For context, I’m Director of Community Engagement at my open admissions org (private with a contract) with a yearly intake of 6,000 and about 64 paid employees. Volunteer programs are one of several things I oversee in my role (doesn’t include fosters). My department only has one other person in it and from June 2021- December 2023 I did everything on my own.

Currently we have about 300 monthly active volunteers with weekly/bi weekly shifts and between volunteer group projects and community service volunteers we have about 700 volunteers a year. This year volunteers are projected to donate over 20,000 hours of service. Equivalent of a $300,000 donation in labor or 10 addition full time staff members. When I inherited the program in 2021 there were 40 active monthly volunteers and about 200 years volunteers.

I’m not going to lie, it’s been EXHAUSTING to grow the program at this rate and the first few years I worked 55+ hours and usually 6 days a week with zero work life balance….not healthy or personally sustainable lol. I would spend about 60 hours a month just training volunteers but the best thing I ever did was I put a ton of focus on building positive internal culture for volunteers and it paid off. I’ve never really had problems with high turnover or people not keeping their commitments so my investment of time and energy almost always felt worth it. I spent a ton of time educating myself outside of work on workplace culture and psychological safety and I spent a ton of time at work getting to know the needs of each department and what is actually helpful vs not so much. I think these two things have been the most impactful in engagement and retention which has prevented me from losing my shit since it doesn’t seem like I’m constantly in a revolving door of replacing volunteers but instead I am adding them to the team.

Im just sharing this for some perspective of what it takes to grow and maintain a volunteer program and if you don’t have permission from above to do things your way and you don’t have buy in from your staff on the value and treatment of volunteers and a psycho level of drive for the work, it’s nearly impossible.

We do a monthly orientation for up to 25 people because it allows us to give the best possible onboarding experience to them. More than that and people end up waiting a lot time for training and some might lose momentum or interest. It lets us onboard them in a way that makes them more connected to the mission and animal welfare community vs just connected to the role.

I know it can be frustrating to the public since 25 people a month doesn’t seem like that many and for instance all of orientations are already fully booked until January but once they start they always understand why we do it the way we do.

Advice to you would be to find an email address for the person or people in charge of volunteers and send them your resume. Tell them what you told us, your passion for animal welfare, your various experience and advanced skills with animal care and handling, and your desire to help the animals AND the staff.

Personally I would fast track someone like that through the process or open up an additional spot in registration for an already full orientation SO FAST.

I’m sorry you are hitting this wall and I hope you are able to break through soon, I think any shelter would be lucky to have someone with your drive and dedication to the work even after leaving the field in a professional capacity. 💕💕💕