Personal Volunteer Histories

Here's an easy and revealing group exercise that you can use as an icebreaker in new volunteer orientation, in training paid staff about volunteering, or with any audience which you would like to educate about how integral volunteering is both to community life and to each of our personal histories.

Create a worksheet with several columns. Head the left column "Stage of Life."Below, enter the following age periods, creating a row across for each:

Before age 5 (might have been with your family)
As an elementary/primary school student (might have been with your class)
As a high school student
As a university student
In your 20s
In your 30s and 40s
In your 50s and 60s
Age 70 and above
 

Make the second column the widest and head it "What You Did." Then make columns for "What Did You Call It?" and "Why Did You Do It?"

Give these instructions at the top of the sheet and also explain orally:

We have all done some form of service to others and our communities, but often have not labeled these activities as "volunteering." Think back to different times in your life and identify some ways you "volunteered," "helped in the community," "served others," or did anything to assist a cause for which you were not paid a wage.

Give time for people to complete the worksheet. They may need to jog their memories!

There are lots of ways you can then share or use their responses. Here is a starter set of discussion questions. Adapt these to who's participating and to your goals in doing the exercise:

  1. Can you see how, regardless of the vocabulary you used to describe these things, they share the common attributes of "volunteering"?
  2. Were you surprised at the amount and range of the things you've done in your life (whether a lot or a little) that could be called "volunteering"?
  3. Which of your personal volunteer experiences were the most memorable, valuable or rewarding for you? Why?
  4. Which did you dislike or feel wasted your time? Why?
  5. Which activities do you feel made the greatest contribution to the person, organization or cause you were trying to help? (Did any make things worse?)
  6. How might your answers to the previous questions give you an understanding of how to treat volunteers in our organization today?