Volunteering – Is Giving or Gaining?
Posted by nfisherpmi on Dec. 2, 2020 / PMI Dallas articles / Subscribe 0
Volunteering is an act of giving. You are performing a task or providing a service and not getting paid. Often people equate voluntary service with satisfaction. That’s true. But is that all or is there more you gain?
People start volunteering when they have availability of time & resources and when they see a need. You are utilizing your available time, spending it in a useful form. You feel accountable & get pleasantly tired. There is another element – you impart the knowledge acquired over the years, to people/organizations which need it.
Like everyone, I too started this journey, with PMI – Project Management Institute. In the next few paragraphs, I am sharing my perspectives about volunteering.
Evaluator-to-Student
When I took up technical paper evaluator role, I thought it was only about reviewing papers written by people and evaluating them using the knowledge I have. But during the process I had to sometimes study on a subject, to validate or comment on the understanding of the author.
I started seeing different styles of writing and was exposed to various concepts / methodologies / tools applied in projects. I started as an evaluator but ended up learning like a student and came out more knowledgeable than where I started.
Mentor-to-Seeker
Another experience worth quoting is about mentorship. The initial thought process was that by being a mentor, I can spread my project management knowledge to those in need of it and in some way, help them achieve their career goals. But it turned out to be a two-way learning process.
Many times, I had to study and prepare for the meetings, so my thoughts had to be organized, and content well-structured and detailed. I started experiencing the satisfaction you get when you steer the mentee from drifting away from their goals. In the professional world, we experience appraisals and ratings, resulting in job progression or role regression. But these are opportunities where you can give honest and open feedback, and it can make them better at their work place.
In fact, I heard from fellow mentors that they tell about what they can offer and then let the mentee pick them. I discovered that mentorship requires an attitude of not giving up, by both mentor and mentee. Mentoring someone means influencing them and directing them to think differently, making them work on new things and things that are not easy for them, so it takes a lot of perseverance and learning on both sides to make mentoring successful. A good seeker can be a good mentor.
Catchall-to-Purpose Driven
Sometimes volunteer roles get created with generic job descriptions to provide a blanket cover for an ongoing issue. I had an opportunity to get into a role like that. With the inputs provided on the role, I defined a charter and created my own rules and responsibilities.
It was a pleasant experience to transform it into a purpose driven activity. With no boss watching you, no deadlines defined, you are performing at your best, with self-discipline. In the process you network with people, build professional relationships, market products which don’t result in any monetary gain to you and learn about new subjects.
Sometimes you just attend to the call of the duty without worrying about the time and space constraints. You move into involuntary volunteerism. After all, if you like what you are doing, it means you are doing it willingly/voluntarily and what more can be more joyful than that.
You get to experiment new things within boundaries that you set. You set the bar and raise it higher – you become your limit. You participate in events and share your knowledge. As we all know, knowledge is the only thing than will increase with sharing.
You build pure professional relationships where appreciation, performance and feedback are only driven by the purpose. At work, time translates to job progression and your next raise in pay. Here the equation is inexplicable. A deep sense of satisfaction, elevating from voluntary-volunteering towards involuntary-volunteering. You move into this state of unconditional giving where, ‘You’ are your limit of contribution. The learning & experience you gain doing volunteering will again fuel your purpose to volunteer.
As I am getting more involved with the volunteering activities, I am able to get a deeper lens into global community of volunteers and learn more about PMI. Recently I had the opportunity to participate in the PMI Dallas Annual Strategic Planning Meeting and it was heartening to see like minded people sharing their views on “Why Volunteer”. Some of the points that came up there are represented in the balance below. We can clearly see where the Balance is tilting towards - GAINING!
If we really look deeper into volunteerism, it starts as a ‘service’ we want to provide, ‘help’ we want to offer someone, ‘share’ our knowledge with others and culminates in a Share-to-Gain experience. As you are sharing time, you are gaining the satisfaction, as you are sharing knowledge, you are learning more, as you are spending energy you are experiencing happiness.
Do you want to be involved? Discover your opportunity!
Writer: Ramadevi Lanka
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