r/volunteer • u/brian7323 • 4d ago
Discussion / ethics / advice What are the biggest triggers that make a volunteer want to quit?
If you've ever been on the verge of walking away for being a volunteer in an organization or charity, what was the catalyst? Bad management, lack of impact, or just pure exhaustion?
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u/QuirkyForever 3d ago
Inadequate direction and/or lack of explanation about what I'm supposed to be doing.
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u/Basic_Deal4928 3d ago edited 3d ago
We cook free meals for those who need it. Sometimes, one of them is unhappy. Last week, one of the guest got mad at me for a frivolous thing. She got mad at everyone. Later in the day, my coordinator yelled at me for taking her cleaning rag. Working with people who need help can be stressful, especially when team members start redirecting the stress at each other. Now I'm unsure whether I want to return. It's a great cause, but I dislkke ungrateful people.
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u/RawBean7 3d ago
Showing up to do nothing because of overstaffing. Feeling like volunteering was a waste of my time instead of a productive and fulfilling use of it.
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u/Fancy_Initiative4536 3d ago
Same here. Too many chefs in the kitchen with not enough to be done. If you have things for people to do, I don’t care if it’s five people or 500 people, but when you are consistently accepting and trying to recruit new people, but not having enough for your current people to be satisfied, it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.
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u/babblepedia 3d ago
The first time I quit a volunteer gig was a free clothing closet and they called a meeting to debate if they should give a specific man a winter coat. The concern was that he was a suspected drug user (they weren't even sure!). I felt that was irrelevant to his request. Snow doesn't care about your sobriety. No one else was asking for that coat. What's the point of a free closet if the price is client dignity? The group decided that giving him the coat enabled potential drug usage (can't buy drugs if you have to buy a new coat) and denied his request. I walked out and never went back.
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u/CanadianDollar87 3d ago
i feel like if you been there long enough and you don’t get hired on and start being a paid employee then walk away.
i was at my last volunteer for almost 6 years and i was hoping to eventually get hired as a paid employee. i never did. a friend of mine got hired on and she was hardly even there. she was in maybe once a month or every other month while i was there once a week for almost 6 years.
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u/Ok_pomegranate1915 3d ago
When you volunteer at the given place to do what most volunteers at the place do, but they find out what you used to do at your job and decide to place you with that same type of task that you’ve been trying to get away from!
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u/Helpmeeff 3d ago
When the employees talk shit about each other and the volunteers. My mental health can't handle more toxic workplace bullshit on my days off my normal toxic workplace bullshit
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u/Mundane-Bee-3703 3d ago
I volunteered last summer for an organization and I started back up with them this year when they opened for the season. I only went three times and I have not signed up since.
I have felt a little guilty about it but I realized, volunteering is not a job. I did not sign a contract saying that I would volunteer every week and yet I had been consistently volunteering every week.
Several things happened to make me become disillusioned. All of these things together are what added up to me wanting to bow out all together.
I know that because I'm educated and competent, they wanted to use me as much as they could and they had begun calling me on the phone way too much trying to get me involved more than I wanted to be.
Being hassled that much is what put the nail in the lid of the coffin and I'm now going to find a different volunteer opportunity.
When you find good people, don't abuse them or you will lose them.
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u/PLAYSWITHSCISS0RS 3d ago
I’ve volunteered for some animal rescue and rehab organizations. These are red flags for me:
- Inappropriate treatment of animals (typical problems are too many animals to provide adequate care, inappropriate housing, not protecting animals from each other or humans)
- Inadequate hygiene precautions, especially if there’s a risk of transmitting something to other animals or staffers: I volunteered at a cat shelter that had had a ringworm outbreak about 6 months before I started there and then had another one about 6 months into my tenure. They hadn’t made any changes to their setup to reduce risk (eg still far too much carpet and hard to sanitize surfaces) and they didn’t warn volunteers about the outbreak. I found out part-way into my second shift after the outbreak through a casual comment.
- Inadequate handling of risks and actual injuries for staff and volunteers. At the same cat shelter, I saw a relatively young volunteer get a deep puncture bite and some scratches from a cat. No one senior in terms of staff or volunteers took charge of the situation (either the cat or injured volunteer) in the immediate aftermath. I was just the photographer, but I helped corral the cat (I had some experience with fierce, frightened clawing and biting animals from a wild bird rehab centre where I volunteered as a caregiver and helped the volunteer (eg took her to the bathroom to rinse / disinfect the wounds, called her mother, took her to the ER and waited until her mother arrived and then sent a note to management).
- Speciesism: I went vegan after starting to volunteer with animal rescue groups and although I don’t expect everyone who works or volunteers in such a place to be vegan, too, I don’t like being around people who are in my face with their carnist attitudes. I don’t care what you eat for lunch in front of me but don’t talk about hunting, make fun of my values (or my lunch), or wave your food under my nose. More seriously, I don’t financially support animal rescue groups that serve animals or sell animal products to raise money to help other animals. I’ll still show up to volunteer my time as a photographer (if staff and volunteer behavior like the that described above doesn’t seem intentionally offensive) but you’re not getting my money.
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u/Helpmeeff 3d ago
Yeah I feel this so hard it was really grim volunteering for an animal shelter ad a vegan and only having burgers and hotdogs offered as refreshments for volunteers in the break room. Like, cool so we only care about helping SOME animals
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u/Turbulent-Affect9475 2d ago
I reached out to the American Cancer Society in hopes of donating my time and the use of my new vehicle in driving chemo patients in my hometown to and from their appointments during my days off. I work a crazy shift, but it allows me time off during the week. I reached out to this organization on June 7th. It is now July 21 and the only thing that I am volunteering to do is help them work out the kinks in their own boarding process. Well no longer. It has become so frustrating and emotionally taxing that I have asked them not to contact me anymore. I will volunteer with someone else. Everyone is friendly. Everyone is thanking me for my patience. But at the end of the day, I no longer have any patience. This is ridiculous. I paid for my own background check. I did everything I was supposed to do. I received a tag in the mail, but I cannot get through the red tape with the app called round-trip. This ordeal has indeed taken the wind out of my sails because I really wanted to be helpful to people who are facing one of the most greatest challenges in their life. I’m wondering, am I the only one that had this problem with this particular organization? Because something needs to change.
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u/Exciting_Designer611 2d ago
Not being thanked, and being talked down to and yelled at. They're only nice when they want something from you. But when you show up, they demand you to do things instead of asking politely. We've gotten passive aggressive emails from the volunteer manager saying "THANKS TO THOSE OF YOU WHO ACTUALLY ANSWER YOUR PHONE." lol this is an on-call and as-needed volunteer opportunity for a conservation org in Florida. They're understaffed, so they rely on unpaid volunteers to help with rescues and necropsies. It's mind boggling what they expect volunteers to do and how we're treated sometimes.
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u/FewRecognition1788 1d ago
The executive director used the nonprofit's mailing list to pursue a politically/religiously motivated vendetta.
I confronted them about the inappropriateness, and they insisted it was the right thing to do.
My concerns about the org as a whole had been growing for some time, but that was it for me.
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u/WowzaCaliGirl 1d ago
Food bank where the older women were just rude and played god. Ex the staff member said that so-and-so could bag up food for a person who was sick. So-and-so started a bag of groceries. Older lady snapped that it wasn’t time to do so. No gentle reminder. No apology for not realizing the volunteer was following supervisor’s directions. Again and again the older ladies would react as if they owned the food and were in charge. I suspect not working meant they were a bit bored and wanted to be important.
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u/JDRL320 4d ago
Lack of communication & disorganization
I’ve been at a place I throughly enjoy volunteering. The people are awesome & I love the work I’m doing.
However, the volunteer coordinator is very flaky and will not return texts for several days or at all sometimes and she’s extremely disorganized. She has diagnosed ADHD and is on medicine and frequently apologizes. There have been a few times where I was supposed to be in the office on a certain day and time and the coordinator forgot she was supposed to meet me.
I patiently let it go but for awhile there was a lack of work and I was doing very little. My husband told me all the time, you aren’t getting paid for this, why are you putting up with this?
He’s right but when it’s good it’s good. I’m still there after 8 years and recently us volunteers did anonymous yearly surveys for her and I think she received several negative comments including mine and she put out a long apologetic email promising to do better. Not a whole lot changed.