I’m annoyed. Sorry, but honestly I need to just rant for a few minutes. Because I am so sick of being told that volunteer programs need to build resilience.
Oh, I know it sounds reasonable. It sounds proactive and empowering. “Build resilience!” they say. “Plan for uncertainty!” they say. And yes, of course we should do that. Nobody is arguing against being prepared.
But here’s what’s driving me absolutely batty.
We keep talking about resilience as if it’s an internal thing. As if the reason volunteer programs struggle in difficult times is because we haven’t done enough strategic planning, or we haven’t diversified our volunteer base, or we haven’t developed strong enough succession protocols. Fix those things, and boom – resilience!
Except that’s not why programs collapse. Not really.
Think about what actually knocks a volunteer program sideways. It’s not usually that the leader of volunteers forgot to cross-reference their database. It’s that the funding got cut without warning. That the cost of living is making it impossible for people to give their time the way they once did. It’s that a new political administration decided that the cause your organisation exists to serve is somehow controversial now, or wasteful, or ideologically inconvenient. It’s that nobody returns your calls!
These are external forces. And we have almost no control over any of them.
As Neil Mehta posted on LinkedIn recently: when those external forces hit, “resilience becomes reactive. Not strategic.”
Yes. Exactly. THAT!
How on earth are we supposed to be strategic about resilience when we don’t know when the next cut is coming? When we can’t predict which way the political winds are going to blow? When we find out that a major funder has changed its priorities, not through a phone call, but through a three-line email after it’s already happened? Strategy requires some degree of foresight. It requires the ability to see what’s coming and make decisions accordingly. But when you’re being punched by forces entirely outside your control, you’re not building resilience – you’re just trying to stay on your feet long enough to figure out what hit you.
Think about this in terms of my old woodworking shop.
Imagine I’m building a table. I’ve planned it carefully, I have good tools, quality materials, sound joinery techniques. That’s my internal capacity. That’s what I can control.
Now imagine someone keeps walking into my shop and randomly removing clamps while the glue is still drying. Or swapping out my hardwood for particle board. Or deciding halfway through the project that actually, this style of table is no longer acceptable, and I need to start over.
Could I “build resilience” to that? At some point, no amount of skill or preparation compensates for someone else making decisions about your work that you have no input into.
And yet that is exactly what volunteer program leaders are asked to do. They’re handed a resilience checklist and sent on their merry way, as if good internal practice is a shield against external chaos.
The people making these cuts, these political decisions, these funding shifts – they are often the same people who will stand up at a conference and talk about how vital volunteers are to communities. They’ll get a little misty-eyed about the thousands of hours donated each year, the services delivered, the lives changed. And then they’ll sign the memo that eliminates the coordinator position, or redirects the grant funding, or changes the eligibility criteria that your entire program was built around.
And we’re told to be more resilient!
It’s infuriating.
Here’s what I’d actually like to say to the funders, the politicians, and yes, sometimes even the senior leadership within our own organisations:
Resilience is a two-way street. If you want volunteer programs to be resilient, stop being the source of the instability! Consult with program leaders before making cuts. Give real notice when things are changing, not an email a week after the change has been implemented. Invite volunteer managers to the table when decisions are being made that will affect their programs. Provide the program with a stable budget.
We can, absolutely, work on our internal capacity. We should. Strong processes, solid documentation, engaged and well-supported volunteers – yes, all of that matters, and it’s still not enough!
Let’s stop pretending that resilience is something a volunteer program can simply decide to have. Real resilience requires stability at the organisational level, not just at the program level.
Until decision-makers understand that, asking us to “build resilience” is a bit like handing someone a mop to deal with a burst pipe.
Fix the pipe already!
Okay. I’m done now.
