How to Volunteer Without Making Work for Us

Most people who offer to help a small organisation mean it. The trouble is that help has a cost on the receiving end, and the smaller the organisation, the higher that cost is. Somebody has to answer the message, arrange the day, explain the work and stay with the visitor. Done badly, an offer of help is a job we did not have last week.

Lift A Life Foundation is a community based organisation registered with the County Government of Kiambu, working in Ruiru. We are small. This is an honest account of what a volunteer can do that actually lightens the load, and what quietly adds to it.

An hour a week beats a big day once

The one-off gesture is the most common offer and the least useful. A group arrives for a Saturday, paints something, hands out something, takes photographs and leaves. The week before was spent on logistics, and the week after on the things that did not get done because of it.

An hour a week for a year is a different thing entirely. It can be planned around. The person doing it learns the work, so by the third month nobody needs to explain anything. The households we serve get a face they recognise rather than a stranger each time. Regularity is what turns a visitor into a resource.

Small and kept up beats generous and abandoned. A commitment that collapses after two months is worse than one never made, because by then somebody had built a routine around it. Promise less than you think you can manage, then keep it.

Consent and confidentiality apply to you as well

The people we work with are orphans and vulnerable children, older people and persons with disabilities. Every one of them has a right to decide who comes into their home and what is said about them afterwards. That right does not lapse because the visitor is unpaid and well meaning.

Nobody is visited without agreeing to it first. A volunteer does not pick a household and turn up. We ask, the person says yes or no, and no is final.

What you see stays with us. Names, addresses, conditions, family situations and photographs are not yours to share, post or describe to friends, however moving the story. A child's face on a stranger's social media is a harm, not a tribute. If you want to tell people about the work, tell them about the work, not about the people.

This is why we say no to unaccompanied visits to children. It is not a judgement on anyone's character. It is a rule that protects the child, protects the volunteer from any question ever being raised, and protects the organisation that vouched for both. A volunteer who resents the rule is telling us something. A volunteer who is relieved by it is the one we want.

The skills that are genuinely useful

People assume the useful skill is something to do with children or care. Mostly it is not. The work that goes undone in a small CBO is the unglamorous part.

Bookkeeping. We are registered, we renew annually and we file quarterly returns. Somebody who can keep records straight, reconcile receipts and prepare a return without being chased is worth more to us than almost anyone else, and it can be done from a kitchen table.

Transport. A car and a driver for a morning gets an older person to a clinic appointment that has been postponed for months for want of a fare, or a purchase from the market to a house at the end of a bad road.

A trade. A leaking roof over a bed, a door that does not lock, a wire that should not be exposed. Somebody who can fix these things properly, with their own tools, solves a problem the household has been living with rather than talking about.

Simply turning up. Sitting with an older person for twenty minutes a week, noticing that they are thinner or slower than last month, and telling us. This needs no qualification beyond reliability, which is the thing we cannot buy.

The paperwork you should expect

If we ask for nothing before you start, be suspicious. A CBO that lets an unknown adult near vulnerable people without any checks is not protecting anyone.

Expect to give identification and be recorded as a volunteer. Expect to be asked for references, and to be asked about your background where the work involves children. Expect a short written agreement that sets out what you will do, how often, and the confidentiality rule above. Expect an induction before your first visit, and expect to be accompanied until we know you and you know the work.

None of this is bureaucracy for its own sake. It is what lets us tell a family that the person at their door is known to us. We would rather lose the help than the trust.

Ask what is needed before deciding what to give

The most common mistake is to arrive with the gift already chosen. A crate of something, a day of something, an idea for something. Sometimes it fits. Often somebody now has to find a use for it or a polite way to decline it.

The better order is to ask first. What is undone this month? What would one reliable person change? What do you spend your time on that somebody else could do? The answer is usually smaller and duller than the offer, and it is the thing that actually helps.

We do not publish impact numbers yet and we do not run an orphanage. We are a small registered CBO with three activities: care for orphans and vulnerable children, the elderly and persons with disabilities; advocacy; and networking and community building. If you have an hour a week, a skill from the list above, or simply a willingness to be told what is needed, get involved, or write to us and ask.