How to Handle Volatile Volunteers and Negative Nellies

Volunteerism is what drives our profession in animal welfare. We wouldn’t be able to do 90% of our work without volunteer help! Most of our boards of directors are run by volunteers, along with our cat caretakers and trappers being volunteers, too. Our foster homes are volunteers and fundraisers and shelter workers are primarily volunteers. They can be the life blood of an organization! Sometimes, though, we can get a few volunteers that can really rock your organization. They make it  hard to help the many cats and kittens that need our focus. So what is the best way on How to Handle Volatile Volunteers and Negative Nellies?

Below are some types of volunteers that you need to be on the lookout for. Make sure you try and handle them quickly!

1. “I only like cats person”

Many people volunteer with animals because they “don’t like dealing with people”. You need to be very careful with anyone who says this phrase. They need to realize that volunteering with cats means they are also going to be dealing with people! You will be supervised by a staff member or veteran volunteer and will be working with other volunteers who are going to need your respect. Sit down with this potential volunteer and really have a heart-to-heart before bringing them in on your team. With any volunteer, I would recommend a three month trial period where both parties can evaluate whether or not the volunteer experience is what they want.

2. The back seat driver

This is the person who thinks that they can do other people’s jobs better than they can. This can make people very sensitive and edgy if someone is always complaining about how this is done or that is done… This is often the person who really has a desire to run their own organization and you should encourage them to do to that. However, it is also important to allow everyone volunteer to have an opportunity to contribute suggestions for improvements. It should be done with communication with the supervisor and not with other volunteers, though. Sometimes volunteers can take their complaints to board members and things can get messy, if not handled quickly.

3. I am the only person who can do this job and you don’t respect my work

This is the person who sacrifices everything for the cats, but really doesn’t think about any consequences. This person is a prime candidate to become an overworked foster home, have too many cats in their home and exhibit lots of signs of compassion fatigue. For this person, you need to really counsel them on how to keep their work with cats and their well being in check. At many points in time you may have to step in and tell them that they need to take a break. This person is usually the person who says that “they never take vacations.”. When you hear that, watch out….

What are your experiences with challenging volunteers? Have you seen other categories? Feel free to comment on your experiences at our Facebook Page!

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Have a great week!