Schrödinger’s profession

”Imagine you’re at a party, and you ask the person next to you what they do, and they reply: “I’m a professional doctor.”

LOL!!!

Here’s the thing…

….No doctor (or lawyer or accountant or architect or civil engineer or a dozen others) would ever qualify their profession as “professional” because it is inherently obvious that they’re a professional.

So why do photographers (and models and musicians and actors and writers and others) do it?”

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Great question!

Why do we do it?

That opening to this article came from a daily email by somebody I follow called Jonathan Stark. He’s not a volunteer management person (he helps business owners), but his email really resonated with me as someone who works in the field.

For as long as I can remember, Volunteer Managers have debated whether we are a profession, whether we are professionals, and what that might actually mean.

We’ve also engaged in debates about amateurs vs. professionals when it comes to the roles and work done by volunteers, exploring definitions and their relevance to what we all do.

Many people have explored these themes through blog and journal articles over the years, including me. Here are just a few of the articles from this blog that I have written on these themes:

• Is our destination clear?
• Unintended consequences
• Three reasons why it’s time to stop talking about amateurs and professionals
• The changing role of Volunteer Engagement Professionals
• Is this the hardest question to answer in volunteer management?
  

During my working life, the language around what we are and do has evolved as well.

Whilst terms vary around the globe, broadly speaking, we have gone from volunteer administrators, to volunteer co-ordinators, to volunteer managers, to volunteer programme managers, to volunteer resources managers, to leaders of volunteer engagement, to the current spirit of the times title of Volunteer Engagement Professionals.

Perhaps we have often gone along with these changes without really thinking them through. I know I have. That’s why Jonathan Stark’s article made me pause for thought — it prompted me to consider why have we now included the word ‘professional’ so explicitly when we talk about our roles?

Is it because we are so tired of arguing for legitimacy, of attaining the mythical seat-at-the-table, that by saying up-front that we are professionals, we think it’ll get us fast tracked to the status we believe we deserve?

If it was for that reason, then I’m not sure if it worked. I’m not aware of anyone who has started calling themselves as a Volunteer Engagement Professional and then magically got included in strategic planning, along with a commensurate pay rise and plaudits from their peers.

In fact, Jonathan Stark’s email suggests that if we have to state up front that we are Volunteer Engagement Professionals, then we actually undermine our desire to be considered a professional.

Instead, he implies that we should strive for it to be inherently obvious to anyone that we are professionals, in the same way that lawyers or accountants or architects or civil engineers are understood by the public to be professionals.

That circles us back to questions I posed almost ten years ago about what we want to gain from being considered professionals:

• Do we want more money?
• Do we want more credibility? If so, who with? HR? CEOs? Boards? Managers? Staff? Volunteers? The public?
• Do we want to be held in higher regard? By whom?
• Do we want to be better understood? By whom?
• Do we want something else? What? Why?
  

Or is it all of the above? Or something else?

These are questions I don’t think we have ever collectively answered, nor have we collectively agreed on how we might achieve some (or all) of these goals.

Is it through credentialing? Or setting entry requirements to join the ‘profession’? Or lobbying for better pay? (which might make us a Union rather than a profession!).

Are these debates themselves unhelpful. Should we just believe and act as if we are professionals? Is that enough? Is that why we started calling ourselves Volunteer Engagement Professionals?

There are no simple answers to these questions. It is a debate as old as our field. And perhaps that’s my point. For almost thirty years, I’ve been involved in these discussions as we strive for some sort of higher status in the organisations and sectors within which we work.

If we are honest, all of this debate, discussion, and writing hasn’t really got us anywhere. Sure, it’s a fun conversation for volunteering nerds like me, but it hasn’t had any tangible impact on our status our the effectiveness of what we do, which is help others to make a difference through giving their time to causes they are passionate about.

Perhaps 2024 is the year we need to retire this whole debate about our professional status, and just focus on doing the best job we possibly can.

Maybe that will get us the status we deserve, whatever that looks like individually and collectively?

Perhaps volunteer management is, to use an analogy from quantum physics, Schrödinger’s profession? We are both a profession and not a profession at the same time. It is only when others observe us in the sense of the outcome and impact we have that one status or the other is bestowed upon us?

What do you think?

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