5 Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Volunteer Role
Every year I take time to pause and evaluate how and where I spend my time – as a professional, volunteer, community member and mom. I feel it’s important to treat your time as a precious resource, being intentional on where it’s spent.
After taking a closer look at all the various volunteer roles I hold, I realized it was time to cut ties with an organization I had been a part of for 3 years.
I thought I would share some of my reasons for stepping away from this role to help you as you reflect on how you give of your own time.
1. Misalignment
I entered this volunteer position wanting to make a difference, particularly being a voice for families raising children with special needs. Recognizing the lack of parent voices at the table, I signed up wanting to share my personal experience as a mom as well as my professional experience working in advocacy.
While my voice was initially welcomed to the table with enthusiasm, it soon became clear that the corporate culture of the organization didn’t value patient or family voices. As an activator, I was committed to bringing a different perspective to the table, while looking for ways to reach out and include other families in the conversation about the care of their children.
It took some time to realize my desire for change, or at least including different perspectives, was not a priority of the organization which seems focused on maintaining the status quo.
2. Obligation vs passion
When you are giving of your time in an environment that is a misalignment of your strengthens and skills, it can dampen your passion.
As I reflected on my volunteer role, I came to recognize I was staying due to a sense of obligation, even guilt. As a mother raising a child with autism, I’m passionate about advocating for these amazing children and their caregivers. I was concerned if I left the table, so would this voice – as I know first-hand the stresses on families and limited time or energy left for volunteering.
Looking at the various volunteer roles I hold, I chose to focus my energies on the areas that still spark my passion and where I could truly make a difference.
3. Tokenism
This is a common concern many volunteers in the healthcare sector share. In the movement to include more patient and family voices at the table, too often the position is seen as a checklist item versus the volunteer being a key member of the team.
Why does this happen? I believe it’s a mix of corporate culture (maintaining the status quo), staff training (understanding the value volunteer voices can bring and how to include these individuals in a meaningful way), and staff time (staff are too overloaded with work to spend time developing relationships with volunteers or understanding the gifts the person brings).
4. Respect
All of this comes down to respect. Respect for a volunteer’s time, respect for their insights and opinions, and respect for how this role benefits the organization (instead of being a checkmark or burden).
In my case, I found my input was dismissed or not respected more times than it was heard. Meetings were cancelled with little notice, emails took weeks to get a reply, or not returned at all, and promises were not kept.
But the tipping point was the lack of respect of my most valuable resource – my time. As a consultant, each hour I spend volunteering is an hour not spent on client work – work that pays to keep the household running. This is why I am careful about the volunteer roles I take on, saying no to many worthwhile organizations.
To fulfill my passion of being a voice for families raising children with special needs, I realized I need to focus on roles where my time is respected and I can make a difference.
5. Scope of impact
I didn’t feel I was able to make much of an impact in my three years as a volunteer with this organization. Nor did it seem I would be able to moving forward as many of the conversations and work I had done on including family voices had gone nowhere.
As an activator, I’m passionate about looking for ways to better to support children with special needs. I take my volunteer roles seriously, spending time talking to other families, hearing different perspectives, researching issues and bringing an educated voice to the table, not just my personal thoughts.
To be an effective volunteer takes a lot of time and energy – something that is limited as a working mom.
Being protective of my time, I know the scope of impact I could have with this organization was minimal, at best.
Moving forward
After much soul searching, and conversations with my husband and friends, I tendered my resignation. As someone who takes my commitments seriously, it was not something I did lightly.
However, having taken the time to thoroughly review my volunteer role, I’m releasing the guilt and embracing the new opportunity – whatever it may be.
I am not rushing to fill the space in my calendar. Rather, I’m going to focus my energy on my other volunteer roles and be open to what the future brings.
I encourage you to set aside time to review your own volunteer commitments. Ask yourself – are you excited about your role? Does it spark your passion and do you feel you are making a positive difference? If not, review the steps above and decide if it’s time to move on.
The world needs your passion and energy. Make sure it’s being heard!
Thank you for writing this article. I wear many hats and lately been trying to decide what to do. This gives me something to consider.
This candid article is helping me as I struggle to find courage to quit my own volunteer position in a “service” organization. The number of members has dwindled to less than 20. Everyone must be an officer or serve in a committee whether they like it or not. Planning meetings ,are more numerous than service activities.
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Thanks for this. I’m a hospice respite volunteer. I realized last night that the company was more focused on rules and regulations of the company (the checklist in tokenism) and it makes me question if I want to be a part of this.
Hard for me to believe that all the articles I see regarding losing volunteers fails to mention what I consider the biggest reason…..Sick and fed up with the politics, drama, idiots, toxic people clueless people and general BS. I was SM at local scout troop for about 6 years, couldn’t stand the non stop complaining, cluelessness, special favoritism requests and much more from the adults and got burned out and quit…no more. Fire Dept I was on 12 years, chief was BiPolar and created so many problems he essentially destroyed the volunteer department he grew into a once great organization. I was chief steward for our racing club for almost 5 years and got so sick of the whining, complaining, idiots and such I was ready to punch someone in the mouth who desperately needed it. Our Scout troop did a great fundraiser once handed to us from drama and dis-function, consessions for a district wide school sports event. We made good money in one day to support the troop, the reason we got that opportunity was the infighting and drama with the PTA was so bad they couldn’t perform the fundraiser and we were the luck recipients. I have now gladly joined the NAVY (Never again volunteer yourself). Any requests I get anymore to volunteer are met with my standard response…”I’d rather have hemeroids removed with a chainsaw”
Thank you for writing this. I am an active volunteer in my community with several groups. I recently had a bad experience where my health and the health of other volunteers was seriously jeopardized because of inept and uncaring leadership. This has been a difficult experience to process because within a few months I went from feeling that I was a valued team member to feeling that I was a fungible commodity, a unit of production. The reality hit when I realized that if this was a paid position, I would have quit already. I am still struggling with how to quit.
Thank you for this article. For a year and a half, I’ve volunteered for a cause and organization that I believe in. However, recent negative customer feedback and personal grief and loss cause me to question my effectiveness in helping others. As a volunteer, my main motivations are a desire to feel useful and to connect with others. Because I’m feeling emotionally and physically depleted, I ask myself if this is justification for taking a break from volunteering or of I need to make this important decision when I’m feeling stronger.
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Working in a food pantry has become so hard. During COVID we provided boxes of delicious nutritious food as well as breads, pastries, produce, dairy, beef, chicken, fish and pork. After COVID subsided e allowed clients to shop inside our food pantry but the economy has increased our numbers threefold. Unfortunately our volunteer numbers have remained the same. I begged our leadership to go back to providing boxes due to the labor required to individually shop for each client and was told that would hurt the client’s dignity!! They have zero compassion for the volunteers’ energy or opinion. It is hard to stay motivated under these circumstances.
Thanks for the useful article. I have been trying to get up the nerve to quit a volunteer role I have that I have been doing for 10 years. I feel unappreciated, unheard and like a slave or robot rather than a valued human being. The person in charge is a micro manager type. I know I have to leave, but it’s still hard.
Thank you for this insight. I have been volunteering for a health care organization for 7 years. Now, I see my passion is misaligned with theirs. The quality of care they provide is sub par and it is stressing me to constantly push Drs to do the right thing. But I feel guilt. If I leave who will push? I feel like I am abandoning the patients
Very hard choice
I was asked to be on the board of trustees for a private cemetery where my husband is buried. I am a do-er, and very much enjoy getting things done rather than just sitting on the board. I was asked by the president of the board to do many tasks, such as having fencing installed and doing gardening chores. It got to be sometimes a daily activity. People who visited thought I worked there because I was there so much. We had a part-time worker who I caught sleeping in his car a half dozen times. When I mentioned it to the superintendent, he said that he told the guy to “be more discreet”. The thing that finally did it for me was when the dog lovers on the board voted to allow dogs in the cemetery so the employees could bring their dogs to work with them. I was the clean-up person.