Musings from George

Hey-

I’m thrilled to get the chance to play around with the wordpress tool; so totally cool that one guy (okay, mostly one guy) can build something that enables so many people to share ideas and thoughts without spending a lot of money or learning some arcane tool. Matt, you rock.

Thoughts for the day: so few people do so much of the good works in our society. I’ve heard the rule of thumb that 5% of the people do 95% of the volunteer work in the US, and I don’t believe that the skew is that bad. But it is d_mn close, and I puzzle over ‘why?’

I created a two-by-two matrix (yeah, one of those degrees is an MBA) with commitment on the Y-axis — how long, how hard, recurring vs. one-time — and connection on the X-axis — do you meet & touch people, or can you do it alone in your spare time in a conference room somewhere. I have been surprised to find that there are personality types that live in each of the four quadrants, and to realize that I live in the upper-right — high commitment, high connection. Twice in my life I have helped to start / found water polo teams (a women’s college team, a girls’ high school team), and those have been my most rewarding volunteer activities.

Curious to hear if others have a greate explanation for what motivates people to volunteer, or if there are other frameworks that explain why some people write a $10 check to the Cancer Society once a year and others go weekly to help feed the homeless.

George