Volunteer Burnout?… Volunteer Self-Care!
There are three well known stages of retirement: the Go-Go years (late 50s to early 70s), the Slow-Go years (mid 70s-80), and the No-Go years (80s-90s). Of course, there is some variability for retirees depending on their physical health. Right now, I’m 72, exiting the Go-Go years. These years were ripe for a variety of volunteer roles.
When I retired at age 65, after licking my wounds caused by a stressful, unexpected retirement, I began looking for something meaningful to do. I wasn’t exactly cut out to be a volunteer, having spent my entire career in the helping profession of education. People-pleasers in those fields suffer from a concept called “compassion fatigue.”
Surprisingly, we share an inheritance for overly-caring behavior, and we are subject to burnout – not exactly the fuel needed for volunteering in retirement. I’ve written about this subject in my post, The Hamster Wheel of Former Helping Professionals.
Where Did I Look for Volunteer Positions?
Not being a fan for a sedentary life of solitude, I made myself available as a horticulture assistant, livestock worker, COVID vaccine contactor, food distribution worker, voter registrant, and retirement writer. Not surprisingly, I continued to develop my overly caring/burnout template post-retirement.
Since so many of the roles had a physical component, I found myself struggling, not with compassion fatigue, but with bodily fatigue (and still do)! I shared those travails in my post on Agebuzz.com, Volunteering: The Physical Challenge.
Why Volunteer?
Besides contributing approximately $33.49/hour for each volunteer hour, it is well known that volunteering is a ripe source for new friends, meaningful tasks, and calendar fillers for the retired. In addition, Trish Lockard, writing for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, finds that volunteering contributes to mental health in quantifiable ways: greater life satisfaction, more robust health, better self-confidence, pride, and improved self-identity.
In my recent seven plus years of volunteering with various organizations, I have been the recipient of experiences previously unavailable to me. I have been part of a world class garden, working as an equal among a platoon of trained professionals. I have shepherded new American citizens to become voters as a participant in their naturalization ceremony.
Also, I assisted a sheep shearer in his yearly spring duties, and I have acquired a respectable quantity of knowledge about the natural behaviors of those sheep and goats I feed each week. I have also worked alongside the families of mushroom workers displaced during the pandemic and was the recipient of a weekly Mexican lunch feast for my efforts in distributing food, diapers, and hygiene supplies.
All Is Not Rosy in the Volunteer World
I have found, just like in the world of employment, things can go south in volunteer positions. Of my seven nonprofit organizations, I am only involved in 3-4, and only two on a weekly basis. I have learned that the volunteer must practice self-care and regularly assess if a volunteer spot is a good fit.
The most important lesson to learn is that volunteer supervisors are stretched and not always in sync with older volunteers. Most likely volunteers are needed because of a lack of funds for paid employees. This means the volunteer supervisor has a full-time job and the added responsibility for volunteers. This can result in assigning tasks without proper training, support and communication. Also, the volunteer workload might be inappropriate for an older person, because the supervisor is much younger, and not aware of different generational physical limitations.
In addition, sometimes the volunteer has lost passion for the cause after working for an extended amount of time. Possibly, there were too few rewards for the effort, besides the obvious intrinsic value. Because of changing life issues, the time constraints for the position might not be workable, and most importantly, the older volunteer is aging each year, along with its inherent physical changes.
Volunteer Self-Care
Fenix_charity.eu offers some wonderful ideas for self-care while volunteering.
Most suggestions encourage self-reflection, such as taking breaks and setting boundaries around tasks and hours required. A regular check-in regarding feelings of joy vs. burnout is essential. Reaching out to others, such as staff or fellow volunteers, for support can be helpful in reconfiguring a volunteer situation.
A Balanced Approach
It was extremely challenging for me to assert myself in the volunteer realm. At the beginning of my retirement, I viewed these positions as “real employment.” I did not see any difference in my output as a volunteer and as an employee.
My views have changed radically, but only through negative experiences. At the garden, I went from one day/week outside-one day/week inside to one day/week inside only because of increasing outdoor temperatures, insects, futile tasks, and waning physical capabilities.
I left the food distribution rotation because of disagreement about how long this service should continue. I never returned to the county emergency position because of lack of support of the supervisor, and a physically inappropriate workstation.
Although I am still listed as a voter registration volunteer, I was bumped out at a crucial time because I overlooked renewing my yearly membership, and lots of newbies came in before the 2024 Presidential election to fill those slots.
I am now pleased with my retirement/volunteer balance. Previously, I never took a day off – volunteers are not given vacation days! Now, if circumstances align, I will take off a day to reboot. I no longer feel like a paid employee, and I respect my aging body. I haven’t had to make any grand pronouncements to my supervisors. As most organizations state frequently, “any amount of time one has to volunteer is greatly appreciated!”
Let’s Discuss:
Which volunteer position has been the most taxing to you and why? Have you had to make any adjustments in your volunteer positions? Do you have any advice to pass on to other volunteers?
In 2015 I was forced to retire at 62 by my employer of 44 years. 3 years before I retired, I had started volunteering for a small foster-based one woman owned cat rescue and I still continue to volunteer for her. I did weekly adoption events until COVID. I also do much of their administrative work, review applications, call references, Vets, landlords, answer VM mail messages, etc. so the Rescue’s President just has to say yay or nay to an application. Some days it’s 5 or 6 hours a day, some days only an hour or two, but it’s every day, 7 days a week. It’s what I do best as I was an Office Manager for many years in my ‘real’ job. I do it for the cats as the owner of the Rescue is not the nicest person to work for. She loves all animals, but doesn’t like people very much. She will admit that. Volunteers and foster families come and go as most people won’t put up with her attitude. She told me early on if I wanted someone who was warm and fuzzy I should go somewhere else. But I stay because I can do it all from home and have little interaction with her. Now at 72 it’s hard for me to get up off the floor to show cats or kittens at events so all I can do is answer potential adopter’s questions. I think not doing events during COVID made me less limber! So unless I am absolutely needed, I try not to do adoption events any more which means sometimes she does them without any help. I gave up almost every Saturday for almost 10 years to do events because most of the younger volunteers … unless they need the volunteer hours to graduate … don’t want to give up a Saturday. I really just wanted to say, while we don’t get paid for our service, a ‘thank you‘ goes a very long way with me and I think most volunteers. This is something I rarely hear where I volunteer. People say I am crazy to continue, but again I do it for the cats. And, it keeps me very busy and mentally active.
I have had 3 volunteer positions since my retirement 7 years ago. I volunteered at my granddaughters school until COVID and everything shut down. By the time the students got back to class, the volunteers had mostly left and the group was very unorganized. The next position was wonderful, at first. It was my dream position, then COVID, and it was a hospital and they were not allowing anyone into the hospital. I was on the Board for 4 years and we kept figthting the same fight to get back to volunteer, and it just wasn’t fum anymore. I also had some deaths in the family and a serious hospitalization. The last position started out great, but a lack of training left me getting very frustrated in trying tao do my job. In addition, I was the only one in this position and was working every day. It was very hard listening to people’s life story after losing a residence to fire. I wanted to help them all. Eventually, it was becoming too much to handle with lack of training and supervisor on site
I always loved the beach and when I moved to Sarasota Florida I found an opportunity to volunteer at Siesta Beach as a beach ambassador.
The group was a grassroots initiative to welcome tourists and first-timers at the beach. We had a great group of volunteers about 70, and it worked really well for about 10 years.
The county decided it was such a good idea and decided to take over the management of this group.
It changed the joy and the structure and the camaraderie among the volunteers drastically.
I enjoyed the people that I connected with and volunteered with but the lackluster structure of the politics that governed our grassroots group filled and drained my enthusiasm.
Ater 17 years I retired from the beach ambassadors. I still connect with some of my former volunteers, however now I am looking for another fulfilling opportunity.
I am in my mid-70s and pondering how to fulfill my quality time left, with self care and joyful experiences in mind. My preference is more of a project type with a beginning and end.
In my experience volunteering at my kids’ school, and at church, I found that the “leader” volunteers can be very possessive of their roles, and do not always take kindly to new volunteers, especially if you do not have a domineering personality. They will also favor their friends who volunteer and sometimes treat you as an outsider. This has given me a very negative feeling for volunteering.
I experienced this in my kids school, but not at church.
Thanks for sharing your heart though as I’m at the beginning of starting a new church ministry as Leader & I will heed your words re, not dominating or leaving people out.
It’s something volunteer leaders have to work on all the time I imagine. 💞
I totally agree! Human nature does not disappear in volunteer roles. If your situation feels like a high school “mean girls” situation, be smart and leave!
I’m trying to decide if I can stay on my board in a lesser role(am currently president) or if I should leave. Not sure I could hold to the limits I’d be setting to have a smaller role. Any thoughts??
There must be some reason why you want to downsize your role. Put the parameters of your new role in writing and make a commitment, just to yourself. If you still feel the need to overdo, it is time to leave.