Stop Taking Advantage of Volunteers — And I Don’t Mean People Who Help The Homeless or Who Rescue Animals

This article is NOT about the wonderful individuals who volunteer their time for caring, legitimate nonprofit organizations; or those who feed and help the homeless; whose humanitarian efforts reach countless others; or those remarkable individuals who do so much to rescue and care for animals, etc.

This article IS about selfish individuals and organizations in the business and professional arenas; those parties who take advantage of others to further their careers, projects, productions, etc., without proper compensation; those who attempt and unfortunately too many times succeed in “bribing” naive or desperate individuals into working for free in return for “exposure” or “experience.”

With that clarified, I recently read on LinkedIn an amazing article by Faith Onyemechara, about the importance of respecting volunteers.

It made me think of all the times I volunteered my time to worthy causes, either personally or professionally.

This is really about the latter.

It’s one thing to donate your time to helping to feed or house the homeless, and other such noble causes.