As a former management professor and Jesuit Scholastic, I spent a great deal of time talking with college students who looked forward to working with a Fortune 500 corporation or starting their own business. One factor that I observed is that it is never a challenge to motivate them to succeed.
Success, having it all, making it to the top—no one needs to tell business students how important these goals are. Ours is a highly achievement-oriented culture. When I hear business students explain that they will do “anything” to make it to “the top,” few people are surprised. Ambition has long been encouraged in our society, perhaps more openly today than in the past. But in a less hectic, time-conscious era, there was a corollary attitude. Volunteering and community service with nonprofit institutions were not just for a few. Volunteer service for your religious faith, a nonprofit charity, military service, or simply supporting a less fortunate neighbor was considered an important part of community life.
But more and more I hear people say, “I am an individual, not a joiner. And why should I volunteer my precious time to a nonprofit?” At the end of a typical workday, many of us struggle to carve out time to rest, to play a golf game, go for a jog, or even to read a book or the newspaper. To many, volunteering has come to mean writing a donation check or dropping a bill in a collection basket during a worship service.
In my management classes, we covered a chapter dealing with the psychology of motivation. But with today’s prevailing attitudes, how could I motivate my students to include volunteering as an essential part of their busy weekly schedules? How could I motivate them to understand that their “CV as human beings” depends on it? That, in the end, their accumulated wealth is not what people will pause to admire if it is engraved on their tombstone.
Why should my students, who often work full-time or part-time jobs to finance their education, do volunteer work for nothing? And why should any of us give up precious time with our own families to help feed a homeless person, assist a refugee, take a child in need to the park, or motivate our neighbors to donate a few dollars to a worthy cause?
Well, to quote a once-popular oatmeal company’s TV commercial, you should because “it’s the right thing to do!” We should because society needs us now more than ever. Those of us fortunate enough to have the financial means, energy, experience and talent have much to offer. Most of us who are reading this article live lives that are comfortable in relative terms. We are privileged to work, eat and sleep in reasonably safe and secure surroundings. So there is real value in using our God-given talents to help those who are less fortunate and in volunteering whenever we can afford the time.
Ours is an increasingly sophisticated society. Because of the information available to us today, the least advantaged are acutely aware of the way the more advantaged live. At the same time, significant disparities remain in access to education, food, healthcare and opportunity. Those disparities can contribute to disappointment and hopelessness within communities. So we do not only assist people in need when we volunteer; we also strengthen our entire society.
If this reasoning does not persuade you to volunteer, any successful businessperson will tell you that through volunteer service, you may also grow personally and professionally. I tried to impress on my students that grades alone do not stand out on a job application. What someone has voluntarily chosen to do with their life does. Employers want a well-integrated person who can enhance the culture of the institution. And for the already overloaded professional, volunteering can provide a healthy counterweight to burnout.
Volunteering with a nonprofit institution lets us change the scene and the ante. It helps us put our hands on concrete problems and take actions that can help in palpable ways. In a culture that deals increasingly with information overload, detectable results are a rare commodity.
Whether it is international or in our own neighborhoods, community service reminds us of the ideals we had when we were very young. The volunteer work we do lets us know that peace, justice and sacrifice are not for sale, and that they are not just words engraved on public buildings. They are real goals, and they are within the reach of anyone who volunteers and thus helps bring them to life. In a world that often measures time in economic terms, volunteering reminds us that some of the most valuable uses of our time cannot be measured in dollars. And for the people and communities touched by that service, the impact can be profound!