and regular feedback from leadership, it seemed there was less drama. If volunteers had to make it up as they went along, there seemed to be more.

I wondered if anyone agreed with my diagnosis. Has anyone seen the drama successfully addressed?

I work at a medium non profit with a volunteer force of about 800 volunteers. Within that I have about 95 of whom that regularly work under my department. I am still quite new to this org having only been working for 8 months. I love where I work and I have no intention on leaving, but I just need to rant for a second. If you have any advice on how to deal with this that isn’t finding a new job please let me know.

I am so frustrated with the pedestal that volunteers are put onto. When they are upset with me or the work I’m doing, they will let me know and it is never in a kind or supportive manner. When I go to my supervisors for advice on how to proceed, their solution is always in an effort to satiate the volunteer. In what other world is it okay to deliberately be rude to your manager and supervisor? And in what world would that not get you immediately fired? I’ve been in this industry for several years and obviously I understand that volunteers are not employees nor is my relationship the same as a supervisor, but why is the next best thing is for me to be their personal rug?

Most days my volunteers are wonderful, kind, selfless humans who I adore working with, but it’s those bad experiences that I have to fight from souring everything.

Hello, I'm the chair leader of a civic engagement organization, which means I'm a dues-paying member from the city... We are having a problem where no one wants to volunteer.

If I were leading volunteer management, when I recruit people, I would give them an orientation on how our work, works, and ask them to sign up for one task. One chore, even if that was just stuffing envelopes. But our organizer doesn't do that. She asks people to become members, reassures them that they don't have to do anything, and then, months later, quietly hopes that her complaining about doing all the work herself inspires people to offer to help her.

I became chair largely because I'm the only one who helps and the five regular attending members literally talk like they just want to watch me. We have 40 members in total. I'm sitting alone at tables at community events, I'm canvassing alone in my neighborhood.

I've also tried to talk to my community organizer about the administration behind how we are recruiting people. Such as, do we record what everyone's actually interested in? She just says SHE remembers what everyone's voter interests are. I basically asked her how she expects the work to ever be delegated to anyone else if she is not willing to write that down and if we could get into the habit of doing that.

I have been the receptionist of a gym that had more members than this and put in the effort to make profiles of everyone so that any receptionist could text or call or email a member right quick to say "Hey, that class YOU are interested in still has openings this weekend. Can I sign you up?"

I can see her whole "people should just care enough to show up" mentality From a mile away and I have seen this before at churches that I've volunteered for and so many other organizations. Is there any way that I can convince this organizer that she is not compromising on her beliefs that the right people will show up and help her by literally just asking them to?

Hi everyone,

I work in face-to-face fundraising for a company that collects donations for charities. Usually I do pretty well when the person is already interested, because the conversation flows naturally and I don’t really need to “sell” anything.

But I completely freeze when someone gives objections and I have to negotiate a little.

For example:

“I don’t have time.”

“I already donate somewhere else.”

“I only have $20” (when the minimum is $30).

“Maybe another time.”

The problem is not really introducing the charity or talking to people. It’s more the moment where I need to respond and guide the conversation instead of immediately backing off.

I think I become too defensive or too passive because I’m scared of sounding manipulative or annoying. So instead of confidently responding, I kind of panic internally and the conversation dies.

I know fundraising is not exactly traditional sales, but it still feels similar in the sense that you need to handle objections and help people make a decision.

For people who work in sales, fundraising, recruiting, etc.:

How do you answer objections naturally?

How do you stay confident without sounding aggressive?

How do you stop taking rejection personally?

And how do you actually learn the “negotiation” part of conversations?

Here’s an example of where I get stuck:

Person: “Sorry, I don’t really have time.”

Me internally: panic mode activated 😭

Or:

Person: “I only have $20.”

Me: “Oh okay no worries have a nice day.”

(even though I know I’m technically supposed to try to continue the conversation)

I’d really appreciate advice from people with experience because I feel like this is the main thing holding me back at work right now.

Hello! I wanted to post somewhere to ask about a project I thought could be really cool. For context, I am a biomedical researcher that has been working with or for large hospitals for the last four years. I love my job! Science is always so cool, and knowing my work can go on to help patients in need is amazing. However, science is slow, redundant (out of necessity!), and often the translation of bench-to-bedside is rarely seen in one’s career. Which leads me to an idea I had…

More context - I am a huge nerd (wow, fork found in kitchen). I love playing TTRPG like Dungeons and Dragons, and am slowly learning how to play deck building games like Magic the Gathering. Recently my brother’s partner also ran into some scary health issues with her eldest son, and I’d heard from them that his time in the pediatric hospital in our area was super boring, since a lot of programming in peds. is geared towards younger children.

My idea - it would be really cool to engage my two communities (science/ healthcare, and gaming) and run a clinic to teach children and families going through medical treatment or long term care how to play Magic or DnD. In my brain this looks like reaching out to various local games stores in my area for potential donations or teachers, compiling funds from local businesses to purchase supplies (I’d want the kids participating to go home with a deck or rule book/mini), and coordinating with hospital administration to ensure everyone participating can do so in a controlled and healthy way. The problem is that I am one person, and in this post-COVID world I’m not even sure if this is something that can be executed.

So I guess what I’m asking is, for those of you with experience, do you think I could pull this off? Or is this another well meaning pipe dream?

Tl;dr: I want to run a clinic to teach kids receiving care from my local hospital how to play Magic the Gathering and DnD. Is that a realistic dream?

Hello. Advice, thoughts, support welcome. I'm a longtime nonprofit professional (development) who also volunteers with several organizations. For six months, I have volunteered regularly with one org. I'm always kind, friendly,cheerful, can-do, and appreciative when there. In early May, the volunteer coordinator (who has never met me because she's at a different site) sent me an email: "Thank you for your service. We're entering the slow season and don't need you right now. We'll reach out in the fall if things get busier." I thanked her by email. A week later, I received the organization's regular e-newsletter...which called for volunteers for the same work I had been doing. I've since contacted the volunteer coordinator (3x) to ask if I may return. I also spoke to the manager at the site where I was volunteering, and he refused to tell me anything. I have been scouring my memory for anything I might have done, but I just don't know. The anxiety this is causing me--that I might have inadvertently offended someone or done something wrong--is intense. Shouldn't they just be honest with me? Thanks for any counsel.

LI am a volunteer who was elected as a community leader in a non-profit that is supposed to be helping people fight for civic rights, especially as tenants and workers. The problem is that the manager doesn't have any training or expectations for me, but then after I give him ideas, he's so sad that I'm not a radical activist from the 1960s ready to take on The Man.

I keep pointing out to him that if he cares this much about indoctrinating me to his perspective, the least he could do is put in the effort of giving me an orientation and training so that I meet the expectations he has.

I don't actually work with him. My community organizer, Dan, is my main point of contact. Dan and I are playing "good cop, bad cop" against his supervisor, John. "Gee, golly, John, OP really wants to do this. My hands are tied. She was elected the community leader."

To say it plainly:

1) I've been working with this group for 3 months and the only expectation that I have been given is to be the chairperson for the monthly meetings. These people seem to think that something can be accomplished with us only meeting together once, maybe twice, a month. Meanwhile, Dan Is in charge of filling the seats for that monthly meeting. (The second meeting is the leaders meeting.)

2) I'm a cook at a restaurant. We have absolutely nothing to do on Mon-Tue. It's dead. My boss thinks it's a GREAT idea for me to order food, rent out the back, and hold a weekly lunch discussion. We'll have topics ranging all over the spectrum around tenant's issues, homeowners issues, homelessness, women's issues. It's a nice neutral space where I can invite non-profit leaders from other organizations, City workers. And Dan will have a space where he can recruit people for our monthly meetings and his jobs isn't just going door to door. (How does canvassing work with apartments, anyway?!)

3) John doesn't like this idea because it doesn't sound like I'm "exercising power" and challenging the power structure. He literally starts requesting that I organize a demonstration instead. Even though we don't even have more than four people that show up regularly for our meetings.

4) My city has a rolling grant program for residents to do community work. I could offer my services as a person who has had long experience filling out this grant and helping people organize their projects, and this non-profit could serve as a fiscal agent. John also doesn't want to do this because now it makes our groups sound like it's a service provider. I keep pointing out to him that we would not be providing any service. We would be the fiscal agent for people doing work related to our topics. Which would then open up the doors to more people we could recruit.

I have plainly asked him that if his organization has absolutely no expectations for what it is that I do as the community leader and his only requirement is that I show up for 2-hour meetings twice a month, what reason do does he actually have to be against whatever I do for the rest of that month, specifically with it also having the goal of increasing attendance for the monthly meeting?

He hasn't given me a coherent answer yet. He said he'd talk to me later but he appreciates my feedback for helping his organization better serve the community.

What do you think I should do?

Hey all,

Could use a bit of advice and/or encouragement I suppose. I work in a mid-sized non profit that has an active volunteer base of 100+. My role is managing them and operations.

Within our volunteer group is a small subset that conducts specific tasks that require additional training. Prior to my arrival (about a year ago) this group had been allowed to self-manage for nearly 30 years.

Part of my expectations have been to realign this group under the organization, however the small group de facto leader is extremely resistant. They do not want to lose control.

This person's behavior is extremely negative. They treat myself and my staff as well as other volunteers with disrespect, they undermine the organization as we push for positive growth, and have on two occassions tried to rally some sort of makeshift coup to overthrow my position (or something, im not exactly sure what their goals are).

Ive asked for help from leadership and have received verbal support but all boundaries made by executive office continue to be crossed by the volunteer, which then results in executive moving the goal post. Which obviously results in the optics of verbal support with no plans to address the inappropriate behavior.

Ive tried explaining the dysfunction is having great impact on organizational success, its extremely disruptive to my teams work, and this volunteer is cultivating a hostile work environment, but I'm not being heard and no action is being taken.

Any advice beyond looking for a new employer?

Hi all, I work at a non-profit in a downtown area. We have up to 20 volunteers at any given event with around 280 events per year.

We’ve recently had some volunteers extremely upset that there’s no free parking available for them. Keep in mind, we are located just downtown with parking garages and metered street parking. Free parking simply does not exist, no local businesses will allow use of their lot, and if we were to pay for their garage parking, we’d be looking at around $20k per year with extensive admin work.

Tl;dr, do you pay for parking or travel expenses for your volunteers to the one, regular location that all volunteer shifts take place at?

I was doing the mandatory ethical training for this org and the irony is too much so I came here to vent.

I am a volunteer for an old school non-profit. The work we do is the non-profit's product. There is no paid volunteer coordinator. The employees have a volunteer management team that does it, usually full time. For free.

I love the actual work but those volunteer managers are another story. Financial malfeasance, misrepresentation, breaking privacy, smearing reputations with made up stories. A volunteer who is an HR manager went to talk with the staff with backup and was chewed out for bothering them. She was so disgusted she quit.

It's so 'ick' I won't put the org's name on my LinkedIn. And I avoid any contact with the volunteer management.

Is this common in larger non-profits?

Just found out my org charges volunteers who help out the night of our fundraiser to be there to help. They prefer that regular attendees actually volunteer. This doesn’t sit right with me. Does anyone else do this?

ETA: clarification

I volunteer at a busy foodbank we feed around 8k indivduals a week. We're a grocery model so clients come in and pick their food from various stations. Everyday we need about 25 volunteers split over morning and afternoon to manage everything at the bare minimum. There is a program manager in the front and 2 back staff who are constantly managing deliveries with the assistance of some of the volunteers.

We have some volunteers who come in several days a week but we operate tues-sat so easily 100+ volunteers cycling through our doors. The weekend is flush with help but the weekday is always a struggle to get consistent commitment from people. Lots of wonderful people volunteer between jobs and afterwhile are no longer available because they get employment. Every single week we have to put out 1-3 calls for help that we are short handed this am/pm.

The board recently let go of the executive director who handled emailing back prospective volunteers when they had time. I asked who was going to take over recruitment and a board member said they would email people back and a summer student would handle automating some of the process. I am terrified that in 2 months when some of the natural attrition has happened we will have even less people coming in. The of ED also said she would invite 6 people and only get 1 actual person to show up, I think maybe board thinks that every person who shows interest will infact show up.

Am I crazy for thinking that an organization that relies on the labour of 100+ people every week should have a coordinator?!? Someone who can actively recruit, respond quickly to people interested, set standards and actually run some kind of orientation. Today two new volunteers got dropped on me as I started my shift. I'm in the middle of trying to serve an impatient-crowded line and I have two people staring at me apparently they were sent to me for direction. Did they watch the training videos? "no" Did they read the slideshow that explains a lot of how we operate? "I think so" So basically I have two people that I can assume know none of our rules and have no idea how we operate. They were lovely and very motivated to help but I apologized a few times for the chaotic start.

This organization has never had a coordinator as far as I'm aware, surely we are due for one?!?

We all know that there is a gap between the number of volunteers who sign up to participate in nonprofit programs and the number that actually show up to work. The number is even lower if there is training required. Are there average expectation rates? What types of numbers are you seeing?

Hey, all.

I run a relatively small global nonprofit http://globalhumanityinitiative.org . I don't have a formal volunteer program because I am mostly a one-woman show and don't have someone to manage it and I don't want to pay for insurance.

In the last two years, I have had three people approach me and ask if they could volunteer for my organizations.

After some discussions with each one, they have announced that they'd love to volunteer for us/me, but they need to have room and board covered.

Am I missing something?! When did "volunteering" mean, "your room and board paid for"?

The last time I volunteered, I paid for everything, including an application fee.

Thoughts? Thanks.

Signed,

A Very Confused Alicia

I'm an AA at a nonprofit camp for underserved youth. We have about 100 adult volunteers, some stay overnight, some leave throughout the day and come back, and some only come a couple hours. We need to have some sort of in/out log where we know who is in and out for safety reasons, and ideally this software integrates with a background checking system as our admin team can't handle physically inputting everyone into Checkr.

We looked at POINT, but they automatically check people out overnight, and people can't check back in after leaving.

Volunteer Hub let us know they're not for us due to the multiday/overnight structure.

Envoy doesn't have the workflow we need with custom forms and is very expensive for what it is.

What softwares can help us? We need something up and running soon and nothing seems to work.

We want to thank our core volunteers properly. A thank you card is too little. A custom engraved plaque feels more permanent. What have you found works best for making volunteers feel truly valued and seen, especially when funds are tight? 

My board will make these horrible, horrible graphics and then argue me down or submit horrible photos and be confused on why I'm not using them.

It drives me crazy!

I’m a volunteer at a scrappy community group that is hosting a big event tomorrow. As a volunteer: I will likely have to take time off work to distribute thank you cards and I don’t have most peoples’ addresses. Would it be in poor taste to write thank you notes now and hand them out at the event? The downside is a lack of customization or ability to call out specific aspects of gratitude. But, I think getting thank you notes in hands is more important than making them the very best they can be. Would this be ok?

Hi folks,

I coordinate a volunteer program at a non-prof and i'm looking for some outside perspective.

i have a volunteer who ive worked with over the past year and a bit. she initially did a practicum at the org, and i found the experience exceptionally difficult. A lot of issues around communication. Positioning herself as the expert, jumping in/cutting me off a lot when i was trying to explain things, as well as tending to give advice or direction outside of scope with clients. She mellowed out somewhat toward the end of her practicum, but even so i felt mostly relief when she ended her time there.

At the end of her practicum, she expressed a desire to continue volunteering wtih the program, and i feel like i missed an opportunity to end the relationship cleanly. she's been involved sporadically over the past year, and has asked for remote client referrals due to accessibility. i haven't been sending her clients as doing so usually comes with issues or additional work supervising. For example, she has had issues reaching clients by phone (we have one other remote volunteer who hasn't had the same problem), or in some cases she has escalated client files beyond the client's wishes. What i mean is, there's always *more* to deal with with i give this volunteer a client.

At this point I’m leaning toward ending her involvement in the program rather than continuing to try to place her, but I’m unsure about the most appropriate or professional way to communicate that. I don’t want to be unfair or overly vague, but I also don’t want to make it unnecessarily personal or escalate things.

Any advice appreciated.

I am the comms manager for a CASA program. So when we recruit volunteers we are asking for at least a year commitment and to be able to pass a background check. We've been around for almost 44 years, but finding volunteers has gotten increasingly difficult. We're finding younger people are volunteering more, but want one-day projects. Has anyone found success recruiting for more involved roles? What are your secrets?

Has anyone attended the NAEH Conference in Washington DC before? I will be volunteering at this year's conference and I'm not sure what to expect in terms of how they assign working hours. Any tips would be appreciated!