Paid vs. Volunteer: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:57, 23 June 2008

With a good hiring process, paid staff is always more reliable than volunteers.

Which is better?

Neither, however here are some rules of thumb:

Start by hiring people to do volunteer tasks that no volunteers want to do. Examples: early morning shifts, accounting, dealing with kids, grant writing, volunteering coordinating, cleaning, etc.,...
If you have more than enough volunteers to do a task, you don't need to pay someone to do the job, you need to pay someone to coordinate the volunteers.
As soon as you can afford to hire someone -- do it. Not only are you making sure that the task will get done (because if it doesn't that person might lose their job) you are creating jobs. Not just a job, but an amazing opportunity for someone to make a living doing bicycle advocacy, getting more people on bikes more often.

Jealous Volunteers

So that no one gets jealous, make sure your hiring process gives everyone an equal opportunity and decisions are solely based on qualifications -- not friendships. If conflict of interest may be an issue -- you aren't the one that should be making the decision, find people that aren't bias.

Prioritize Job Tasks

Like a business you have to grow before you can create jobs, often one at a time. Consider AmeriCorps as an option to pay for most and sometimes all of their pay.

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 == Which is better? ==
-Neither, however as soon as you can afford to hire someone -- do it.  Not only are you making sure that the task will get done (because if it doesn't that person might lose their job) you are creating jobs.  Not just a job, but an amazing opportunity for someone to make a living doing bicycle advocacy, getting more people on bikes more often.
+Neither, however here are some rules of thumb:
+# Start by hiring people to do volunteer tasks that no volunteers want to do.  Examples: early morning shifts, accounting, dealing with kids, grant writing, volunteering coordinating, cleaning, etc.,...
+# If you have more than enough volunteers to do a task, you don't need to pay someone to do the job, you need to pay someone to coordinate the volunteers.
+# As soon as you can afford to hire someone -- do it.  Not only are you making sure that the task will get done (because if it doesn't that person might lose their job) you are creating jobs.  Not just a job, but an amazing opportunity for someone to make a living doing bicycle advocacy, getting more people on bikes more often.
 == Jealous Volunteers ==
@@ Line 11: / Line 15: @@
 == Prioritize Job Tasks ==
 Like a business you have to grow before you can create jobs, often one at a time.  Consider [http://www.americorps.org/ AmeriCorps] as an option to pay for most and sometimes all of their pay.
-To prioritize, the first jobs to establish should be the ones that are hardest to get volunteers to do.  This might be early morning shifts, accounting, dealing with kids, grant writing, volunteering coordinating, etc.,...
-Some tasks will always have enough volunteers willing to do them, if you have enough of those tasks, consider hiring a [[volunteer coordinator]].