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Comment by throwaway-Ein0 | Hacker News Reader

Just so you know, this is not specific to the organization you're working with. I've been doing volunteering for the UN, and it was just the same. We were working on a website, and I was the only with any experience with that. The graphical designer was a student, and the "product designer" was a retired bank manager who wanted to try that web thing. That's just the way it is, skilled people are not attracted by volunteering (unless it's FOSS, for some reason).

There's something in it for you, though : not only it will make you feel like you did something significant with your life, but if you manage to get things working despite the shortcoming of this team, you can make it work with any team. That's a skill (especially if you ever want to hire).

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> That's just the way it is, skilled people are not attracted by volunteering (unless it's FOSS, for some reason).

In my experience, volunteering organisations often struggle to deploy people with specialist skills, especially when they're only available for a few hours a week.

I used to volunteer at my local hospital. Maybe I can design advanced circuit boards, program the most complex algorithms straight from academic papers, squat almost twice my bodyweight, and operate a CNC machine like a champ. Well, the hospital didn't need any of that - or if they did, nobody had told the volunteer office about it.

The volunteer office did however know they need someone to stuff letters into envelopes, and a greeter to help disoriented visitors find their way around. So that's what I did.

I can't really blame them - giving some out-of-hours volunteer extensive computer access would have been a very trusting decision. And the volunteering they offered would probably be great for a retired person who started volunteering to expand their social life.

Could you not work a high paying job for a few hours and then pay minimum wage to multiple people to go do the door greeting and envelop stuffing?

That way your higher skill can be utiziled while maximizing the benefit the charity received?

This isn't directed just towards you. I always wondered this about volunteering time vs volunteering money.

Volunteering money doesn't exactly expand social life the op is talking about.

For some social interactions you get from volunteering is why they do it.

I know.

They were just talking about the "efficiency of use of his labor" and I was just trying to point out how to maximize it.

At the high level, my point was: More skilled people volunteer just as much as less skilled people - but you often can't tell because they often end up doing the same work.

> Could you not work a high paying job for a few hours and then pay minimum wage to multiple people to go do the door greeting and envelop stuffing?

Some people do - you can look up "earning to give" for example.

The numbers look great, which makes it popular with utilitarians and spreadsheet-lovers.

Critics feel it smells of the sale of indulgences, and point to the likes of Sam Bankman-Fried using charity to excuse their greed, theft and drug abuse while living like royalty.

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