Talked with some friends last week about donating bone marrow - one recently lost an uncle to some sort of marrow cancer. Friday morning I filled out a little online form (just contact info, nothing else) with the registry, expressing willingness to donate blood and other body parts, and be put in their database. I also, as suggested, called the clinic in Lansing and left a voice mail message.
It’s six days later and I haven’t received a response. It’s not like it’s free, either - you gotta pay almost $100 to donate a blood sample. So, I’m thinking, how desperate are they for donors, really?
That’s not all.
Last month I was at the DMV to register vehicles. Picked up a brochure from AARP, which contained a plea for local volunteer driver-trainers for older folks. That looked like something I’d enjoy. You were supposed to do an online application, which I did. I did get an autoresponse saying “thank you, you will be contacted within ten days.” Nada. And, my driving record is perfect, BTW, that’s not a consideration.
Three months ago, I read an article in the paper about a program being set up in an adjacent county, to implement (a much needed & incredibly valuable service) a sexual assault advocacy volunteer organization. I have experience here - I was a n emergency room rape crisis volunteer for SEVEN years and was even nominated “Denver volunteer of the year.” (Didn’t get it, but the nomination was a big deal.) So, I called the Lapeer county prosecutors office and talked to an ADA. Was told to contact the DA in charge of setting this up. I did; left a voice mail saying I’d love to volunteer, outlined my experience. Have not heard back. Not even a thanks for your interest.
About this time last year, I contacted the local Habitat for Humanity office, saying I’d be happy to donate my services (I’m a painting contractor.) Never bloody well heard back from them either.
WTF?
OK, I’m not done yet.
Twice in the last couple of years, I’ve tried to donate to dog causes online. One was a pitbull organization. I tried sending a paypal donation & got the message that their paypal account wasn’t set up. (But they had the paypal option on their website.) So, I sent an email, saying I’d love to donate, could they tell me how? Never a response.
Other time, a raffle for some Rottie rescue promoted on a Rottweiler forum. Their links were broken & I couldn’t buy a ticket. Same deal, emailed, no response.
WTF?
I realise volunteer organizations are sometimes understaffed and overloaded. But really. And, the AARP & the bone marrow program and the Lapeer County DA’s office certainly isn’t underfunded.
Volunteering has always been important to me, but I’m getting a bit put off here. I think it’s damn RUDE to not even acknowlege an offer of help.
And if any of these organizations happen to contact me, I’m pretty tempted just to tell them to f*ck off.
I know the feeling. We tried to volunteer at a soup kitchen for the holidays. No takers. And we tried to volunteer at a Katrina shelter two doors down. They never called back. Part of the issue is that so many people volunteer that they really don’t need any more help sometimes. Also, frequently they need “skilled” help. Not just Joe Blow who can load trucks, but someone with a specialty (nursing, specific vehicle types for transport, connections to money or services, etc.). I would advise to keep trying. There is some organization, somewhere, that needs the skills you have.
I understand about too many volunteers at times, and I didn’t mean it to sound like I expected kudos for merely offering.
But in two of my examples, I was offering skilled help. Two others, I was offering money.
Actually one of my dogs was a blood donor, and I’ve volunteered in other ways since moving to this godforsaken state; done a couple of river cleanups and did a 6 month reporter gig with a newsmagazine.
But yeah, it’s kind of discouraging, isn’t it?
Well, I guess it’s a good thing if there’s an overabundance of volunteers and people to help where needed…
I ran into the same issue. I have a new baby and therefore am purging my house, less stuff to clean, less stuff to maim her.
I had LOTS of good stuff. Furniture, household items, baby items, a bit of everything. I couldn’t get a. a call back b. any takers.
I finally was able to get in touch with someone at the local battered women’s shelter who assured me they were there to take the stuff, if I could deliver it. Which, when I found someone to babysit for me, I did. They were extraordinarily nice once I got there.
I must have contacted 6 different charities who all had thrift stores to take the stuff, never got one call back. I finally settled on the battered women’s shelter as the one I would harass until donated to. Lucky them.
I’ve been thinking about volunteering somewhere now that I am home more, but egads, I can’t fathom what I would have to go to to find someone/thing.
You might try registering with the local United Way. In most areas they can take your skills and match you up with appropriate organizations who are requesting volunteers.
I haven’t got the same problem you do, since I have 3 volunteer engagements today alone (egads!). I think in part it’s a question of building momentum. Pick a direction you’d like to go and be persistent. As you build relationships the opportunities will come to you. Then you will have to work on saying no. I will add that the ability to put up with a huge amount of disorganization, much more than what you see in just about any workplace, is really an important skill to being a volunteer. After volunteering, my Type-A personality often needs to sit down to a cup of hot tea.
What you are learning is that volunteer organizations don’t have much in the way of HR departments. I’m participating in a few hiring processes at work, and you can bet some candidates get lost in the shuffle. As for the candidates that have skills we don’t need quite right now but that we may need in the future- the best I can say is “give us a call every now and then and we’ll see if we can use you.” There is no way to keep track of that many people and get the rest of my job done. The sad fact is that the person lucky enough contact us at just the right time and persistent enough to have emails in my inbox often enough that I remember their name is the one that gets called back.
These websites may be connected to a webmaster who has long since moved on. Your voicemail may be just one in hundreds. So unless you can fulfill a pressing need that exact moment, chances are getting to you isn’t a priority here. It’s easy to say “Well, I’m the volunteer, they should make this easy on me”, and I’m sure they would like to be able to do that. But sadly, they often just don’t have the resources to do that. Just getting the position is a part of the hard work and leadership that volunteering calls for.
Regarding the bone marrow registry – please try again. They do need donors! Realize that after you’re typed you may wait a long time before anyone needing a donation matches you. (I have been on the registry quite a few years; I’ve checked and have not been inadvertently dropped.)
Please keep trying. Speaking as someone who has worked with volunteers, it’s often liked the cliched herding of cats: you work very hard at corralling one part of the work that needs to be done, and they all run through the gate at the other end. Keep trying. And thank you.
I’d echo Ellen Cherry. Nonprofit groups often don’t put the resources they need to, into keeping track of prospective volunteers. But you sound like a good person who wants to do the right thing, and Lord knows there are plenty of social needs out there which need to be addressed. Be polite but persistent, and I’m confident that something good will come of it - for you, and for them.
I was working at a nonprofit as a social worker back when the Melanie Griffith movie Working Girl came out. I remember very clearly thinking “Gee, I sure wish our field held the potential for rewarding someone for giving the job their all, taking risks, doing whatever it takes to get The Results!”
That is not to say that there does not exist a supervisor or program director who would recognize and appreciate excellence, but the funding structure of nonprofit orgs doesn’t lend itself to the giving of promotions and bonuses for spectacular performance, and (IMHO) as a consequence it is quite commonly the case that there is no agency subculture that holds values like “good enough isn’t good enough, it’s gotta be excellent” — instead, there’s a lot of “these people ought be more grateful for the work they get out of me, and how much longer until I can punch out for the day?” The funding sources don’t tend to evaluate for or recognize really good quality work; just mark down the quantity of faces seen, units served, families referred. Contract says a minimum of 50 units per month, no one’s looking really closely to see if you’re getting them jobs and helping them win court cases or just serving them coffee and handing them preprinted paperwork on stuff they can apply for if they want. Their face was in your office, it’s a unit. 49 to go.
Such a person might read your application, might or might not recognize that you would be an asset to the organization and of great benefit to the folks that the organization exists to serve, and might or might not give a shit either way. Such a person, not greatly concerned with the mission of the organization in a deeply internalized way, might just file your paperwork to deal with tomorrow or the next day or maybe never if the supervisor doesn’t bug them about “did you look at any of those volunteer applications?” Such a person might even see you and your skills as a threat even though you’re volunteering and not seeking a paid position. You might make them look bad if you’re good at what you do. Or maybe you’re thinking you’d start out as a volunteer and thereby be right there on hand if and when a paid position opens up, see? So maybe your application gets stuffed way down deep in a dusty file cabinet.
Disclaimer: I’m certainly not saying all social workers & folk in related fields are like this. I wasn’t like this when I was a social worker, so I’m well aware of that. There are even entire organizations with a fervent commitment to genuine good works, with charismatic and/or idealistically-driven leaders and people who live for the job and its mission. Exceptions and rules proven and so on, though.
I had the HARDEST time getting on the bone marrow registry! If you get typed at a drive, it’s free to you. So they told me to call my local coordinator to find out when the next drives would be. I left messages with her for three months until I saw on the news that some sorority was running one at the university. I never did hear back from her! But the lesson is, it’s easier to find out yourself when local drives are being held.
It’s true. At my work, we have a rather huge volunteer roster, but very few who actually show up to help when called on, with a direct correlation to how interesting the volunteer assignment is. We are also in the midst of a funding crunch. The unpaid ancillary job of “volunteer coordinator,” which takes a lot of time and effort and people skills, keeps getting shuffled from person to person in the admin department, handed to temps, or handed to someone who really doesn’t have time to handle it. We’ve gone through four coordinators in the last eight months.
The thing is, the dedicated volunteers are a huge resource in terms of doing things that constantly need to be done, like stuffing condom bags, or putting together prenatal information packets, which they are currently paying the staff hourly to do, in slow moments that never actually happen because we are desperately understaffed :rolleyes:
I guess what I’m trying to say is that at least at my non profit organization, no one has really pointed out the concept that it might be worth quite a few valuable man-hours to pay someone to spend at least a few hours a week organizing and mobilizing the volunteers. So if you offered your services to us, it’s not that you’re not wanted or needed, it’s just that no one’s doing the job that needs to be done to put you to work.
I wanted to echo what MixieArmadillo and even sven have said. At my last non-proft job, I was the volunteer coordinator. Of course, as one of two full-time employees, I was also the education director, store clerk, museum guide, exhibit designer, and toilet-cleaner. I had no training in how to manage volunteers (in some ways very different from managing paid employees) and no time to recruit and train them. I knew I was doing a lousy job of it, and I hated that. It’s just one of the many reasons why I’ve switched jobs.
Unfortunately, the powers that be at many non-profits don’t recognize that it takes resources (finances, time, expertise) to develop a functional volunteer program. And as a result, they’re losing good, skilled people like you, bonobo_jones, who want to volunteer, but get justifiably cheesed off by the organization’s unresponsiveness.
The volunteer fire and EMS services are crying for assistance. We offer training and everything else free of charge, and should you fail to retain the training, we’ll assist with burying your dumb ass. Fewer folks are joining the ranks of volunteer fire and EMS organizations, and the costs of conversion to a partial or full career structure are staggering. Even if you can’t “crawl the hall” there are opportunities for people with support and administrative skills in many organizations.
Huh, volunteer firefighter…an interesting notion. I don’t believe they take volunteer FFs in this godforesaken city, though. I’ve thought about it before. Many years ago I lost everything I owned (including my dog, my pickup truck and damn near my life) in an arson fire. Thought it would be cool to give back, somehow.
Thank you to those who gave me insight on the “other side of the desk.” I haven’t given up on it…just lived in this godforesaken city for a bit over a year and figured it would be nice to be helpful, one way or another.
It’s the slow season at work, so I thought it would be a good time to hunt down a gig of some sort. I’ll keep looking around, maybe call United Way, if there’s one in this godforesaken city.
I tried to be a bone marrow donor too, but they wanted me to drive 2 hours to the center, and pay to have the tests done. I think that’s a bit much to ask of a person who is agreeing to do something most people won’t do. They shouldn’t have a fee for something like that. It’s like if they made people pay to donate blood.
My guess is they see paying for the blood tests as an indicator of real commitment, perhaps? I’m sure lots of people back out if actually called upon. I just read of a man here who refused to donate for his own son. A real lowlife, he violated parole and buggered off out of state. :mad:
I’ve been experiencing the same difficulties lately. Noone is calling me back and I’ve got the time to give over the next couple months.
I think the advice in here about being persistent is correct. If you truly would like to help, WAKE THEM UP! Call them a few times, ya know.
I’m sure non-profits are anything but easy to deal with, and I’m sure tons of people are sitting around browsing the internet while at work and suddenly get the feeling to help, fill out the forms, then scram when called upon.
Do help, though. I think society needs it; life is getting tough to dive into anymore with all this take-it-and-run short-sighted selfish attitudes around.
If I were Sunday-driving past earth, I’d have to double-take and dip my toes in the water first.
How about volunteering at a museum? I’ve been a docent at the Field Museum for a couple years and they have a paid volunteer coordinator who harangues you (me) if you (I) don’t contact her often enough. And there are good perks, like free admission to other museums, too. You may not think it’s as big a direct help as say, working in a soup kitchen, but I get to talk to kids about how cool dinosaurs and fossils and science are. Yay for science!
I work with a nonprofit group that cleans rivers. We have a website that says where and when to show up. We have never turned away volunteers and are very suprised if you show a second time. We don’t care what you talent is and how efficient you are.
Girl Scouts was great too, I got a phone call within a day or two of signing up online and had a troop in a week.
Local food pantry responded to my e-mail within a few hours.
IMHO, a well-organized non-profit group is shooting itself in the foot by ignoring volunteer help. At least tell them that they aren’t needed right now, but may be helpful at some point in the future (ie. holiday, summer, etc.).
Fewer folks are joining the ranks of volunteer fire and EMS organizations, and the costs of conversion to a partial or full career structure are staggering. Even if you can’t “crawl the hall” there are opportunities for people with support and administrative skills in many organizations.
Call them a few times, ya know.