Defining the Roles of Volunteers
When we set out to build a model on how to engage citizens in efficient and scalable ways, we attempted to break down all volunteer work into specific roles.
Version 1: Based on volunteer work that we did in the past, we started with the notion that all volunteers can offer 3 things: Time, Money and Network. Based on this we created 7 different profiles of volunteers, with a general direction of growth of a volunteer.
Version 2: However there were clearly flaws in this flow, for a number of reasons. Firstly, because it left gaps for specific roles. The word “Volunteer” in itself was so large that one usually would imagine work only on-ground. In fact, a lot of volunteer work happens purely online, and we needed these profiles to reflect that.
Also, it was problematic to put the Donor at the 4th position of the journey, because a donor could be at any stage of engagement. Next, is a Creator not a Volunteer? Is a Researcher not a volunteer? The answer is “no” in both cases. And finally, the word “Organiser” has heirarchy built into it, and we didn’t want to take that route.
Therefore for all these reasons, we came out with this second version of the Volunteer Archetypes.
