VOLUNTEERING FOR AMERICADr. Charles A. Garfield

In his State of the Union Address, George W. Bush exhorts you—if you are an American citizen—"to commit at least two years, four thousand hours over the rest of your lifetime, to the service of your neighbors and your nation."

Why?


He goes on to explain: "Through the gathering momentum of millions of acts of service and decency and kindness, I know we can overcome evil with the greater good."

So there you sit, one of the millions of members of America's untapped volunteer workforce on the verge of mobilization. You are a true believer, ready to donate your time to be of service to one of thousands of worthwhile causes. If you are highly skilled—say, a doctor or a nurse—the government already knows how you can help. If you don't have talents that are needed immediately, the new USA Freedom Corps will find something valuable, if perhaps mundane, for you to do. The key is that you are willing, ready, and able to serve—and your country needs you. On the surface it sounds like a recipe for success.

But I ask you, as I have asked thousands of potential volunteers in the past: what will you need to be a successful volunteer?

Let's go back twenty-eight years to 1974. I was a recent Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology working at the University of California Cancer Research Institute in San Francisco. I was asked to help meet the psychological and social needs of forty patients facing life-threatening illness. Today we understand, as a matter of course, the clinical importance of emotional support in the care of the seriously ill and dying, but back then these needs were only beginning to be recognized. In addition, many hospitals and clinics were dismally understaffed and poorly funded for such services. I was overwhelmed by this new responsibility. By myself, I couldn't possibly provide the listening, counseling, and support these people so desperately wanted and deserved. I needed help. It seemed to me that volunteers could provide much of the support to our patients, but I realized that these new roles could not be filled by well-intentioned retired persons or candy-stripers. The arduous demands of these positions required that they be filled by volunteers who were well-trained in interpersonal and listening skills. And if this work were to be truly valuable, it would have to continue after the patient returned home and be provided, if desired, until his or her death. How could I get volunteers to do so much? The solution was the San Francisco-based nonprofit organization called Shanti.

Over the years, Shanti has trained thousands of volunteers to care for people with cancer, then AIDS, and recently has expanded its services to women with breast cancer. In the midst of so much tragedy we have seen the remarkable resilience of those who have volunteered to do such difficult and grief-filled work. And specifically because the work our volunteers do is so demanding, we have had to learn a great deal about THEIR needs in order to get them to continue to want to do work of the highest quality over long periods of time.

Unfortunately, what we've also learned is that most government and non-profit volunteer organizations still operate in traditional ways: volunteers, if trained at all, are usually taught a specific task and then expected to repeat that activity without the benefit of a significant supportive relationship with the organization. Because volunteers are not paid and therefore not financially dependent on the organization, there continues to be the erroneous assumption that an investment of time and resources in them is not sound business practice.

For example, in his speech, President Bush cited the need for mentors to work with children whose mothers are incarcerated. You, the potential volunteer mentor, might have the requisite desire to help these children, but if 1) you are not trained in the specific listening and communication skills appropriate for this population and 2) you are not given ongoing support from in-house volunteer mentors as well as the organization's management, you are likely to have an experience fraught with anxiety and aggravation. If you don't feel valued as much as the organization's employees, you are not likely to have the rewarding experience you deserve. The quality of your work will suffer and you will likely quit, dispirited and disillusioned.

When President Bush calls for increased military spending in the fight against terrorism, his budgets include large expenditures for education, training, and support. Likewise with airport security. In fact, most successful programs view training more as an investment than a cost. The same must be true for volunteer programs, where traditionally the concentration of resources is allocated to recruitment, leaving out the key issues of retention, support, and supervision.

I applaud President Bush's call to Americans to become volunteers. Yet when we consider the magnitude of the challenges that confront us, it is clear that our nation needs a well-trained volunteer workforce. I have seen firsthand the remarkable work volunteers are capable of doing. I have seen the impact these men and women have had on the lives of thousands of people in need. So I caution against following the old paradigm of volunteer recruitment and management and I urge those responsible to take a new look at the inestimable value of this extraordinary resource.

© Charles Garfield Group 2000, 2001