Several years ago, I was working with a group of volunteers who were sorting donations of fresh and perishable foods. I remember emphasizing that if they were unsure of the quality, they should throw it out because making sure that no one got sick from this food was of the utmost importance. One volunteer nodded and said, “That’s true, because if they get sick then they’ll want us to pay for their medical bills too!”
I was shocked to hear this comment from someone who was volunteering to fight hunger.
It was hard to believe that an individual motivated to do this work could also be so cynical and unkind to the people they were there to help.
One of the major challenges that all food banks and pantries face is working with volunteers. Because nonprofits tend to depend on donated labor to keep staffing costs low, volunteers are essential for accomplishing our social justice goals. However, volunteers come with an incredibly wide range of motivations which can present unique obstacles for the organizations with which they serve.
Volunteering is widely recognized to be good for our physical and mental health, provides important social opportunities, and gives everyone a way to make a meaningful contribution to the world around them. However, this also means that nonprofits are faced wrangling a diverse and eclectic population to meet their goals.
The most effective food pantries have volunteers with a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of hunger, respect for the realities of living in poverty, and trust the mission of their chosen organization to make an impact. (A future post will explore the importance of volunteers with lived experience of hunger.) Here are some of the strategies I use to ensure my volunteers have the skills, confidence, and knowledge they need to be powerful food justice advocates.
Building a Powerful, Anti-Hunger Volunteer Force
1. Present a Unified Message
Every anti-hunger organization needs to be articulate about their mission and goals, which should clearly align with the assignments of volunteers. Are you trying to end hunger? Give your clients all the food they need to thrive? Ensure all the children in your neighborhood have a healthy dinner tonight? This message needs to come from the organization’s leadership, have buy-in from staff, and be regularly explained and reviewed with volunteers.
2. Repetition
Many of your volunteers might not agree with your message. They may believe that people experience hunger because they’re lazy. They may volunteer because they want to spend time with their friends. They may be committed to reducing food waste to be more environmentally friendly. Whatever reason brings them to your food pantry, you will have to explain and model your mission a thousand times every day. Although tedious and emotionally fatiguing, this repetition will help your team understand and eventually internalize your message.
3. Address Power Dynamics
It is essential to be aware that even in the most respectful food pantry, there is an imbalance of power. People seeking assistance are expected to adhere to rules, and volunteers are generally there to enforce them. They have the authority to supply or deny an individual the food they’re looking for, and this authority must not be abused.
As this famous 1973 Stanford experiment taught us, people adopt attitudes that reflect the position they’re in. As the prison guards became more abusive of their authority, it’s easy for volunteers to also inappropriately focus on enforcing rules.
I have two solutions to this problem:
A. Implement as few rules as possible, so that there are fewer opportunities for violation or enforcement. For example, our clients have no predetermined path that they must travel through our pantry, and they can take as much as they like of many items.
B. Explicitly discuss the power imbalance and the specific language we expect from volunteers to minimize it. For example, if a volunteer sees a client taking more of something than the posted limit, their script is, “we ask that everyone only take (#) of this item. I know it’s not enough, but we’re trying to ensure that everyone gets some. We’re sorry about that.” We always interrupt the use of phrases like a client trying to “take too much” or “steal food,” and instead discuss the potential challenges of accessing the food they need. (We also tell our volunteers that if they find themselves getting too caught up in monitoring our clients, they are to excuse themselves to the breakroom for some candy.)
4. Model Respect
Like any organization, we occasionally serve individuals who are annoying, frustrating, or aggravating. But no matter how challenging I find them to be, it is essential that volunteers only hear staff speak of and treat these clients with respect and dignity. We also discuss the factors that may influence the behavior of our clients such as stress, embarrassment, mental health, or trauma.
When I first started working with my food pantry, there were two clients in particular who were known to be difficult. Every visit was an event that took an enormous amount of maintenance to be successful. Eventually, it became clear that previous volunteers had been rude and disrespectful to these individuals so they anticipated conflict every time they came to use our services. By establishing an environment that prioritized respect where they knew they would be treated with kindness, the challenges with these clients largely vanished. Your community will respond to the attitudes of your volunteers, who look to pantry leadership for guidance. When respect is expected at every level, everyone has a better experience.
No matter what your specific mission is, every organization has the capacity to harness their volunteers to be food justice advocates. This is a slow process that depends on the environment you create and the organizational culture you celebrate. Eventually, these attitudes and tools will produce volunteers who find greater fulfillment from their service, higher client satisfaction, and an organization less prone to conflict or abuse.
The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.
Want to learn more about food justice? Subscribe so you never miss a post!
Reintroducing justice and dignity to the fight to end hunger 
2 thoughts on “The Best Volunteers are Taught, Not Found”