The management problem

A volunteer who is unhappy simply stops appearing

Paid staff give notice, have exit interviews and appear in turnover data. Volunteers leave silently, which is why most organisations do not know why they lose them.

An employee who becomes dissatisfied works through a fairly visible sequence. They raise something, or they do not and their engagement drops in ways a manager can observe, and eventually they resign, giving notice and a reason. The organisation records it. Somebody may ask what happened. There is a data trail, however imperfect.

A volunteer does none of this. They miss a shift, which is unremarkable. They miss another. They reply more slowly, then not at all. At no point do they announce a decision, frequently because they have not consciously made one, and at no point does anybody in the organisation record that a person who used to help no longer does. The loss is invisible, the reason is never captured, and the same cause continues operating on everybody else.

Starting

Describe the role honestly, including the dull parts

People who arrive expecting something else leave quickly.

Induction that treats it as real work

Including the parts that feel excessive for unpaid help.

Ask what they want from it

Two people in one role can be there for opposite reasons.

Continuing

The reliability conversation nobody has

Unpaid does not mean unaccountable, and saying so is kind.

Boundaries protect the volunteer most

Especially in services where people are in difficulty.

Burnout among the most committed

The reliable ones absorb everything until they stop.

Recognising

Thanks that is specific rather than annual

A certificate at an event is not what people report valuing.

Expenses and the barrier nobody mentions

Volunteering costs money, and that excludes people.

Do not replace paid roles

It damages the service and the volunteers in it.

Ending

Find out why people stopped

The one measurement almost nobody takes.

Leaving well, and the door left open

Most people stop for circumstantial reasons.

What a small organisation can actually do

Most of this without a volunteer manager.

About Working Volunteer

Working Volunteer is about running volunteer programmes and about volunteering itself: recruitment, induction, boundaries, recognition, burnout among the most committed, and finding out why people stopped coming.

The editorial position is that volunteers leave silently rather than resigning, that this single structural difference explains most of what is distinctive about managing them, and that treating unpaid work as a favour rather than as work makes it impossible to set the expectations volunteers say they want.

This publication is independent. It is not affiliated with any charity, volunteering body, membership organisation or software provider, it does not accept payment for coverage, and it does not recruit or place volunteers.

Nothing here is legal advice. Requirements around volunteer screening and background checking, work health and safety duties owed to volunteers, insurance, expense reimbursement and the legal distinction between a volunteer and an employee differ substantially by jurisdiction, and should be established from the applicable law and, where consequences are material, with qualified advice.