I had an interesting time on Saturday observing the differences between two volunteer experiences. I have gone several times to do fire restoration work with a local organization after bad wildfires last year. The group organizes the following way: there is a head person (paid staff) and then a set of crew leaders (volunteers who have undergone some training); the crew leaders each lead a small group (5-7) other volunteers who may or may not have any experience with the type of work. Before work starts each small group assembles, has name tags and participates in a little ice-breaking and safety talk. The crew leader observes the first couple of hours of work, making corrections and encouragement as needed, before going whole-hog with the work themselves so that everyone is doing things pretty well. This works very well because the work gets done correctly, people feel like their time is well-spent, etc.
So Saturday I volunteered with the city to clean up flood debris from one of the city-owned open spaces. The city, however, does not normally have to organize dozens of random volunteers to do stuff like this so as expected, it was a little less organized. There were like 3 city employees who were trying to organize, plus people driving front-loaders and ATVs to gather trash piles and put stuff in large dumpsters. There were some supplies provided, such as masks and water, but tools were whatever you brought. Emails suggested stiff rakes and/or shovels. In practice, most brought rakes but would have been better off with a few more shovels (the email suggested some would be provided). In the end we got a lot done and nobody got hurt or anything, but it was pretty interesting to me to see how different but similar kinds of work occurred between a non-profit who is basically dedicated to organizing volunteers for a particular purpose, and a government agency thrust into that role unexpectedly. I don't want this to become some sort of criticism of how the government can't do anything, because if it depended on random volunteers to do the job of the city government, I'm guessing not too many of the breached roads would be open, and a whole lot more than 8 people would have died in the floods. Also, that's a discussion for public policy. But it is an interesting look at what happens when organizations do what they are created for, and I think sometimes it's easy to forget what non-profits often excel at. I've been happy to have given time and money to the restoration group, and there is also good evidence that the fire work we've done over the past year held up well during the floods and possibly prevented worse damage in that area.
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