10 Things You Should Never Do To Volunteers

Volunteers make many organizations possible. Volunteers donate their time, effort and often professional expertise in order to help organizations they care about. Yet many organizations don't have a clue how to treat volunteers. In my many years of volunteering at various organizations, I have come up with a list of things that should never be done to volunteers.

How Not To Treat Volunteers

Pester them at all hours. Volunteers have lives, families, and often full-time jobs. Remember they give their time when they can. Don't make them choose between their lives and their volunteer commitments. The volunteer commitments will lose out.
Expect quick turnaround on tasks, outside volunteering hours. Volunteers give the hours they can. They probably are not going to drop everything else in their lives to do things for their volunteering commitments. Remember they have lives, too.
Micromanage them. If your volunteer coordinators are good, your volunteers will be matched with tasks within their expertise and experience. If not, a little instruction is good. But if the volunteer knows what they are doing, let them get on with the job.
Tell them how to do their job. If you're an expert in the field, you could make suggestions. But you're not doing the work. Let go of how it is done and focus on results. And if you aren't an expert in the field, don't offer advice at all, particularly if someone is volunteering services they perform as their primary job.
Take them for granted. Everyone likes to hear thank you. Make sure to say thank you for tasks, both expected and extra, and when the volunteer leaves the position.
Condescend. We're talking adult volunteers here. Don't be condescending to them, belittle them or humiliate them. They are giving a gift: their time and effort. Be grateful for the gift you are receiving.
Waste their time. Volunteers are giving you a very precious resource: their time. Don't use it in frivolous ways by requiring them to sit in on meetings that have no bearing to what they do.
Make extra demands without offering help. It's good to make suggestions. But if the suggestion expands the amount of work a volunteer will do, don't expect them to follow it. If you're not willing to do the task yourself or help out, don't dump it on their workload.
Volunteer them for other jobs. Along with expanding workload, don't volunteer them for other jobs. Sure, they may have experience in something you desperately need help in. But don't take it for granted they will be willing to do any more than they have already committed to.
Change their job descriptions without warning. Volunteers know what is expected of them. Changing their job descriptions, particularly expanding them, can turn a willing volunteer into a surly participant. Ask first!

Volunteers are a precious resource and should be treated as what they are: givers of gifts.