Bribery, coercion, blackmail: Inside the horror that is a volunteer committee election.

The Volunteer Diaries, aka ‘How to Not be a B!*# to Volunteers’ is a parody on volunteering in schools and clubs in Australia. 

In this episode, ‘The New President’, ‘Joan’ learns the hard way that it is not a good idea to go to the bathroom when it’s time to elect a new president.

A volunteer committee is an interesting beast. A veritable hodge-podge of community members and over-enthusiastic parents. Let’s face it. Most volunteers are there because their kids asked them to, or because they were sick of getting dirty looks in the Woolies car-park from snooty-Susan next door.

As a result, they’re not exactly buzzing with people vying to fill the top spot. So there can be an overwhelming temptation to fill those executive roles by any means necessary. Newsletter announcements become increasingly desperate, potential candidates are cornered in the carpark, coercion (read: begging and financial bribery) becomes increasingly intense…

The whole process can, frankly, rival something from the Sopranos.

In all seriousness, though, I have never seen a position left unfilled for long. I have seen presidents and treasurers run and re-run because they couldn’t find a replacement willing to step up.

So if you find yourself on a committee in desperate need of a fearless leader, my advice is: hold your nerve. Make a noise about the vacancy, even leave it unfilled for a short while. There will be someone out there who may be intimidated by the role but will eventually step up if there is a real need.

And they’ll be amazing.

A recovering lawyer, Mandy Weidmann is Australia’s ‘Fundraising Whisperer’ – publisher of the Fundraising Directory and author of the Practical Fundraising Handbook for School and Club Volunteers. Mandy believes that parent volunteers shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel all the time and is passionate about providing resources to make fundraising easier (and more fun!). Click here to learn more about school and club fundraising ideas in Australia.