Nonprofits and charities face volunteer shortage

METRO DETROIT — As charities and nonprofits come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, many are finding themselves low on staff and — more crucially — on volunteers.

CARES, or Community Action Resources Empowerment Services, of Farmington Hills is among the nonprofits that have encountered issues due to having fewer volunteers available.

“I think the pandemic was a big problem,” said Business and Volunteer Development Director Marcia Rodeheffer. “A lot of volunteers are newly retired people, so they were especially cautious of COVID. Everybody is still hesitant with COVID cases going back up again, but I think things are starting to get a little better. We need 30 people a day, though, so there’s a big need in our organization alone. … This is causing sort of a perfect storm right now with food prices going up.”

CARES offers services such as a food pantry and advisory resources for people with low income, and it hosts group counseling sessions for a nine-city area, including Farmington Hills, Southfield, Novi and West Bloomfield. Rodeheffer said that her organization is seeing a slight uptick in volunteers recently, but they are still far below what is needed.

She added that part of the problem is that most organizations had to keep everyone away, including their volunteers, for several months at a time during COVID, and it can be difficult to bring people back in.

“Our level of volunteers is just gearing back up because of the pandemic. Up until a month ago, we only had drive-up services. We are short on volunteers, especially at the market,” she said. “The volunteers we have are phenomenal; we just need more.”

“We weren’t even allowing parents in our building during the pandemic, so that became the new normal,” said Boys and Girls Club of Troy CEO Jeff Evans. “We don’t have as many volunteers as before, and since the pandemic, we’ve had some corporations chip in, so things are getting better. A lot of the decrease was because we weren’t allowing people in the building for almost two years, and it just is taking some time to bounce back from that.”

He went on to say that the Boys and Girls Club is seeing more of a problem with staff than volunteers, since the standards for hiring a staff member to work with the kids they serve are much higher than that of a volunteer.

“It’s very competitive in the workforce right now. Even places like fast food are offering $20-an-hour salaries, so it’s getting more competitive,” said Evans.

Other organizations are seeing problems, since much of their previous volunteer pool included high school students who were doing community service projects required to graduate. Most schools suspended those requirements during the pandemic and haven’t reinstituted them since.

“We are having a shortage with our volunteers,” explained Daria Burcar, the volunteer coordinator with the Older Persons’ Commission in Rochester. “We have so many volunteers who didn’t come back. Those we have now are mostly new volunteers than who we had in 2019. We used to rely heavily on high school volunteers, since there were so many who had required volunteer hours, and most schools canceled that because of COVID.”

Organizations who rely on volunteers mostly for single yearly events, such as the Troy Family Daze celebration hosted by the Troy Community Foundation, are waiting to see how long the volunteer pool issues last and whether they will affect their events.

“Events are fluctuating so much in interest level and in how many people want to attend big public events,” said Olivia McLaughlin, the executive director of the Troy Community Foundation. “It’s hard to determine who will be available and who won’t be all the way in September.”

She added that other programs they help support, such as the Senior Home Assistance Repair Program, which provides housing repair assistance for senior citizens, is seeing volunteer issues since they not only require volunteers, but volunteers with a certain skill set.

“Our SHARP program is looking for more people (to volunteer), but that is more difficult since we need skilled volunteers,” McLaughlin said. “Anyone who wants to donate their time right now can definitely find a good niche for themselves, no matter who they are.”

Stacy Averill, the vice president of community giving and public relations at Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan, said the shortage is true of not only individuals but also of large corporate groups who volunteer as a unit.

“We’ve had a few of our larger corporate groups call in to cancel their shifts in the last few weeks,” she said. “Not everyone is canceling, so we are still seeing some people come in. As COVID cases fluctuate, that affects how organizations can continue coming in.”

She agreed that COVID is still the cause of this shortage of workers.

“At this point, COVID is the reason,” Averill said. “We saw this fluctuation last fall when we reopened our volunteer positions in our programs such as distribution events or packing food in the warehouse.”

The shortage is affecting the ability of many organizations to fulfill their goals of helping those most in need.

“We totally operate based on volunteers,” said Rodeheffer. “There are five people on staff (at CARES), and everyone else is a volunteer. They are the backbone of the nonprofit community. Our organization alone services 550 to 600 families per month, so there’s a great need.”