When "Just" a Volunteer is Better than a Paid Employee

Are there some roles that are best done by volunteers?

If I gave your program all the money it needed to hire all of the employees or consultants needed to undertake absolutely every task at hand, would your program still involve volunteers?

I love asking this question during workshops. A lot of the times, the answer from several people is “No.”

What that means is that these organizations involve volunteers primarily to save money: they can't afford to pay staff to do a task so they find volunteers to do it. This mentality can lead to all sorts of problems. One, volunteers feel like mere free labor - which isn't very motivating. You might hear them say, "I'm just a volunteer." Another, funders pressure organizations to replace paid employees with volunteers - which can create very bad relations with paid employees (and the unions that may represent them).

I write a lot on my own website about the many reasons an organization should involve volunteers that have nothing to do with saving money, reasons I believe are much more important than assigning a monetary value to volunteer time, and I won't rehash those here. Instead, I'm going to challenge you with another question:

Are there certain roles at your organization that should be reserved specifically for volunteers?

We hear a lot about why a role has to be filled by a paid employee. Some reasons are valid: someone is needed in the role full time and it would be impossible to find a volunteer that would be able to give that amount of service. Or someone with a very specific skillset and educational background is required for the role and paying someone greatly increases the chances of finding the right person for that role.

Some reasons are NOT valid, like the idea that having a paid employee in a role is necessary because the role requires confidentiality, as though a paycheck makes someone adhere to policies.

Why would an organization reserve certain positions for volunteers? Here are some scenarios:

• A domestic violence shelter may reserve certain counseling roles for volunteers because people who have experienced violence may prefer talking to someone who has volunteered to be there with the client, rather than a paid social worker.
• A city or county government council may create an advisory council made up of volunteers so members of the community can offer feedback regarding specific aspects of government action (bicycle safety, police procedures, parks management, etc.), because these advisors have no financial interest in the subject matter (it's not a part of their paid work).
• A fire station or association of first responders may reserve a certain number of first responder roles for volunteers because it's the best way to get local people involved, especially if most of their career staff live in a city different from the station where they are working, and benefit from the knowledge that only local residents would have (such as knowing without dispatch saying so that a 911 call is coming from a home from someone who is homebound or has a mental illness).
• A library may partner with a nonprofit to reserve certain roles, such as IT support for patrons using library computers, for clients from that nonprofit to undertake so that those clients can learn job and leadership skills and so that the library can show it leverages the strengths of the local community in different ways. These clients may also represent the community/demographics of the patrons better than most paid staff.
• An international humanitarian agency may encourage paid employees to create online micro-volunteering activities in support of their work, even though it would be more efficient for employees to just do the tasks themselves, because the volunteers may offer more frank, immediate feedback than, say, a paid program evaluator.
• A for-profit hospice or for-profit home for adults with intellectual disabilities may reserve certain roles for volunteers because clients and their families may feel more comforted at the idea of this support coming from people not being paid to provide support.
• A nonprofit that provides meals to home-bound people may reserve the door-delivery for volunteers, even if they have a budget for paid staff because the clients prefer interacting with a volunteer.
• An advocacy group may reserve neighborhood canvassing roles for volunteers because people are more likely to talk with someone at the door who says they are a volunteer who cares about an issue rather than a paid canvasser.

Note: none of these are theoretical scenarios: all of these cases actually exist, a few right here in the city where I live in Oregon.

A few years ago, I went through the Washington County, Oregon Sheriff’s citizens academy, an intense 12-week course to learn how the sheriff's office approaches law enforcement. One evening, the Sheriff’s Office search and rescue team was discussed in detail. I was surprised and delighted to learn that all of the positions on the sheriff’s primary search and rescue team are reserved for teen volunteers. You read that right: THESE POSITIONS ARE RESERVED FOR TEEN VOLUNTEERS. Not paid adults, not reserve deputies – TEEN VOLUNTEERS. This team is the PRIMARY search and rescue team for this area – not an auxiliary. The search and rescue team looks for (and finds!) lost people, downed aircraft, evidence in major crimes scattered across outside areas, and more. The members are highly trained and particularly-trained. They must be 14 to 19 years old, meet all of the minimum requirements, complete the intensive training academy, and make a minimum 2-year commitment. They “age out” of the program in December following their 21st birthday.

Why is such an important, essential, life-saving, high-responsibility investigative program reserved for teen volunteers? I asked the organizer during the presentation. His reply, according to my notes, “Because they will do absolutely anything. They will get down on their hands and knees, side by side, and slowly crawl across a football field in cold weather, literally with their noses to the ground, looking for a bullet casing linked to a crime. They will thoroughly search an area with young, sharp eyes. They will come when called, even when it’s 3 a.m., and get right to work, and they will follow directions exactly – and in this work, they MUST follow their directions and training exactly. Because we can absolutely rely on them.”

Yes, of course, there are older people that could be just as committed… I hear those “we shouldn’t make sweeping generalizations about different age groups!” thoughts out there, I do. And I’m sure there are other reasons that these teens make such great volunteers – because they don’t have family commitments, they don’t have job commitments, they have the flexibility and support to do these intensive activities, they aren’t plagued by the physical constraints that many of us older folks are (I can barely get up off the ground anymore, let alone crawl across such), and on and on.

But consider how refreshing it is to hear someone talk this way about teenagers. In all of my time working in volunteer management research and consulting – two decades – I have never heard anyone say that teenagers were the best people for a particular volunteering role. I’ve just heard over and over why teens cannot do this or that, or shouldn’t do this or that, why older volunteers don’t want to work with them, how they don’t take their commitment seriously, and on and on and on.

If you want to explore the idea of some roles at your organization being best filled by volunteers, the place to start is creating a written statement that explains explicitly why that organization involves volunteers. Such a statement will guide employees in how they think about volunteers and guide current volunteers in thinking about their role at the organization. It will help your organization avoid the reputation for involving volunteers as just a low-cost staffing solution – something no volunteer really wants to be. 

Please join the conversation and share your comments below.

What role in your organization might be uniquely filled by a volunteer?

Have you ever filled a role with a volunteer primarily because a volunteer would be a better fit than paid staff? Do share!