The Limits of Volunteerism

Most communities have a corps of volunteers who keep the wheels of local government moving or serve some noble cause for the destitute or forgotten. Efforts to enable innovative and new strategies like relocalization largely rely on these volunteers as there is no systemic call yet to compensate them. But until the various tasks and elements of relocalization can carve an economic niche and allow those who work to advance these concepts, I argue that this these efforts will not have the momentum and achieve the timely advances necessary to effectuate sufficient cultural change.

How have I come to this conclusion? I have observed through my involvement with several area Locals that for some, action was being hindered by available time. Most members had day jobs which absorbed most of their time and energy. Since it is becoming rarer to expect a 40 hour week where you can forget the office at 5:00 p.m., these people were working 50-60 hour weeks regularly. To have even nominal time and/or energy for volunteerism after this grind is indeed noble. Add to this the fact that these volunteers are split between at least two and more likely three or more volunteer gigs, you can deduce that it is difficult to set meeting dates and that it is hard to dedicate much time to projects or tasks.

Thus, as with any worthy cause, the only way to extend the impact that volunteers are making today is to create economic opportunities within the area of relocalization to allow those who are interested to work on these issues on a full-time basis. There might be some resistance to this idea, particularly where a relocalization effort is grounded in a grass roots, non-profit entity and any suggestion to derive a profit from some of these activities may sound crass and mercenary.

While I sympathize with these concerns, I believe it necessary to develop a suitable model within the range of relocalization efforts to legitimize a reasonable profit-driven sector that allows more energy and innovation to occur in support of the goals and ideals of this movement. I leave it to further discussion to recommend how this should be done but as a starting point, perhaps some guidelines could include a provision that any profit could not be sought or derived from one's own community or neighborhood, depending on the level of the relocalization effort. This dichotomy could provide the separation necessary to maintain an ethical volunteerist niche while seeking sustenance (and derived knowledge for the volunteer group) in the process.

Finally, I would recommend that the relocalization community further develop the network of ideas, products, and services and where coordination and collaboration can be encouraged and enabled. This is another means to reduce the need to reinvent the wheel and make volunteer efforts more efficient. It can also bring people with similar ideas together which can enable partnerships and other collaborative projects to flourish.