155 – Entitled or Exploited? Part 2 Volunteer Responsibilities AND Rights

March 27, 2025

Episode #155: Entitled or Exploited? Part 2 Volunteer Responsibilities AND Rights

In this episode of Volunteer Nation, host Tobi Johnson dives deep into the ethical and fair treatment of volunteers. She introduces the Volunteer Bill of Rights, outlining ten essential rights every volunteer should have, from being valued and trained to working in a safe environment.

But rights are only part of the equation. Tobi also explores ten key responsibilities volunteers should uphold, such as committing to the organization’s mission and respecting boundaries. This insightful conversation highlights the importance of mutual respect and accountability, aiming to build a positive, inclusive, and productive volunteer culture. Don’t miss this continuation of Part One, where Tobi tackled volunteer bias, and the complexities of the term entitled volunteer.

Volunteer Bias – Episode Highlights

• [00:27] – Entitled or Exploited: Volunteer Bias Recap 
• [04:42] – Volunteer Rights and Responsibilities Overview 
• [09:02] –  10 Fundamental Expectations and Protections Volunteers Should Have 
• [17:49] – Additional Rights Related to Staff Interaction 
• [28:45] – Volunteer Responsibilities: A Two-Way Street

Helpful Links

• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• Volunteer Management Progress Report – The Recruitment Edition 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #154: Entitled or Exploited? Part 1 Volunteer Bias in Organizations 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #101: Tap the Power of Psychological Contracts with Pam Kappelides 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #108: Definition of a Volunteer – Why It Matters to Be Precise 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #129: Paid or Volunteer Role? A Simple Checklist 

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #155 Transcript: Entitled or Exploited? Part 2 – Volunteer Responsibilities AND Rights 

Tobi: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and I am pumped to present part two of entitled or exploited. Last week we talked about entitled or exploited Part One Volunteer Bias and this week I want to talk about entitled or exploited part two Volunteer Responsibilities and rights. 

So, it really is a deep dive into the fair treatment of volunteers, and it was sparked because of some of the things I read in the volunteer management progress report around frustrations by leaders of volunteers in how their leadership and or their coworkers thought about volunteers, supported or didn’t support volunteers, resistance to volunteers. 

Really a culture of not really embracing volunteer talent fully, and I think it’s important that we are clear around what is fair and equitable treatment. I think it’s important that we’re clear about ethical standards for how we work with volunteers, and in part one last week I talked about volunteer bias and the use of the term entitled, volunteer as perhaps a problematic term to be using. 

And I pointed it out as a bias in terms of painting a broad-brush stroke over all volunteers based on maybe some challenging behavior by a few. But I also called into question the term itself. If you remember last week, if you didn’t join us, I’m, I’m going to give you a quick recap, but if you did, you’ll remember that I talked about the two meanings of the word entitled. 

One is, if you’re entitled, you have the right to something. The other is, if you’re entitled, you’re feeling deserving of special treatment that you haven’t earned. Right? When I think of entitled volunteers, I think they’re entitled to. Special treatment because of the sheer value of the gifts they bring our organizations. 

I also explored the two meanings for the word exploited. One could be if you exploit it, if you exploit something or someone, you’re taking advantage of something unfairly. But exploiting can also be utilizing something effectively. And when we were talking about volunteers, I also shared some of the ways that we might be exploiting our volunteers. 

Now, these types of topics aren’t talked about a lot in our field, and I think that I. It’s important for us to bravely bring up the topic. If we are to survive and thrive as a sector, I think volunteers are going to be essential to our sustainability. As a sector that’s trying to make transformation happen in the world, trying to bring about and catalyze transformation, we’re not going to be able to do it without communities. 

It takes a village, especially when there appears to be less funding, but more need that we just can’t do it without our communities. But our communities are also not going to willingly step up and help in environments that just aren’t. Focused on their wellbeing. It just like who would like, who would volunteer for an organization that doesn’t respect them? 

I mean, why would somebody do that when there’s so many organizations and causes to choose from, people just vote with their feet. So, in part one, I question whether we’re exhibiting a kind of bias around our volunteers, and when we say volunteers are entitled, we are often labeling all volunteers based on unproductive behaviors of a few people.  

I also asked, shouldn’t volunteers feel entitled? This week I want to talk about what volunteers should be entitled to and what in turn nonprofits can reasonably expect from their supporters. So, I hope this will continue to add clarity and reduce our need to label people and strengthen our commitment to providing respectful working spaces for community members to contribute time and talent.  

I’m calling this out because it takes some bravery to do it, and not everybody is situated within their organization to call out what they see. But I heard a lot of this. I heard a lot of frustration or didn’t hear it. I read it. In our open-ended comments in our volunteer management progress report, the recruitment edition, I’ll link to it in the show notes, but I read over 1200 open-ended comments around what is your number one biggest challenge? 

And one out of 10 of those respondents didn’t choose volunteer recruitment, didn’t choose volunteer retention. They chose a lack of respect and buy-in as their number one top challenge. And that’s too bad. We should not. Our, our number one challenge as nonprofit staffers or public sector employees that are working in volunteer programs or membership associations that are engaging our professional members, the number one challenge should not be from within our own organization. 

Just shouldn’t be that way. Today I want to talk with clarity and offer some, perhaps maybe a volunteer bill of rights of things that volunteers have a right to. When they come and support our organizations. I also want to share a list of things that volunteers have a responsibility toward. There’s no effective partnership or collaboration. 

None of these types of things have legs. If there is not a mutual commitment and there is not mutual accountability. So, when I say that, shouldn’t volunteers feel entitled? I’m not saying that it’s free for all and that volunteers shouldn’t be accountable. Volunteers and organizations should be held accountable and employees. 

Let’s talk about what that looks like. I’m hoping this will kind of give voice to the ethics around volunteer involvement, but also maybe help you think through where there might be gaps in your organization that you could shore up and celebrate the areas that you’re doing well. So, let’s talk about volunteer rights and responsibilities. 

Successful Teamwork, again, is a two-way street, so we’ve got to think of rights and responsibilities. It’s so interesting when we create volunteer position descriptions, when we create volunteer agreements or waivers or things we want people to sign. There’s always a huge laundry list of responsibilities and very, very infrequently there is a list of rights for our volunteers. So, I think that’s a gap in what we do. If you check out Volunteer Nation episode 101, tap the Power of Psychological Contracts, I talk with my friend Pam Kappelides about what are the promises that volunteers think the organization has made, and what are the promises that org the organizations think volunteers have made. 

It’s a kind of psychological contract, and when it is breached, it makes productivity very difficult. Volunteers tend to walk; they tend to not be as productive as employees. So, when we think about rights and responsibilities, it’s so important to be clear, because the research says that when we don’t believe that the other side is following through on its promises to us, we tend to experience a psychological contract breach. Check out that episode to hear more about what the research says.  

Let’s talk about what are general volunteer rights and think to yourself as we go, which of these could be translated into a bill of rights or, and a code of conduct at your organization and how? Should you ensure that both volunteers and paid employees are supporting these things, right? 

It’s a two-way street, right? So, let’s talk about general volunteer rights. I have 10 fundamental expectations and protections volunteers should have when contributing their time to a nonprofit organization. Now, by no means is this a complete list. There are probably other things you would add to it, and I’d love to know what you would add to it. 

And I’ll probably post on social and ask folks what they might add to the list. So first off, is the right to be valued and respected? So, volunteers should be treated with dignity, respect, and appreciation for their contributions. After all, they could be doing something else with their day. They should not face discrimination, harassment, or unfair treatment, so they shouldn’t be treated as second class citizens at organizations. 

That’s the first one. The second general volunteer, right? It is the right to a clear role and purpose. So, volunteers should receive a clear description of their responsibilities, expectations, and impact. Now, this can be done and written up in a variety of ways. It does not have to be boring, but it does need to be clear. 

They should understand how their work supports the organization’s mission, so we’re not just. Assigning people a task when they show up and not being, giving them clarity about what the meaning is of their work. The third general volunteer right of our rights and responsibilities is the right to training and support. 

When we think about bringing volunteers on board and wanting them to just get to work and be productive, but not providing any training, that’s a recipe for failure. Volunteers should receive appropriate training, resources, and supervision to perform their roles effectively. They should have access to guidance and feedback to help them succeed. 

Now, does this mean micromanagement? No, it does not. And in fact, some volunteers can self-manage, but we need to set them up for success at the beginning and make sure they understand what success looks like and have the tools to bring it to bear. The fourth general volunteer right is. The right to a safe and healthy environment. 

Volunteers should work in a safe, inclusive, and accessible environment. So, we’re talking about psychological safety, we’re talking about physical safety. We want to make sure that people feel safe. Any risks that are related to their work should be clearly communicated. And safety protocols should be. In place. 

Now, of course there’s more risk for, for example, disaster volunteering depending on where they’re helping. But there’s always the risk of, for example, disease transmission when folks are volunteering in person, I. So, everyone has a right to a safe and healthy environment and remembering that that means emotional safety as well. 

So, the right to not suffer microaggressions, right? So, we need to be on the lookout for what feels safe for every single volunteer. The fifth thing of a general volunteer, right? The fifth. My list of 10 is the right to fair and transparent policies. Organizations should provide clear policies on volunteer expectations, performance, conflict resolution and dismissal. 

Dismissal around dismissal. There are causes for immediate dismissal. Volunteers should know what those are. They should also know what the coaching process or the progressive discipline. Process is ahead of time. They should also have a way to voice their own concerns and grievance. So, you need a grievance policy. 

It’s a two-way street, remember? It’s not okay to hide these things away or to not have them and deal with them on a case-by-case basis, because what happens is people are not. Treated in a standard way so they’re not treated fairly. The other thing we want to talk about in number six of general volunteer rights is the right to recognition and appreciation. 

Volunteers should receive recognition for their time and contributions, both formally and informally. Their impact should be celebrated within the organization, also, their work and teamwork with paid staff should be recognized now. The most effective recognition, of course, is the recognition in the way the volunteer would like to be recognized. 

That is a gold standard, but it’s very difficult when you have large groups of volunteers. So, the best people can do is to make sure that each volunteer receives it person to person. Thank you, whether in the form of written thank you notes in the form of attaboys in person. But people need to be seen. For what they’re contributing, and so the people connection is the most important way. 

We need to make sure that every volunteer is seen and heard. The seventh General volunteer right is the right to personal growth and development. When we think about why people volunteer, the first thing they’ll say is, I want to make a difference. But often I think of volunteering on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and that volunteerism is a type of self-actualization. 

It’s a way that people become a better version of themselves. People want to be proud of themselves. Right. They want to do something that they’re proud of, that maybe their family’s proud of, their kids are proud of, their spouse is proud of, but mostly it’s about themselves. During that time as people grow and self-actualize, learning is a key part of that process. 

Evolution in our thinking, our perspectives, our skills. So, volunteers should have the opportunity to develop new skills, build connections, and explore leadership roles if they’re interested. Now, it doesn’t mean everyone’s going to become a volunteer leader, but there are very few in most organizations, less than 5% of vol. 

All volunteers have leadership roles, so there’s plenty of places to grow there. They should also be encouraged to learn and grow through their service in a variety of ways that feel safe. Like it’s okay to make mistakes. We’re going to grow together. The eighth in our list of volunteer rights is the right to set boundaries and volunteers should be able to decline tasks outside the agreed upon role. 

I can’t tell you how many times I hear of volunteers being asked to do one thing and then once they show up or once they start volunteering, then they’re asked to do other things. It’s a bit of bait and switch. We should not be manipulating. Or bringing volunteers on and then pulling the rug out from under their feet about what they expected they would get involved with, or to change the timeframe, the number of hours, et cetera. 

Their time and personal commitments need to be respected. People have busy lives, and so we need to make sure that we are respecting their time. And if people, if, if you need someone to flex their time or change their role, it’s a question, not a demand. So, nine of our list of 10 rights for volunteers. The right to a meaningful experience. 

I just talked about self-actualization, but volunteers should feel that their work makes a difference and often I. It doesn’t matter often what people are doing. It makes a difference in some way, so it’s important for staff to be able to explain that and point that out to volunteers. Licking stamps for a fundraising drive, a mailing is important. 

Because it’s gonna help raise money. And when that money gets raised, it’s going to pay for whatever program or service. And so volunteers need to, you need to help them connect the dots. They don’t always connect the dots. So people, we need to make sure they feel like they’re making a difference. And if they’re not, we need to adjust. 

We they’re doing, they should have opportunities to give input and share ideas for improvement. So meaning. Is also around being able to share their perspective, share what the volunteer experience has meant to them, but also where they think improvements can be made. And then the 10th in the volunteer rights is the right to exit without pressure. 

So volunteers should be able to leave their role at any time without guilt or negative consequences. People have things that happen in their lives. We are human. Our lives are chaotic sometimes, and we need to be able to leave when we need to leave. Now, of course, we want people to commit, and I will talk about volunteer responsibilities in just a minute, so put a pin in that. 

But their reasons for leaving should be respected. It doesn’t matter why they’re leaving. It’s their choice. They are volunteering their time. There are a few additional rights related to the treatment of volunteers by paid employees that I just want to add, I have, let’s see how many I have six of these. I want to share, in addition to sort of the general basic volunteer rights, I want to call these out because this is really where the rubber hits the road around psychological contracts. 

And why people might have a breach. So, let’s talk about this. And these are also things that I hear people complain about that are, that they’re frustrated with in their organizations. So, these six rights helps ensure a healthy, positive working relationship between volunteers and staff. So, the first right is the right to professional and respectful treatment. 

We’ve already discussed this in the top 10 rights, but I want to get into more detail here. So, in this one, volunteers should be treated as valued team members by paid staff with courtesy and professionalism. Now, I know this doesn’t always happen because I’ve had volunteers call me and talk to me about issues, and I’m like, well, I can’t help you. I don’t have any authority over your organization, but to the point of abuse. And so, I know that this happens. We can’t, we can’t pretend that volunteers in every organization are treated well and if they’re not being treated well in our own organizations. 

We need to step up. So they also should not be seen as free labor, but as partners in advancing the mission, like I like to say, volunteers are not a day labor workforce where you drive up your pickup to the big box store and have people jump in the back and you drive off for a day of digging ditches. 

That’s not what volunteerism is at all. It’s about people. Partnering with organizations to do something they really care about. Now, sometimes it’s also about getting some on your resume. Sometimes it’s about getting some course credit. Sometimes it’s about getting some service-learning in that stuff as well. 

And that’s okay. So, the other thing, the second thing of the additional volunteer rights or the right to clear communication and inclusion. So, volunteers should receive relevant information about organizational goals, changes, and decisions that affect their roles. We can’t keep volunteers in the dark, we need to make sure they are kept up to date. 

We shouldn’t be changing things every five minutes and saying, well, you didn’t get the memo. Need to make sure they should feel included in team discussions when appropriate. You know, last week we talked about power sharing. I am a strong believer that volunteers should be represented. The volunteer perspective should be represented in any decision making at the organization that will directly impact them. 

So, it doesn’t mean like all volunteers need to weigh in, but that you have an advisory team or you’re surveying volunteers or some way you’re understanding how this change might impact them. The third additional volunteer right is the right to be free from exploitation. Now, last week I gave some very specific examples of exploitation. 

I want to talk about a couple here. One is, volunteers should not be expected to take on work that would normally be done by paid staff, especially to replace. Employees or to save money that the organization has. So we’re not, we’re not having people work to make money for the organization in programs that make money for the organization, and the organization still has money. 

It’s also, and it is really difficult. I understand in today’s world when budget shortages are a real deal. But volunteers are not interested in taking paid staff jobs, so we must be clear about what the difference is between volunteer and paid work. Their role should compliment, not substitute paid positions, and we need to make this clear to everybody. 

If you’re interested in how I slice and dice paid and volunteer roles, check out the definition of a volunteer, why it matters to be precise, and I also. I can’t remember the name, but I will post it in the show notes. I also did an episode on volunteer or paid staff – what’s the difference? And I will include that as well. 

Stay tuned for that. Just check out the show notes page. I’m writing that down right now because I forgot that I had that fabulous episode. You’re going to get it, so we’ll get that in the show notes for you. Also. The fourth additional right I think is important is the right to report concerns about staff behavior. 

So, volunteers should have a safe and confidential way to report misconduct, harassment, or mistreatment by staff and fellow volunteers for that matter. Again, I’ve had people contact me, you wouldn’t believe, like people leaving voice messages, sending emails about conduct. And they’re like, who can I go to? 

And I’m like, well, the board of the organization, they’re responsible for the entire organization, including the executive director. They can hire and fire the executive director. And they’ll say, well, what if the problem is the board? And I’m like, I’m not an attorney. I don’t know. But you know, you want, rather than having people go outside your organization to find some resource, create systems. 

Where volunteers can share what’s going on in a safe space. So, it’s important for people if there’s misconduct going on, you need to know about it. And I think most volunteers realistically want to do a good job and aren’t going to create a lot of drama. And if, if someone is creating drama that’s. Not really a real drama, then you’ll get to the bottom of it and find out, but they have the right to report their concerns. 

Organizations should take volunteer concerns seriously and address them promptly, not waiting forever to get back to people. All right. My fifth additional right is the right to equal treatment and non-discrimination. This is sort of a no-brainer, but I must tell you, I hear about it and. You know, we’ve had folks on the show who have talked about discrimination in volunteer workplaces where volunteers have felt like they have been treated differently. 

Volunteers should not face favoritism bias or discrimination from paid employees or fellow volunteers for that matter. They should have equal access to opportunities and respect, regardless of their background, regardless of their role. So, there should be no difference in the level of respect between a board member and a rank-and-file volunteer and in a one-day event volunteer. 

The level of respect should be the same. And then the sixth additional right is the right to collaborative work environment. Volunteers and staff should work together as a team with mutual support and shared goals. Staff should be encouraged to appreciate and empower volunteers rather than to see them as competition. 

So, we are here in community development. Business. We’re in the community engagement and community development business. Why would we not want to help develop our volunteers? Why would we not want to share power with our volunteers? Now we must sometimes train folks. We need to make sure they have the right support, but the more you allow people to take on additional duties, the better they get at them. 

But if you hold your cards so closely to your chest and you don’t share anything, your volunteers have zero opportunity to get better, and you have zero opportunity to get out of where you’re stuck and be able to get into places where you can grow. So, we’ve got to start to think about why folks are resistant to volunteers. 

I’ve heard, I heard about this a lot in the open-ended comments. Departments are resistant to taking volunteers or they’re a little passive aggressive. They don’t answer emails or phone calls. You need to get to the bottom of this and, and from the very top of the organization, we need to have volunteers involved even in the executive’s office. 

I hope that’s helpful in thinking about some of the rights of volunteers. After the break, I want to talk about what are the responsibilities of volunteers. Remember, it’s a two-way street, and so yes, volunteers have rights that organizations should respect volunteers, also have responsibilities to the organization too, which they should be accountable. 

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We are back. I just shared my list of volunteer rights. Now let’s chat about volunteer responsibilities and what’s reasonable to expect from our volunteers. 

Volunteer responsibilities, volunteers have rights. They also have responsibilities to ensure a successful partnership with the volunteer organization that they are committing to. Then, I have 10 responsibilities for you today, and these can be applied to most organizations. Some may not apply to you. 

There may be others you feel like should be added to the list. And as I said, with the rights there, this is not by any means a comprehensive list. These are just the top 10 that come to mind for me. But let’s talk about these. So, the first volunteer responsibility is to commit to the organization’s mission to understand and support the nonprofit or public sector organization or membership organization’s goals and values, and to represent the organization positively in the community. This does not always happen if a volunteer is frustrated. Sometimes they act out on social media. And so that’s the time to have conversations about that. 

But that’s not the place. Social media is not the place to work through your challenges and issues with an organization. Why not talk to someone face to face? So that’s an important, I think, expectation of volunteers. Another volunteer responsibility is. To fulfill agreed upon roles and duties. 

So, to carry out assigned tasks responsibly and to the best of their ability and to notify staff if they cannot complete a commitment or need to step down. And I would co, uh, also add to that in a timely way. And if volunteers are committing to a role, sometimes they don’t completely understand the role or they over commit. 

And so, it’s important to give volunteers grace and let them know that that’s okay, but that you need to know ahead of time. Now, this is challenging with some volunteers. So, I think it’s important when you’re talking about responsibilities is to first, make it crystal clear what the responsibilities are. 

Sometimes I think we sign volunteers up for shifts and we assume that they know what’s expected, and then they just ghost us and don’t show up and then disappear forever. We need to talk about the impact of that when people don’t show up and let people know who they’re letting down when they don’t. 

The. Volunteer responsibility is to follow policies and procedures adhering to the organization’s rules, guidelines, and safety protocols, and respecting confidentiality when dealing with sensitive information. Now, if your policies and procedures are hidden in a 250-page manual with lots of legalese, don’t expect volunteers to know how to follow those things. 

Make sure that your policies, the most important ones, are included in your volunteer orientation or in the handbook. And make sure volunteers are committing to reading it, uh, and make sure those policies and procedures are easy to follow in the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab. A few months ago, we did train on how to develop standard operating procedures and what are the most important ones to have at volunteer involving organizations. 

They’re not that difficult to write, but organizations make a lot of mistakes in this. They, they overcomplicate things. They use a lot of legalese. It doesn’t need to be that way. We can make it easy. The fourth volunteer responsibility is maintaining professional conduct. Now, professional, the idea of professional can be it’s subject to so much, it’s just a subjective term, right? 

It’s subject to interpretation by every organization, so you really must really communicate clearly what your organization means by professional. So, treating all staff, other volunteers and service recipients with respect and kindness. I love that. Treating people with kindness. I think you can use words like that in your policies and in the way that you’re explaining expectations. We need more kindness in the world right now, and volunteers are likely to bring their kind self to their volunteering. But you know, it’s important to be specific about what this means when it’s professional. Does professional mean kind? 

Professional doesn’t necessarily mean. Not bringing up issues. Maybe that’s unprofessional not to bring up issues. Professionals might be dressing in a specific way. I’d be careful about that a little bit. I like people to be able to express their unique self, but there are some, in some organizations, there’s specific attire that’s required, whether it’s a uniform or something, or wearing a name tag so that people can identify you easily. 

So, you need to identify for yourself and your, your volunteers. What is professional conduct? Another area of professional conduct is avoiding inappropriate behavior, conflicts of interest or actions that could harm the organization’s reputation. Basically, you don’t want to see do, don’t want to do something that you would see report that you would be. 

Ashamed of if it were reported in the newspaper. Now we’re not in the business of shaming people, but it’s a great litmus test. When I worked for a government agency, a regulatory agency and ran a, a volunteer program, a statewide volunteer program within it, we had issues around because our boss of the agency was an elected official, so we needed to make sure that our volunteers knew what appropriate behavior looked like. 

We also had conflicts of interest. It was an insurance commission, so volunteers could not represent, could not be insurance brokers or work at insurance companies because our department, our program was. Within the Consumer Protection Department. And so, imagine if our volunteers are counseling people on appropriate healthcare coverage options and they are insurance brokers. 

Now, whether they were. Recommending their own products or some plate, some products where they would get a kickback or a commission. Whether or not they did that there’s an appearance, that there could be a conflict of interest. So, we made those types of folks not be volunteers with our program. 

Fifth, a fifth responsibility of volunteers is to communicate effectively. Again, communications are subject to interpretation, so it’s important to be specific here. One is to ask questions if something is unclear. Another is to provide feedback and report any concerns, issues, or barriers to success, and giving people an easy way to do that. 

So, communicating effectively, giving people the benefit of the doubt, treating people with a respectful tone of voice. There’s lots of ways you could talk about that. Another responsibility is respecting time and commitment, so arriving on time and honoring schedules. Shifts or commitments, giving reasonable notice if unable to attend and contin or continue volunteering. 

Again, we’ve got to communicate with volunteers about what is the impact when people don’t show up, what happens? Who doesn’t get helped? I. What doesn’t get done so that volunteers know that there is a consequence if they don’t show up. Number seven of volunteer responsibilities is being open to learning and growth, so participating in training, orientation, and feedback sessions, being willing, willing to develop skills and adapt to new responsibilities when needed. 

Now again. We’re balancing the adapting to new responsibilities with the right to be able to say no to an potential opportunity. So we have to be a little bit careful with that one because it can be exploitative if we’re just switching roles on people willy-nilly. Number eight of volunteer responsibilities is working collaboratively with staff and other volunteers, so fostering a positive team environment by being cooperative and supportive respect for the roles of paid staff and work alongside them as partners. 

This is a two-way street. If paid staff are not working with volunteers as partners, what’s the chance? That volunteers are going to work with staff as partners, not very high. That’s a psychological contract breach, so we’ve got to make sure the standards that we have for volunteers are equitable and to the standards we have for staff. 

Number nine is respecting boundaries and organizational resources. So using the nonprofit resources, supplies, facilities, data, intellectual property responsibly, and maintaining professional boundaries with staff, clients, and fellow volunteers. So it is important we don’t talk enough about professional boundary setting. 

With our volunteers, but it is such an important thing, especially if our volunteers come into contact with sensitive information or they’re doing direct service work. So really important. I think it’s also important we don’t talk a lot about our own intellectual property at our organization. You know, it might be our training resources, it might be our talking points. 

There’s all kinds of things that are, it might be your model, the way you go about your program. It’s not, this stuff is your intellectual property as an organization, and so it’s not up to anybody to give it away. You can decide if you wanna give it away, whoever’s the person in who has that authority, but volunteers don’t have the authority to give your intellectual property away. 

It could be videos. There are all kinds of things that are considered intellectual property. The final 10th and final volunteer responsibility is to promote a safe and inclusive environment, contributing to a culture of respect, inclusion and diversity, reporting, any unsafe conditions, harassment or discrimination. 

We’ve talked about this a few different times through the both the rights and the responsibilities. It’s very important for your volunteers and your paid staff to understand. What does it mean when you say a culture of respect? That, again, is so in open to interpretation. So how are, how do we have an inclusive environment? 

How do we ensure that people feel like they belong and start to create some specific, describe specific behaviors about what you mean in that. Regard, and that’s more helpful for people not to have to guess. So that’s it for my volunteer rights and responsibilities, our two-part series entitled or Exploited. 

I hope it’s been helpful. I’ve really tried to just create clarity around this. We’re, this is not about the blame game. This is about becoming better as a sector, because if we are not able to have productive relationships with our volunteers, it’s quite simple. We simply won’t have people supporting our organizations because when volunteers have one bad experience, the likelihood of them stepping up to another organization is unlikely. 

Now. This is a little bit of volunteer bias on their part, right? A little bit of bias against nonprofit organizations to have one bad experience and paint everybody else as the same. And that’s unfortunate. I don’t like to see that. But it happens. And so, when you think about the volunteer experiences you’re creating and the rights and responsibilities that you are communicating with your volunteers and offering your volunteers. 

You really want to think about yourself as part of the local network of organizations. You are interconnected. Sometimes volunteers volunteer for multiple organizations in your community. Sometimes if they have a bad experience with one organization in your community, then they will never volunteer again in your community. 

So, it, we are dependent on one another. So, it’d be interesting, I think for organizations that are convening. Leaders of volunteers or local volunteer associations or local volunteer centers to think about globally in their community, what are the rights and responsibilities in general that all the people in their communities can expect? 

I think that’s a powerful way to make volunteering very enticing experience for people and for people to know that they’re going to be respected and they’re going to be safe and they’re going to be able to make a difference. Really important. Makes it just much more appealing, a hundred times more appealing. So, with that, I’ll let you go. 

I hope you enjoyed this episode and this two-part series entitled and exploited. I wonder if you liked it. Share it with a friend. If you want to give us a rating or a review, we would love that. We’ve been getting a lot of five-star ratings. I love that. And I hope you’ll join us next week. Same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Take care everybody.