Messing It Up: How Not-For-Profits Sabotage Their Volunteer Programs

In this third e-Volunteerism article in our Sabotage series, the authors turn their focus to those not-for-profit organizations that engage and deploy millions of volunteers globally. They list 10 universal actions that not-for-profits engage in, and argue that these actions make their volunteer programs less effective, reduce volunteer commitment, and ultimately lead to costly mistakes, lost revenue and reduced scope. More importantly, in the context of a major demographic shift, the authors argue that these actions may cause hundreds of thousands of organizations to be faced with a service delivery crisis within a decade. The authors consider practical solutions for moving forward.