Compassion Fatigue: Part III

Editor’s Note:
The last few weeks, HealthLeader has spotlighted Compassion Fatigue, a form of volunteer burnout. Today, our last in the series, we focus on volunteerism and its fate, a growing concern among volunteer and nonprofit organizations.

Holiday music wafts through the aisles and store displays overflow with the latest must-have stocking stuffers. Even the weather is cooperating. It’s beginning to look a lot like…normal.

For the first time in almost four months, our shopping lists contain only people we personally know. We’ve donated food, time, diapers, books, clothing and money, online and in person, to strangers in need. We pat ourselves on the back for a moment, reflecting on our good deeds and their rewards. Then, we move on down the aisle and our shopping lists. It’s time to turn our full attention to our own. Certainly the shelters have plenty of help.

Which is what worries many community volunteers like Lou Ann McKinney. “We’ve given ourselves a break and now it’s time for a second wind. Our volunteer efforts now need to be focused on helping those still in need, including our own community, through the holidays—the most difficult time.”

But, can we rally again? This is not a homegrown Houston concern. Volunteerism is on a dangerous downturn across the nation. Rising living costs keep older Americans at their desks longer, delaying their philanthropic work. Young, two-income families barely have time to volunteer in their children’s classrooms, much less run a shelter or sit on fund-raising committees.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ignited a rebirth of giving—of both time and money—across the country. But, emergency relief work is self-limiting in nature. Usually, it has an endpoint. Organizations that require the same numbers of troops “on the ground” at all times are losing their volunteer force to the work force.

Rally Call

A second wind. That’s a big ticket item, considering how stretched and strapped Houston feels right now. “No doubt, we are tired, tapped out and not even sure where to focus our charitable energies,” says McKinney, who, along with her husband Dr. Michael McKinney, vice president and chief executive officer of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, helped organize the UT- led George R. Brown medical unit and shelter during the hurricanes. “But, the holidays are upon us and a new brand of desperation is setting in.”

A long-time community volunteer, McKinney currently is active in other hurricane relief spin-off endeavors. As a member of the board of the Memorial Hermann Hospital System Volunteer Program, McKinney continues her efforts by giving out gas and gift cards to hurricane evacuees who are patients in the UT clinics, “just a little something they don’t have to stand in line and apply for—for a change,” she laughs.

For volunteerism to survive in the face of diminished “human” resources and back-to-back disasters, we must come up with creative and inspirational ways to reach out that don’t tap us dry.

One Cool Baby Shower

Native Houstonian Karen Freedman is no stranger to 40-hour-plus work weeks as a volunteer in several community-based and national organizations. When she heard through the Jewish Federation e-mail grapevine that one of the stranded families in the Astrodome included an employee of the New Orleans branch of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), Freedman, along with several Houston families formed a human chain of help to “adopt” this family of six.

And one of the family members was due to have her first child in a few weeks. Over lunch one day, Freedman and friends decided to throw “Precious” a baby shower. “It was such an easy, fun and poignant way for lots of people to give a little bit—yet make a huge difference in someone’s life, “says Freedman, who has served as president of the local chapter and as a national board member of NCJW.

Freedman drafted an electronic invitation to her friends and encouraged them to bring new friends. “The shower allowed those who had not been able to take part in the relief effort to hear her story, firsthand,” Freedman says, “restore a measure of dignity and see the difference a gift from the heart makes, up close and personal.”

Freedman estimates that, all totaled, about $2,500 in items and gift cards “made their way to Precious and the new baby. It was a celebration of life. Every woman there related to this family on some fundamental level. All of us, or our ancestors, came from somewhere, other than here, and someone helped us.”

Endangered Species

Freedman fears, as does McKinney that the volunteer force is shrinking –or retreating—at a breakneck pace, right when this nation is most in need. “There are fewer people stepping up to time-consuming leadership roles, fewer people to pass down the training to even fewer people willing to work the front lines,” Freedman says.

The trend now in non-profit organizations is to hire paid staff to oversee operations that, until the last 10 years, were staffed by volunteers. “People are willing to give money not to take on these jobs,” Freedman says. And though these paid staff members are sorely needed, “we don’t always get the same heartfelt commitment from someone receiving a paycheck for this work.”

Volunteer and nonprofit groups will have to redesign the architecture of the organizations if they hope to survive, Freedman surmises. “The standard organization chart doesn’t work anymore. No one has time to chair or preside over an elective responsibility, in addition to their professional duties. So, we are losing a knowledge base and those to whom we can pass it down.”

The “shape” of our donated time has indeed changed, already. “Volunteer time is given differently now than it was 15 years ago,” says Amelia Ribnick Kleiman, president of ARK Consulting, a philanthropic consulting firm for organizations, corporations, individuals and families. “Because of career and time constraints, people now give by the ‘project’ rather than the group.”

Not-for-profit organizations have found it increasingly tough to find committed members to serve on boards for other reasons besides time pinches. Kleiman spends more time helping organizations with board development and recruitment—an unnecessary exercise a decade ago. “The fallout from some of the corporate corruption scandals that have topped the news make people more reticent to tie their names and companies to organizations,” Kleiman says. A greater level of fiduciary responsibility and accountability exists for all organizations now, and volunteer members are much more selective.”

Trickle-Down Theory

The ultimate payback for carving out a piece of your life in the service of others is being “part of the recycling of humanity. Watching it trickle down the family tree—working side by side with your son to deliver a mattress, or with your parents, because when you’re raised giving back, you know no difference.” Freedman says.

 One of the ways Kleiman’s firm helps families fortunate enough to give back monetarily to their communities is to develop “intergenerational philanthropic mission statements.” Concerned about the changing face of philanthropy, Kleiman believes it to be a moral imperative of the younger generations to continue what their elder relatives began and to model that generosity for generations to come. “It is critical that we allow our value to live on by the work we do for others. It is our most precious legacy.”

“We have to grow our next generation of volunteers,” McKinney says. “And though the schools and faith-based groups are doing a wonderful job, we must model it in the home, first, for it to grab hold of them,” McKinney says.

On Company Time

Volunteering becomes much easier when one’s work life supports it and when the nature of the work is altruistic. “We are a teaching institution for the care-giving arts,” says Elease Jenkins, volunteer coordinator for UT Volunteers. "Our faculty, staff and students work in the service of others, by choice. So, what amazes me, is that they are still willing to give of their Saturdays, their weekends to volunteer the very services they perform professionally during the week. We go where we are needed because that simply is the culture of our institution.”

Volunteerism as we know it may change. Projects may take the place of committees; online donations may take the place of a check. Why we do it, however, remains constant.

“Time is precious,” says McKinney. “We prioritize our lives, based on what is essential to us as human beings. So, what is essential? Easy: other human beings.”

UPDATED: 12-13-2005

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