Taking the Long View

When George Hale moved to Myrtle Beach, S.C., about five years ago, the retired sales engineer figured

he would drop by and introduce himself to staff members at the local Red Cross chapter. After all, he had already spent about 30 years teaching swimming and other lifesaving skills as a Red Cross volunteer in Connecticut and his native Rhode Island.

Mr. Hale, 80, had proven himself to be the kind of volunteer every nonprofit manager dreams of — one who keeps coming back week after week, year after year, whose enthusiasm for the organization’s mission seems to expand with his workload and responsibility.

It turned out officials at the Coastal South Carolina Chapter of the American Red Cross had already heard about him from their counterparts in Connecticut.

“When I came to say hello,” Mr. Hale recalls, “they said, ‘Yeah, we know all about you.’”

And they put him right to work.

Some experts say that with all the perennial hand-wringing over the problem of volunteer recruitment, perhaps not enough attention has been paid to the grooming of long-term volunteers like Mr. Hale. Why do they stay when other volunteers quit? How can charities keep more of them?

Such issues are likely to become more pressing in the years ahead. Charity officials say they could easily count on long-term commitments from people who grew up during the Depression and World War II — and therefore felt a strong sense of social obligation. But younger people have been less willing to stick with volunteer opportunities.

A ‘Leaky Bucket’

The decades-long increase in the number of volunteers has recently showed signs of slowing, and charities lose roughly one of every three volunteers a year, says Robert Grimm, director of research and policy development at the U.S. Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that encourages volunteering. He calls this phenomenon the “leaky bucket” that’s costing nonprofit groups an estimated $30-billion annually.

“This is valuable talent and resources that’s going out the door and not coming back,” he says. “It’s a big issue.”

And it is getting bigger every year, he suggests. The number of Americans age 65 and older will jump by about 50 percent by 2020, going from just under nine million to more than 13 million. The number of older volunteers will at least double by 2036, Mr. Grimm estimates, which should mean a bigger pool of potential help.

He believes organizations that lower volunteer turnover rates and master the grooming of long-term workers will reap increasingly large benefits. A skilled volunteer who comes back year after year can be just as critical to an organization’s health as a comparably experienced and talented paid employee, he says.

Considering that Independent Sector estimates the value of a volunteer’s time at an average $18.77 an hour for all charities, large organizations that effectively energize long-term volunteers can reap millions of dollars worth in unpaid, high-skilled labor over the long haul. But many nonprofit managers don’t feel compelled to figure out how, Mr. Grimm says. They see volunteers’ work as less important than the work of the paid staff.

“There’s a stereotype that with volunteers, you can’t trust them, or they don’t do as high quality of work,” he says. “There’s this culture of thinking that to get quality work, you have to pay for it.”

‘Our Gold Standard’

John Cori’s 20 years of volunteering for Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City makes a strong argument to the contrary. He is highly valued by the charity not only because he is dependable and conscientious but also because of what his presence has come to mean to the organization.

The 44-year-old construction electrician plays Santa Claus every year at the charity’s Christmas parties, uses his van to transport gifts from donors, assists in the annual 5K run, and helps fix things around the office.

“By doing good, you’re going to be around good people,” Mr. Cori says. “That’s what kept me going.”

His value goes beyond the tasks he performs for the charity, staff members say. He has been helping out so long that he has seen 100-percent turnover in the organization’s paid staff. He serves as the institutional memory for employees like Michael Coughlin, supervisor of recruitment and outreach.

And as Mr. Cori shows up year after year to help, employees also use his story as a recruitment and motivational tool for newer volunteers. “Finding someone like John is amazing,” says Mr. Coughlin. “He’s sort of our gold standard.”

But finding volunteers like Mr. Cori, who are willing to stick with one organization over the long term, requires what Mr. Grimm, the federal researcher, calls a “talent management” approach to dealing with volunteers. Find out what stokes a person’s passion or gets their creativity flowing, he suggests, then plug the person into a role where those specific passions can flower.

“You have to move from thinking, ‘What do I want volunteers to do?’ to saying, ‘What do volunteers want to do for my agency?’” Mr. Grimm says.

The cases of stalwart volunteers like Mr. Cori and Mr. Hale suggest that nonprofit managers need to look for people who believe passionately in their organization’s mission, but who also have interests or talents that mirror the volunteer opportunities the organization offers.

‘It’s Just Fun’

Mr. Hale, for instance, grew up near the ocean in Rhode Island and loves to swim. And, he says, he is fascinated by learning new things, especially skills he can apply in everyday life.

He has used his Red Cross training to save his own son’s life at least twice — once when his son choked on his own vomit as a baby, and another time when the boy swallowed dozens of aspirin tablets.

The volunteer has taught hundreds of children, and he says he loves watching the joy on their faces as they finally take their first successful swimming strokes, and giving them instruction that may one day save their lives.

“The thing that kept me coming back is that I really got a lot of satisfaction,” he says. “Maybe I’m a selfish person, but I just got all of these good feelings.”

Like Mr. Hale, Joan Daeschler has found contentment in volunteering her time with the same charity for decades.

The 79-year-old has been a volunteer for 55 years at New Eyes for the Needy, a Short Hills, N.J., charity that supplies glasses to people who can’t afford them.

For the past two decades, she has served as New Eyes’ contact person for medical missionaries who want to take its glasses on overseas trips. She is a retired travel agent, so she is always fascinated to find out where missionaries are going and how the glasses will help.

She even takes glasses herself to medical missionaries or hospitals in places like South Africa and Panama.

“It’s just fun,” she says. “When a volunteering job is personally involving, you become much more invested in the time spent.”

The same principle can be seen in Val Black’s work with the Boy Scouts of America. The 84-year-old has always loved outdoor activities like hiking, camping, and bicycling. In more than 50 years of volunteering with the Scouts, he has turned those passions into memorable trips for scores of boys.

Mr. Black, a retired mechanical engineer, led groups of boys on at least four trips to Hawaii in the 1970s, organizing fund raisers and securing space in military housing to make them affordable. Mr. Black and his Scouts bicycled around the islands and camped at beach parks. He also led about a dozen bike trips from his hometown of Livermore, Calif., near San Francisco, to Yosemite National Park.

His efforts over the years easily would have required hundreds of hours of paid work if done by Boy Scouts employees. But listening to Mr. Black reminisce, it is clear that it was his pleasure to give his time.

“I’m interested in outdoor life anyway, hiking and biking and such. It fit with what I could do with the boys,” he says. “I get a lot of enjoyment out of things like that, even though it took a lot of time.”

Mr. Black’s five decades of volunteering dwarf the three years of service other San Francisco-area scout volunteers are averaging, says Patrick Scherer, director of field service for the Boy Scouts’ San Francisco Bay Area Council.

Generation Gap

Mr. Scherer wonders if the dedication and selflessness shown by volunteers from Mr. Black’s age group isn’t a function of the time that generation came of age. During the Great Depression and World War II, he says, people depended on one another for their survival, and carried those lessons throughout their lives.

“They had to learn to work together and do their part,” says Mr. Scherer. “I think that’s part of what’s wrong systemically today. People don’t feel that need to do their part.”

Today, in the absence of such a deeply felt and widely shared sense of social obligation, nonprofit organizations must make sure the volunteers who do show up have a good time.

The volunteers who most often drop out are the ones given the least challenging assignments, notes Mr. Grimm, the government researcher.

Fifty-three percent of people given tasks like general labor or providing transportation volunteer again the following year, according to the corporation’s research. Meanwhile, 74 percent of volunteers supplying professional or management assistance stay on year to year.

“I’ve seen people come to [an event to] change a kid’s life, and they’re standing there handing out cocktail napkins,” says Mr. Cori, the Big Brothers Big Sisters volunteer. “A person might be willing to volunteer, but if they’re not having a good experience doing it, they’re not going to come back.”

Some possible tactics for grooming long-term volunteers might seem counterintuitive, like giving volunteers, especially those who are the most promising, more to do.

Seventy-six percent of volunteers who serve 12 or more weeks per year return the following year, as opposed to 51 percent of those who serve less than three weeks out of the year, according to federal statistics.

“If you’ve got a job that needs to be done, look for the busiest guy you can find,” says Mr. Black, the Boy Scouts volunteer. “He’s busy for a reason.”

Tough Sells

Some volunteer opportunities are inherently challenging, are hard on volunteers either physically or emotionally, and can lead even those who are most dedicated to a cause to burn out.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City, for instance, hopes to keep volunteers for four or five years, but, in recognition of the difficulty of the work involved, instead asks helpers for only a one-year commitment. The average volunteer stays 14 months, says Mr. Coughlin, the charity’s recruitment and outreach supervisor.

In pairing mentors with more than 2,000 New York children, volunteer coordinators look at the six-month mark as a critical milestone. If the volunteer makes it past that point, they likely will last the initial year.

Mr. Coughlin suggests that other organizations with emotionally taxing volunteer duties give new volunteers a thorough orientation that explains the challenges — then keep in close contact with them along the way to offer encouragement and advice.

“It’s a tough sell a lot of times,” he says. “But it’s getting them to see beyond that initial responsibility and getting them to see the benefits.”

Sometimes, volunteer work is a “tough sell” because it is not inherently challenging, but menial. But someone has to help move tables and chairs for a banquet, for instance, or pick up trash after a fund-raising walk.

Managers of volunteers acknowledge finding help for such mundane chores can be a struggle. And yet, they say, there is always the harried professional or busy parent who wants to help, yet doesn’t have time for an in-depth commitment.

If an organization keeps good records of volunteer preferences and availability, the managers insist, it can generally find someone to fit any job.

Charities can also meet the challenge by outlining a “volunteer career path” that makes it clear that lower-level duties will give way to more challenging roles, says Mr. Grimm. It needn’t be any different, he suggests, than the grooming managers do with paid employees.

For example, the March of Dimes, in White Plains, N.Y., has adopted the concept as part of a broad and ambitious national effort to enhance its volunteer leadership.

The organization, with chapters in every state, Washington, and Puerto Rico, has established a Volunteer Leadership Institute to coordinate training.

It is also starting a pilot effort in four states and Washington to encourage year-round, rather than episodic, service. Volunteer information is collected, managed, and shared online across all participating chapters.

Trained volunteers use the information to give personal welcomes to new volunteers and to stay in touch.

As volunteers move up their career paths, the charity’s plan is to shift more duties from employees to volunteer leaders.

One objective, officials say, is for volunteers to take the lead in recruiting, training, and retaining other volunteers.

Giving such broad power to volunteers sends a strong message about how much they are valued by the organization, adds Kathy Boggan, senior vice president for volunteer leadership development at the March of Dimes.

It goes to the heart, she suggests, of what really encourages long-term volunteering.

“They become like family,” she said. “That’s why they stay.”

The ‘Right Place’

Indeed, for many long-term volunteers, it is the sense of camaraderie with a charity’s staff members and clients, the feeling of sharing in the organization’s mission, that keeps them coming back.

When Irmgard (Sonya) Cohn retired from her job at a theatrical agency in her early 70s, she felt empty.

Her husband, a doctor, had long since died. Having led an exciting life booking the talent for a variety of programs, including circus acts and The Ed Sullivan Show, the New Yorker wanted to keep busy and stay connected to others.

So, she began volunteering at the Jewish Home Lifecare System, a nursing home and rehabilitation center in Manhattan. She had a simple job — typing information about patients into a computer database. But the people were so friendly, she notes, always saying, “Thank you, Sonya!” just because she came in.

She felt like she was part of the place.

She still recalls a key moment early in her 18-year tenure as a volunteer there: Walking down a hall, she saw a nurse pushing a patient in a wheelchair. Both were singing.

“I said to myself, ‘I’m in the right place,’” Ms. Cohn recalls. “It’s such a beautiful thing.”

Now 91, she still volunteers at least one day a week. “If you stay home at this age,” she quips, “you get old.”

HOW MANY VOLUNTEERS RETURN TO CHARITIES, YEAR TO YEAR Volunteers Who Come Back to Charities, by Age 16-19 years 51.2% 20-24 years 50.6% 25-34 years 59.8% 35-44 years 69.1% 45-54 years 69.8% 55-64 years 69.9% 65 years and older 69.1% Rates of Return for Volunteers Who Perform Only One Volunteer Task Provide professional or management skills 73.5% Engage in music, performance, or other activities 66.6% Be an usher, greeter, or minister 64.0% Serve as coach, referee, tutor, teacher, or mentor 63.8% Provide general office services 62.7% Collect, prepare, distribute, or serve food 58.6% Provide counseling, medical care, or emergency medical services 58.4% Raise funds 56.3% Collect, make, or distribute clothing 53.9% Offer general labor or supply transportation 53.3% SOURCE: U.S. Corporation for National and Community Service