At deedmob we pay people to take out the trash. And yet we create software to run volunteering platforms, and volunteering is in our blood. Are we hypocrites? Surely we should believe each of us would take their fair turn and 'volunteer' to take out the trash. And yet it is not so, and we used to have trash bins piling over.

At a XR (Extinction Rebellion) community event at an anti-kraak (anti squat) with 50 people, the organizer was struggling to get someone to clean the dishes of the $2.50 dinner everyone had partaken in. Amongst these most fiercely committed climate volunteers and warriors, none were willing to volunteer for a short chore.

Why?

I propose a model of someone "signing up to volunteer" as either feeling sacrificial or non sacrificial.

Sacrificial volunteering is done against ones own incentives and with a sense of duty or sacrifice. It's usually the same people in life who are sacrificial volunteers and sacrificial volunteering has high churn / burn out rate. It's worth noting that there are other sources of burn out, such as emotional guilt and pressure. Different people are would-be sacrificial volunteers for different volunteering activities.

Some volunteers tremendously look forward to the community aspect of a volunteering event. Some, like me just enjoy dancing and community, and therefore I am non-sacrificially volunteering for XR at discobedience on sunday. Iris, a volunteer for deedmob loved making cakes for us. She still does, but other things in her life have made her sufficiently busy that her opportunity cost has risen, and to make us cakes on friday would be sacrificial volunteering for her. If we asked her to come, she would, but it would be sacrificial. Thus the same person doing the same volunteering activity may turn over time from non-sacrificial to sacrificial. Around this point we expect them to churn and stop volunteering.

Returning to the trash. Taking the trash out is sacrificial for all of us when we feel we are already doing more than our fair share. So in our office, unless we have a rotor which everyone feels is entirely fair (difficult, as people would claim varied waste production), taking out the trash is sacrificial. We prefer to pay for things that would be sacrificial volunteering, to make them non sacrificial, now driven by the pursuit of profit.

It is worth noting that taking out the trash is not always sacrificial - some people like cleanliness so much that they would take out the trash for a group office to satisfy their own desires for cleanliness.

Similarly if living with family or a partner, it can be that the individuals non-sacrificially take out the trash out of love and the desire for approval or desire to make the others happy.

It is our job to find non-sacrificial volunteering opportunities for each volunteer. It is also our job to help volunteering coordinators create evergreen non-sacrificial volunteering opportunities, guiding volunteers through a track that keeps them sacrifice-free. This can be incredibly challenging with the wrong structures in place, and innovation around community, flexibility, responsibility and influence are needed across the volunteering sector.