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| Subjective | 45% | 5 votes | Total: 11 votes | |
| Objective | 55% | 6 votes |
Subjective
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Add to FavoritesWhile volunteers in any organization are certainly appreciated, and there are indeed some cases where their work is invaluable, there are reasons why the work is done by volunteers. Even the most generous and dedicated charitable cause has paid employees, whether they be the administrators, treasurers, lawyers, accountants, or anything else. There are a few factors that point to the subjectivity of measuring the impact of volunteers on an organization.
First; if the organization had the budget (not an unlimited budget, mind you, but funds available for more labor), would these volunteers be paid? In nearly every case the answer is no. There are a few reasons for this. Either there are enough volunteers available that if this individual requested pay, they would be refused and replaced, which essentially means that the supply is much greater than the demand. Ergo, the labor is of low value. Or the more popular answer is that the money will go toward the charity or administration rather than to these volunteers. Again this means that the labor is of low value. Anything of high value to an organization is worth paying for.
Second; if a position becomes available in the organization that is paid, would a volunteer be hired for that position? Again the answer to this question is typically no, though there are of course exceptions. Why is this? Generally because what makes for a valuable employee is not the same characteristics as what makes for a valuable volunteer.
Third; potentially most importantly, those who have valuable services to render are busy rendering those services to paying customers! Now it is certainly true that active working people do spend time volunteering in their spare time. However, the key is that this is their spare time. If you told your boss that you would only be able to work in your spare time, chances are excellent that you would be told immediately to take a hike, thereby providing you with plenty of spare time! The fact is that those whose work can be measured objectively nearly universally are compensated for it.
So is volunteer labor valueless? Of course not, however, it is certainly subjectively measured because the compensation for it consists largely of appreciation. Therefore those who do an adequate job can expect positive responses, because it is the only thing they can expect! If you do an adequate job in an objectively measured (i.e. paid) position, you can expect to keep your job, but no kudos will be forthcoming, because your appreciation comes in the form of a paycheck!
Learn more about this author, Benjamin Lomax.
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Objective
Though the impact of a volunteer on a given population is both emotional because it usually involves human interaction of some kind, to be effective the results of the volunteer's interaction must be measured objectively.
My own use of volunteers spanned my years of teaching and later, those in which I acted in an educational administrative capacity. I found that in my class of mentally retarded, today mentally challenged, students who were also, at the time diagnosed as being psychotic, but are now behaviorally maladjusted or challenged, required a very special kind of volunteer, on who was not overly judgmental or frightened by bizarre behavior. This turned out to be a tall order.
My volunteers needed to be able to interact in a positive nonjudgmental way with adolescent and young adult students who were residents of a state hospital in California. These students, who prior to the late seventies had been essentially restricted to their wards, were found to be comparatively quite bright once their attention had been redirected to problems in reality. Volunteers, who could implement the teacher's education plan, extended his/her ability to train the students and increase their life skills.
The impact of the volunteers was reflected in the student's scores on both teacher and standardized tests. If improvement was lacking, the volunteer could be reassigned either in class or in facility. In my class, however, where students often attacked teachers, volunteers, teacher's aids and each other, more often than not less dedicated and effective volunteers weeded themselves out, so did not have to be asked to leave.
Since volunteers are needed to extend an ability or perform a needed service, regardless of how much their handler likes them or even loves them (I had to fire my wife as a volunteer, later when I was working with civilly committed mentally ill patients because she was too sympathetic and was being manipulated by the students assigned to her), they must be evaluated on whether or not they accomplish what is needed. This must be an objective measurement.
Learn more about this author, Norman Weibel.
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