Just like employment, volunteers need position descriptions. We need to have a written outline of the purpose of a volunteer’s role and how it fits in to the big picture of the organisation, and that’s really going to be helpful to you. It’s going to help you know what you need to do, what help you’ll get doing it, and how your role helps the organisation achieve its purpose. It is really important. It helps motivate you and helps you understand the tasks and how they achieve the goal. And I’ll give you an example. 

There may be someone who’s volunteering at a pet shelter but they’re actually not realising that as a volunteer, cleaning the pet cages help save money, which means that two additional animals can actually be saved. And that’s an example of how a volunteering task, as small as it may be, can help an organisation achieve its goals. Just as organisations recruit staff once they’ve worked at what jobs need to be done, they then write up job descriptions in detail, and it provides a blueprint for recruiting, managing, and retaining employees. 

Likewise, similar to a business, no not-for-profit or social enterprise would consider hiring a staff member before they figured out what they wanted that person to do, and of course the same principle applies to volunteers. So there should, ideally, be a job description written for your role, or at least a little bit of an outline or framework so you have an understanding of what you need to do. Having a clear picture of the role you’re going to want to take is essential so that you know what’s expected, and you also know when you’re not going to overstep the mark. Your job description should also explain the skills, abilities, and interests you’ll need in order to perform that volunteer task successfully.