Thousands of successful nonprofits are run entirely by volunteers. Most service clubs (Rotary, Lions, Ruritan, Shriners, and so on, as well as PTAs, hospital auxiliaries, “friends of” groups, and neighborhood organizations) have no paid staff. In many rural communities, even the fire department consists of all volunteers. Many of these organizations have run effectively for decades. They are designed by volunteers and designed to be run by volunteers. Other organizations may prefer to have paid staff but cannot afford them, so they, too, run on the energy of volunteers. Finally, there are untold numbers of short‐term projects that are run by volunteers from beginning to end. Examples include building a new playground; organizing a demonstration, a conference, or multiblock sidewalk sale; or organizing local political campaigns. If your group or project is an all‐volunteer endeavor, here are some pointers to help you function smoothly and effectively.

The goal for any organization, but especially one run entirely on unpaid energy, is an environment in which people do what they say they will do and do not take on any more than they can do. In an all‐volunteer organization, the volunteers should think of themselves as unpaid staff. An organization should not tolerate incompetence and lack of follow‐through from a volunteer any more than it would from a paid person.

Like staff, volunteers have lives beyond the organization and should be encouraged to set boundaries around their work with the organization. Suppose you know that Kaysha would make a great treasurer but she says she doesn't have the time. Finally, after you implore her several times, she agrees to take the position. Don't be surprised when Kaysha turns out not to be as good a treasurer as you had expected—and that she truly does not have the time to follow through on the tasks. As part of showing respect for each other's time, it is imperative to create and support an organizational culture that allows people to take on fewer tasks if it also encourages them to finish the tasks they do agree to. Moreover, some people have more open time than others and may be able to take on more work than others. These differences need to be accepted in the group; people with less time to volunteer must not be made to feel that they are not doing enough if they don't put in as much time as those who can devote more hours to the organization. Ironically, one of the best ways to create this type of supportive work environment is to make sure that no one or two people take on most tasks. When you have “uber‐volunteers” who get everything done and accomplish more work than anyone else, this dampens the rest of the group's enthusiasm to pitch in to do the work.

Volunteers should use their own and other people's time respectfully. Meetings should start and end on time. There should be an agenda. A facilitator, the chair of the meeting, or the organization as a whole should agree on how long each agenda item will take and try not to take longer on any item than agreed to. Although there is usually more that can be said on any item and one more way of looking at things, unless the nonprofit is an academic think tank, don't try to explore every possibility.

People should take on particular responsibilities. Someone should be the treasurer, someone should prepare the agenda for meetings, someone should be the chair. Organizations working in a collective model can rotate these responsibilities (which need to be rotated occasionally in any structure). No one in the organization should have to wonder: “Who has the credit card?” or “What's the password to get into the database?”

Think of the people working in your organization as similar to members of a sports team. On a team, everyone has a place and they play their places. Everything is time‐limited, rules are clear, and violations of rules have penalties. At any given time, some players are out on the court or in the field and others are resting on the bench. No one plays all the time, and no one rests all the time. Discuss this team metaphor from time to time in your organization; examine how your organization is most like a team and where it needs to improve.

For an all‐volunteer organization to succeed over time and over generations of new volunteers, it is particularly important to write things down. In decades‐old, successful, all‐volunteer organizations, there are handbooks that discuss almost everything a volunteer might be called on to do. Part of the job of current volunteers is to keep this information up to date. Every event, appeal, campaign, and so on should be evaluated so that next time it can be done better and more easily, even by new people, on the basis of the records kept.

Turnover in all‐volunteer organizations is often high, and knowledge easily gets lost, particularly if there is no central way to store information. If you do a special event, send an appeal, or write a proposal, keep track of everything someone else might want to know about it in order to do that same fundraising task faster and more easily the next time. Any systems used should be documented. Err on the side of keeping track of too much rather than too little information. Imagine a graduate student in 100 years reconstructing your organization from dusty files, real or virtual. Would it be possible? It should be. If yours is an organization that is coming together for a one‐time project, this level of detail is not important. However, if your intent is to exist for several years or indefinitely, you will need to set up Cloud‐based information storage and retrieval systems, including backup systems to prevent data from being corrupted, and central storage sites such as Wiki pages or Google Docs that everyone can access.

Preparing reports and narratives for the use of people who will come after you is the best way to ensure that your organization can continue to function well using volunteers. In fact, developing such a history helps to ensure that your organization can grow.

EFFECTIVE ORIENTATION OF NEW VOLUNTEERS

The two most important elements in creating a culture of accountability are (1) making sure people know, understand, and accept their tasks; and (2) making sure that people who do their work are rewarded with appreciation and with time off, and that those who don't do their work are gently but firmly called to task.

In our experience working with thousands of people over the years, we are confident in saying that most people do most of what they say they are going to do: come to meetings, show up at events, bring food, pick up or deliver people or items, and so on. A few people almost never do anything they say they will do, and all of us fail to meet commitments from time to time, but the organizational lament that board members and volunteers don't do their work fails to note that the reason for such malfunction is often a failure to orient them to the work required and to make sure they have agreed to do it.

We often think of orientation as acquainting someone with the organization itself: going over the case statement, budget, number of meetings, and obligations of being part of the group, along with the projects currently being worked on. Although accurate, this is only half the story. When we end our orientation with the question “Are there any questions?” or “Is everything clear?” our novices nod their heads with more or less enthusiasm. They understand what they've heard; they have no questions. But what we haven't asked is: “Of the tasks we have outlined, which ones could you see yourself doing right away?” or “Of the tasks we have discussed, which ones would you like to have more training on or more time to think about?”

The best way to use new volunteers is to ask them to agree to do something immediately. The tasks they agree to take on have to make sense to them, and the volunteers have to feel that they can accomplish them.

Agreeing in theory that something should be done, and wishing I were the kind of person who would do it, or even thinking that maybe I could do it even though it sounds scary, tedious, complicated, or embarrassing, is not the same as saying, “Yes, I will do it.” People show up for tasks that they are familiar with and know how to do: get on Zoom for a meeting, text instructions to an intern, pick up pizza. Seeking sponsorships from business owners for an event, asking friends to attend a fundraising house party, calling a current donor and asking for another gift—these are not things everyone knows how to do, and although people may be enthusiastic about doing them while at a meeting, they will rapidly lose that enthusiasm once the meeting is over.

The orientation has to include how people are going to be trained to do the tasks and what latitude they have in choosing tasks to focus on. There must be deadlines and goals. In other words, the orientation is run as though it is the beginning of a campaign.

FINDING VOLUNTEERS

Organizations should continually seek to expand the number of volunteer workers. There is so much work to be done that a few initial dedicated volunteers will burn out quickly. You should be drawing new people into the organization all the time so they can help share the work and broaden the organization's thinking and its access to funds.

All‐volunteer organizations are not that different from many grassroots organizations that have one or two paid staff people. In fact, in many grassroots groups there are two kinds of staff: low‐paid and unpaid. In all other grassroots groups there is one kind of staff: unpaid. The work is still valuable, and people's time is still invaluable. Keeping these points in mind will ensure that your organization is able to do the useful and important work it has set out for itself. The following case study examines some of the pitfalls for all‐volunteer groups.