Beyond the Meat: How Micro-Volunteering Can Transform Nonprofit Engagement

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Matt Hugg
April 21, 2025

You’ve never been there before… you walk in… and you feel the eyes on you… like fresh meat for the lions.
Night club? No. Car dealer? No. You’re at a nonprofit’s open house.
You feel a tap on your shoulder. “Want to join our committee?”
“Ahhhhh,” you reply with hesitation and surprise.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun!”
Before you even have a chance to ask what the committee does, you’re dragged off to meet “the committee.” One other person, looking tired and just as puzzled as you are.
Six months later the other two are gone, and you’re “the committee.”
You wake up in a cold sweat! Whew! Just a nightmare.
“There has to be a better way,” you mumble as you go back to sleep.
When you wake up, there’s a new, strange phrase in your mind: micro-volunteering!

What’s micro-volunteering? It’s asking a volunteer to do small tasks that make a meaningful difference.
How’s it different from regular volunteering? It’s a matter of scale.

Organizations that use volunteers have two (among many, yes) problems.

First, their enthusiasm for their mission. While enthusiasm is great and helps get a lot done, the downside is that it creates a “bubble effect,” where the enthusiastic people can’t imagine that everyone isn’t enthusiastic for their mission just like them. If someone expresses even a small interest in their mission, the enthusiastic volunteer or staff member might think they’re all in. They treat them like they are. Newcomers can find it off-putting, even scary. They’re just not ready for the commitment.

The second, often paired with enthusiasm, is—let’s face it—desperation. The important mission needs so many more people helping than they have now. Anyone with a pulse is good enough—and even better if they have any special skills.

The result is asking new volunteers to do more than they bargained for. (Was it really “only one night a week”?) The newbie burns out and leaves—sometimes quietly, sometimes not. You’re left lying in wait for the next newcomer to pounce upon—starting the cycle all over again. No wonder they can feel like “fresh meat.”

Micro-volunteering takes some discipline on the organization’s part, but the payoff is a longer volunteer commitment and everyone happier—staff and volunteers.

It starts with identifying small tasks that make an impact but don’t demand too much. These are volunteer tasks that have a beginning and an end. Their time horizon may only last a few hours, a few days or a few weeks. They can be tasks where a volunteer can adjust their schedule for a short time and not feel too burdened. They’re tasks where you can recognize their accomplishment by saying “thank you” when you both know they’re done.

There are lots of advantages to micro-volunteering for the organization and the volunteer. The volunteer feels like they’re contributing in a way that they can handle. They build connection with the organization. They build confidence and feel successful when the job is done. And maybe the best? They don’t feel like they’re on a perpetual volunteer hamster wheel—so they’re not scared to volunteer again.

What’s the organization get? A task accomplished. A view of the capacity and skills of the volunteer. A building enthusiasm of the volunteer for the mission. Someone who is willing to come back and do more.

Here’s an example. Let’s say that you are taking a youth group on an overnight trip. You have a team of parents joining you.

Micro-volunteer task 1: Collecting the receipts on all trip expenses and creating a spreadsheet of them upon return.
Micro-volunteer task 2: Act as the navigator for your vehicle caravan.
Micro-volunteer task 3: Confirming the hotel accommodations, managing the check-in process and room assignments.
Micro-volunteer task 4: Collecting everyone’s pictures and creating a “photomontage” to share with everyone’s families when they get back.

At the end of the trip, everyone’s micro-volunteering task is done. Everyone feels like they contributed. And most important? Because no one felt burdened, they’ll all volunteer again.

More people than you know care about what your organization does. Why don’t they help? Because they have enough stress in their lives. They don’t want to feel like volunteer meat in front of a hungry nonprofit lion.

It could be time to develop a culture of micro-volunteering.

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 Author: Matt Hugg is president of Nonprofit.Courses, and mentor at the John S. Watson School of Public Service at Thomas Edison State University. He can be reached at [email protected].

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