Differentiating Volunteering and Working for Pay

From Susan Ellis's Blog:

My professional wish for the new year is that everyone (and especially decision-makers, the news media, and funders) open their eyes to the important things that make employees and volunteers different.

Much of volunteer management today focuses on the similarities of volunteers and employees – how both groups are recruited and supported to be successful in working toward the same mission. As a practical matter, this is appropriate. But it is also limiting. It tends to push volunteers into uniformity rather than celebrating their potential to act with far fewer boundaries.

In our desire to gain acceptance for volunteers within agencies, we work to reassure colleagues that volunteers are just “like” employees. Is this really the goal? Think of what we might accomplish if volunteers had free rein to make the most of what distinguishes them from a paid work force: flexibility, the luxury of focus, short bursts of energy, and multiplicity of perspectives.

Read more online at: http://energizeinc.com/hot/2010/10jan.html