Chapter 8
The Fourth Relationship—With Your Volunteers
Enabling Them to Take Meaningful Action on Behalf of Your Organization
Hoarding power produces a powerless organization. Stripped of power, people look for ways to fight back: sabotage, passive resistance, withdrawal, or angry militancy. Giving power liberates energy for more productive use. When people feel a sense of efficacy and an ability to influence their world, they seek to be productive. They direct their energy and intelligence toward making a contribution rather than obstructing progress.
—Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, Leading with Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995), 107
To what extent are the professionals in the independent sector becoming alienated from the volunteers? … I worry most about the growing lack of mutual understanding and deep sense of common values between … professionals and … volunteers.
A volunteer who works at a botanical garden says that she resents being given the scut work, relegated to it by paid staff. “That isn’t what I volunteered for,” she says.
More ominous, of course, are the comments that denigrate the competence, dedication, and value of the volunteers. “If it weren’t for the alumni, I’d love alumni work.” A certain amount of that kind of talk … is exasperation and not cynicism, and shouldn’t be taken seriously. But all of us have also detected at times a different and more troubling tone of contempt in such remarks.
—Robert L. Payton, Philanthropy: ...
