As someone responsible for volunteer coordination for a non-profit, I don't want to deal with people who aren't there due to passion for our mission. I actually developed conflict management training for volunteer coordinators of a certain non-profit that used a lot of college age volunteers who were generating a lot of drama due to their in-dating.

You have my sympathy. At the same time, do you really require passion, or can you get by with commitment? I suspect that most volunteer coordinators will be happy with volunteers who are perhaps not passionate but do turn out when they say they will, arrive prepared, and do the work.

In the specific case of my non-profit, passion is required in volunteers because the role requires a lot of patience that will overwhelm commitment.

>I suspect that most volunteer coordinators will be happy with volunteers who are perhaps not passionate but do turn out when they say they will, arrive prepared, and do the work. Agreed.

THIS. But be mature, diverse, and kinda picky about what organizations you volunteer for, in what roles, and how much. Be especially wary of bringing your day job technical skills & attitude to a volunteer organization. (The food bank is far, far more likely to need food and reliable food handlers than it is to need you building a fancy new AWS-hosted web site & database for them.)

This only works if you're in an area that isn't hypersaturated with retirees. Nearly every volunteer event I attend has people that are mostly 20-30 years older than me.

haha yeah. Volunteer at a cat sanctuary and you're likely to make friends with a whole bunch of nice grannies.

Volunteering with a political campaign where the candidate's promises are strongly appealing to young people is probably the sweet spot in terms of meeting young people.