When volunteering feels like running a startup on zero budget
There is a photo from September 2020 that I still think about a lot. Four people, some distance between us because of Covid rules, standing at the Schwentinental Dorfteich. One of them is me. At that time I was chair of the school support association and deputy chair of the umbrella organisation for clubs and institutions in Schwentinental. The headline was about Corona, but the real story was something else: what it means to carry responsibility in a volunteer role when the whole system around you is shaking.
Back then I said to the journalist: “Corona is throwing us back by years.” That sentence still hurts. And honestly, it’s not just Corona anymore. Today, volunteering feels like running a mission-critical operation without budget, with rising costs, and with a shrinking user base.
Stepping back to stay honest about quality
Fast-forward to today: I’ve just resigned from my last official volunteer role at the board of the Raisdorfer TSV. Not because I stopped caring. Quite the opposite. I stepped down because I couldn’t deliver the quality I expect from myself anymore – not with all the headwinds, changing frameworks, and my professional and family responsibilities.
The environment has become more complex: more rules, more documentation, more expectations, less time. At some point you have to choose between “doing it somehow” and “doing it properly”. I’m not interested in “somehow”. So I made a conscious decision to step back instead of just drifting along.
The same is true for another part of my volunteer journey: after ten years, I handed over the Förderverein der Grundschule am Schwentinepark e.V. in late 2023 to new leadership. My kids have long left that school. It was time for others to bring in their energy, their perspective, their network. Letting go after a decade is not easy. But it’s healthy – for the organisation and for yourself.
Volunteering is not a hobby, it is infrastructure
If you look at a city purely through a business lens, you see schools, roads, hospitals, shops. If you zoom out just a bit, you see the real operating system of a community:
- sports clubs keeping kids active and connected
- school support associations closing gaps where public funding stops
- cultural, social and integration initiatives making sure people don’t just “live” somewhere, but actually belong
None of that works without volunteers. They are the invisible SRE team of society: they keep the system stable, they do incident management when something breaks, and they do it in their free time, often late at night, after a full working day.
In 2020, we saw very clearly what happens if this layer is forced into shutdown mode: no language buddies for refugee kids, no homework support, no senior meet-ups, no events where associations can earn money and meet new members. On paper the city still “functions”. But the human part of it degrades fast.
The cost explosion nobody sees on the balance sheet
Now add rising prices into the equation. For a commercial business, you adjust prices, optimise cost structures or pivot your product. For a volunteer-run association, your levers are much more limited.
Behind the scenes, it often looks like this:
- room rents and energy costs go up, but membership fees can’t simply be doubled
- events become more expensive to run, while visitors are more price-sensitive
- insurance, safety and compliance requirements increase the complexity and risk
- sponsors are more cautious, because their own cost base is under pressure
And then there is the invisible cost driver: complexity. Hygiene concepts, data protection, child protection, security regulations – all correct and important, but they all consume hours. That time is not paid. It’s donated. And the invoice is paid by the same small group of people, again and again.
The brutal reality:
the same faces, over and over
Let’s be honest: volunteering is more important than ever – socially, culturally, and even economically. But the operational reality in many communities looks like this:
- 10–20 people carry the workload for hundreds or thousands of beneficiaries
- the same names appear on every committee, every board, every event planning group
- once someone is in, they stay “forever” because nobody else steps up
I’ve experienced this from the inside for years. Meetings where you look around and think: “Yes, same faces, different agenda.” People who already have a full-time job, a family and other responsibilities, and still pick up one more task, one more project, one more crisis.
If more people stepped into volunteering, the workload per person would drop significantly. The equation is simple:
More volunteers → distributed workload → less burnout → higher quality.
But at the moment, we are often running the opposite operating model: too few people → too many tasks → rising frustration → resignations. That’s not sustainable – not in IT, not in business, and definitely not in Volunteering.
A newsletter, an empty hall and a big question
The trigger for this article was actually a newsletter from my old “Förderverein der Grundschule am Schwentinepark e.V.”. They reported on the 4th Schwentinental volunteering fair. Great concept, really: “Markt der Möglichkeiten”, a marketplace of opportunities for citizens to discover local initiatives, meet associations, find their place.
But when I looked at the photos, the hall felt strangely empty. You could see stands, banners, committed people behind tables – and a lot of air in between. Maybe the pictures don’t show the busiest moments. Maybe the camera angle is just unlucky. But emotionally, the question hit me hard:
Why does nobody want to get involved anymore?
This is not a blame game. People have valid reasons: workload, financial pressure, health, family. But the mismatch is obvious:
- on one side: clubs, initiatives, schools and social projects that desperately need support
- on the other side: a society that loudly talks about “community”, “values” and “purpose” – but often stops at liking a post instead of signing up for a shift
The volunteering fair is, in a way, a mirror of our time: the offers are there, the need is there, the infrastructure is there. What’s missing is the step from “I think this is important” to “I’ll take responsibility for a small piece of it”.
What I learned on that village pond in 2020
Back at the Dorfteich concert in Schwentinental during Covid times, the volunteer office organised a small “thank you” event with a blues duo. Strict hygiene rules, pre-registration, lots of logistics for a relatively small audience. From a KPI perspective, this was absolutely inefficient. From a human perspective, it was priceless.
When 220 people sat there, after months of isolation, and you could feel how much they had missed this sense of togetherness, a few things became crystal clear to me:
- volunteering is not about “nice to have” entertainment
- it is a resilience layer, especially in crises
- it creates social bandwidth when people are under pressure
The same logic that applies to business continuity and cloud architecture applies here: you can’t improvise resilience at the very last minute. You invest in it over years – through relationships, trust and consistent presence.
What needs to change:
from “free extra” to strategic infrastructure
If we want volunteering to survive rising costs and shrinking attention, we have to stop treating it as a “free add-on” to public services and start treating it as strategic infrastructure. That means a different operating model on multiple levels.
We need:
- better financial frameworks
More predictable and less bureaucratic public funding. Multi-year support instead of one-off project grants. Realistic budgets that reflect current prices, not a version of the world from ten years ago. - modern governance and shared leadership
Clear role descriptions, shared responsibilities and real succession planning. Lightweight, but professional. Volunteer boards that don’t depend on one person never taking a holiday. - corporate–community partnerships
Companies that integrate volunteering into their ESG strategy: paid volunteering days, pro-bono consulting for clubs, access to tools and infrastructure. Not just a logo on a flyer. - digital enablement instead of paperwork
Simple, cloud-based tools for membership management, collaboration and communication. Less Excel chaos, more transparency. Less printing, more automation. - appreciation as a standard practice
Saying “thank you” is not a soft skill; it is a retention mechanism. Events, shout-outs, visible recognition – not just for board members, but for everyone who shows up and helps.
Connecting my two worlds:
cloud, leadership and community work
In my “day job”, I spend most of my time talking about Microsoft Cloud, AI and enterprise transformation. In my “other jobs”, for many years I discussed raffle prizes, playground renovations and village festivals. On paper, these worlds couldn’t be more different.
Under the surface, they run on the same fundamentals:
- people who care enough to take responsibility
- systems that need to be reliable, even under pressure
- a constant balancing act between scarce resources and rising expectations
Volunteering has shaped how I think about leadership, stakeholder management and resilience. When you’ve explained a tight budget to parents in a school gym, steering a cloud transformation for enterprise stakeholders suddenly feels very familiar. When you’ve carried a role for ten years and then consciously hand it over, you learn a lot about succession, trust and letting go.
So if you are in a leadership role today – in IT, business or public sector – here’s my challenge:
- map your skills into your local community: finance, legal, communication, IT, governance
- pick one role where you can contribute sustainably, not just once
- treat your volunteer commitments with the same respect as your management calls
Because if we lose this layer of society, no amount of digital innovation will fix the gap.
Call to action: more people, smaller pieces, bigger impact
Volunteering is under pressure from inflation, regulation and distraction. That is the bad news. The good news: the demand for community, support and real human connection has never been higher. The need is there. The organisations are there. The open chairs at the tables are there.
What’s missing are people who say: “I’ll take a small piece of this.” Not forever. Not full-time. Just one role, one task, one project.
If more people engage, each individual doesn’t have to carry so much. The usual suspects can finally step back a bit, new ideas can flow in, and the system becomes more resilient. That’s exactly how we scale in the cloud. And it’s exactly how we should scale our communities.
Stay clever. Stay community-driven. Stay scalable.
Your Mr. Microsoft,
Uwe Zabel
🚀 Curious how modern volunteering and digital leadership can reinforce each other in real life? Follow my journey here on Mr. Microsoft’s thoughts—where cloud, AI, and business strategy converge. Or ping me directly—because building the future works better as a team.
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