But some percent stick around? I would go going back to habitat for humanity if not for the fact the work sites are all closed due to covid.
Re:Goodwill doesn't want broken toasters
by KineticLensman on Monday May 10, 2021 @07:01AM
(#27104620)
> But some percent stick around?
Yes, these are the ones that you start to invest time in.
Coming back to the organisation I volunteer for, the majority of the volunteers are already 'members' (e.g. they have purchased annual season tickets, etc). A few will drop out after a few weeks, typically when they realise that the work can be physically demanding and in all weathers. But once people demonstrate reliability and earn trust, then they usually get the chance to do more interesting things.
> What doesn’t have anywhere near the same impact for the charity is a group of randos showing up for an afternoon
Yes, I totally agree. It's the long term commitment that makes volunteers useful. Rando newbies need monitoring and don't know how much they don't know about the real problems. So can only be given a narrow range of tasks. They can't be trusted with tools that are dangerous or tasks that have expensive failure modes.