The Intangible Benefits of Volunteering
Do you do any volunteer work in your community? If you do, why do you do it? There are a lot of great reasons to volunteer. You can meet people and make contacts, support an organization that you love, and build skills that will help you in the future. Those are all tangible benefits that you can measure or see. What about the intangible benefits of volunteering?
Yesterday I helped throw a party at a residential facility for troubled boys. The young men there come from broken homes and sometimes suffer from mental and psychological problems as a result of years of mental, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. I was worried about this event, but felt that I should see what these boys were really like before passing any judgment.
The party started with a couple of rousing games of dodgeball. I introduced myself to my teammates and tried to listen to as many of they boys as I could. They were very talkative. It seemed all they needed was a willing ear to listen, and I was glad to lend one.
After the games of dodgeball, we had some pizza and sat around talking with the boys for about 45 minutes. Once again, I was mostly a listener, but I could see the joy on the boy’s faces that came from just having someone to talk to. Now how does this all translate into any kind of benefit?
It ends up that this volunteer experience gave benefits both to the boys that I was helping and to myself. The boys got someone to talk to and play with for a little while. I received a feeling of psychological satisfaction after having influenced other human beings in a mostly positive way. After I left, I felt like I had done some little good for the world, and I was pleased. Do you volunteer and feel this way? Do you recognize the intangible benefits of volunteer and unpaid work that you do?
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