Doing Stuff For Free

I've been in a number of situations where I've had to sit down and really question why people would bother volunteering. The most obvious answer to this is purpose and belief - that is, having a firm belief in the mission of the body that you are volunteering for. Falling back on this and this alone, however, has been the downfall of many university based societies that I've witnessed. Not only do you have to put effort into reminding people of this purpose, but you have to put a lot of legwork into making sure that your volunteers are happy campers.

This, then, begs the question - what keeps a person working hard for no pay?

Certain clichés in American High School film tend to portray students who put significant efforts into extra-curricular activities as being inherently self-serving. Community Involvement in a lot of literature has been portrayed as way to accrue entries on a resumé leading to favourable scholarship or employment opportunities.

Whilst I certainly know a few cases where this is only motive, this isn't the case for a lot of people who volunteer their time for clubs and societies. Far from being involved in such things for tangible gain, my experience has led me to believe that the drive to volunteer or be involved is deeply psychological. Many of people I have come across actually express their desire to volunteer as fulfilling much the same psychological needs that would make a paid employee happy in the framework of a bigger company.

The Aspiring Pragmatist explains in her post (on Wikipedia as representative of a new marketing paradigm) that in order for an individual to feel happy they must feel fulfillment in three distinct psychological needs: autonomy, competency and relatedness. That is, feeling like you're in control, feeling like you're able to do something, and feeling that by doing something you will impress yourself upon other people or the world. 

By natural selection, corporate evolution or just plain common sense, it is somewhat fascinating to note successful management of volunteering bodies have more or less pinpointed these exact three things.

Let us start with the easiest to digest - relatedness. Volunteering bodies and extra-curricular activities by their very nature fulfill this psychological need without too much fuss. Putting time into aiding the disabled, protecting the wildlife or even putting a satellite into the sky not only obviously makes you feel as if you're contributing toward something, but also draws you to others who want to achieve similar things. Careful encouragement of purpose and cause reminds volunteers that they are contributing in a meaningful way to something significant. Organisation of social events and fostering a community culture makes people feel as though they've found a fulfilling group of friends.

Competency comes about with somewhat more effort. On a very straightforward level, simply gaining experience in doing certain things, be they directing foot traffic, or cooking meals en masse for the homeless, will increase your feeling of mastery of certain skills. You inevitably gain more and more expertise in the area that you chose to pursue in your activity. In addition to this, many programs offer the opportunity to gain training in entirely new skills altogether. Tangibly, this manifests itself as a significant entry on your resumé as well as being something that you can simply be proud of - a reason to keep on volunteering.

Autonomy is the hardest facet to actualise, though the arguably the most fulfilling. The ability to feel as though you're in control of a situation is hard enough in and of itself, let alone trying to make someone else feel like that. Achieving this successfully however, (the methods by which is a complex field of psychology which I don't have the expertise to go into) is confidence building, character building and opens you up in a way that few other things can. The feeling of being able to do achieve something significant by your own means and solving a problem with your own mind makes you feel profoundly useful.

Beyond the altruism of volunteering, there are benefits to doing so. It makes you feel good, it lets you gain experience in things outside of your normal life and it connects you to people who are enthusiastic enough to do stuff for free. And take it from someone who knows these kinds of people quite personally - they're awesome. And most of the time, you grow to love the cause you're working for - it can be a fundamentally eye opening experience.

Try it out, give some of your free time to a good thing.