"It's like a job. You have goals. You see results" -Yuriy, Experience Corps Member

By Kelly Green
The Wall Street Journal
April 24, 2006

Rita Vance retired three years ago, at age 58, to devote herself full time to volunteering after winning a battle against breast cancer.

With 30 years' experience in social work at nonprofits and government agencies, she relished the idea of sidestepping the meetings involved in such settings and spending all her time with people in need.

Instead, her first foray into volunteering found her sitting through meetings at a group focused on aging in Ashland, Ore. -- and dishing up cafeteria-style meals at a senior center.

"They just needed a body to do that job," Ms. Vance says, "and they weren't really interested in what else I could do."

With retirements beginning to stretch routinely into two -- or even three -- decades, many older Americans are assuming that volunteering will become a natural and fulfilling part of their post-work lives. That belief, though, is about as far as most people get in their planning. As a result, many retirees like Ms. Vance wind up in volunteer positions that turn out to be dead ends. Sometimes, the tasks that retirees raise their hands for don't fit their skills, or the position just isn't what the person expected.

"If you want [volunteering] to be a significant part of your life, then it's likely going to take some work to figure out the right fit," says John Gomperts, chief executive of Experience Corps, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that pays 1,800 older adults small stipends to tutor schoolchildren in 14 cities. "Sometimes you take a very bumpy road to a very beautiful place. So it may be with finding just the right opportunity to engage in volunteer activities."

The hard work could pay off in more ways than you think. A two-year study of 128 volunteers between the ages of 60 and 86, who were working with children in Baltimore schools, found that the volunteers -- when compared with a control group -- were in better health, burned more calories each week, watched less TV and reported having more people in their social networks.

There also are more opportunities to choose from. The steady increase in two-worker families means that nonprofit groups have lost much of their volunteer base and, thus, are scrambling to recruit help. Hands On Network, a volunteer clearinghouse based in Atlanta that serves more than 50 communities, is trying to increase volunteerism by 10% over two years, says Michelle Nunn, the group's chief executive. The group is counting on a new partnership with AARP, the membership group for older Americans, to help meet that target, mainly by recruiting retirees to help direct projects and reel in other volunteers.

So how can you find the right setting in the shortest amount of time? We put that question to retirement consultants, nonprofit executives and retirees who have found a good fit in volunteering, often through trial and error. Here's their advice:

IDENTIFY WHAT INSPIRES YOU

It might sound obvious, but almost every person we spoke with urged would-be volunteers to take the same first step: Identify a cause -- a mission -- that inspires you. Again, that might seem evident, but it requires time and reflection, and few people make the effort.

"It's an ethical, spiritual question," says Mary Westropp, who handles volunteer placement for New Directions Inc., a Boston consulting firm that works with executives who take early-retirement packages. "What really matters to you? Is it housing and homelessness? Human rights? Education?"

Ms. Westropp has found that many of her clients already have personal interests they can incorporate into volunteer work. That's not surprising, given older adults' experiences and aspirations. "We aren't talking about people in their 20s," she says. "These folks have lived a certain portion of their lives and want to feel satisfied that they've done their part to make this a better world."

Leslie Berry, a 65-year-old retiree in suburban Atlanta, spent a good part of her adult life overseas, raising four sons in six countries over 13 years. Some of that time was spent volunteering in local libraries and museums. "They were so quiet and orderly, and our life was so chaotic," she says.

After returning to the U.S. and settling in Georgia, Ms. Berry eventually found herself yearning, she says, to relive the experiences she had enjoyed in Thailand and Kenya, learning about local art. Three years ago, she discovered that Atlanta's celebrated High Museum of Art was seeking docents, just at the moment when she was reducing her hours working at a party-supply store. She applied, landed a position, and started nine months of training. Today, she spends two days a week at the High, taking classes from curators and leading fourth- and fifth-graders on tours of the museum.

A recent Monday morning found Ms. Berry and other volunteers consulting with a curator amid the museum's newly expanded folk-art collection. She is searching for ways to teach students about creating art from so-called found objects, a lesson they can use in their school projects.

Ms. Berry worried at first that her lack of art-history education would be a problem. But what's more important, she says, is that "you have to be deeply into art to do this."

DON'T BE AFRAID TO START AT THE BOTTOM

As in the business world, people who volunteer sometimes start with an entry-level position. Don't let that deter you.

Ms. Vance, in Oregon, wanted to volunteer at the library to select and deliver books to homebound readers. "But when I first went in to approach the library, they didn't really need people to do that," she says. "They wanted me to come in and help with orientations, setting up coffee." She took the job -- and eventually worked her way into the role she wanted. Now, she works with five people, often searching for large-print books from her home computer.

"Sometimes you aren't going to get the dream volunteer job," says Jeri Sedlar, a retirement-transition counselor in New York. "But it's the same mentality you use in a career -- like starting as a gofer at a publishing company to move up the ranks. Sometimes you have to think, 'I'll do the punch and cookies, but I'll let everyone know that my goal is this.' "

And, as when you were exploring careers, internships can help you vet opportunities -- and get a foot in the door, says Marc Freedman, president of Civic Ventures, a San Francisco nonprofit that promotes civic engagement among older people. "Maybe," he says, "you can develop your own internship where you rotate through two to three nonprofits that seem appealing, where you can try different roles and structures. You could even do it while you're still working by using vacation time."

KNOW WHEN TO MAKE A CHANGE

Some people may find it's more rewarding to try something completely different from their former day jobs when volunteering. Others, however, may be better off sticking with what they know.

Hazel Hutcheson, 71, is a former clinical nurse specialist who now volunteers with Ms. Berry and others as a docent at the High Museum. Before retiring seven years ago, Ms. Hutcheson had specialized in pain relief, working primarily with patients after surgery. The job, she says, was stressful but "very satisfying."

The same, though, couldn't be said for the volunteer roles she was offered in nursing: checking blood pressure, drawing blood for lab tests, and giving immunizations. Such tasks, she says, are "important to patient care -- but I didn't find them challenging." Instead, she sought a new challenge working in a different field with a different age group: children.

But Bob Williams found that using skills and knowledge from earlier jobs allowed him to settle into a volunteer role more easily and be more effective.

Mr. Williams, who retired as an investment banker at State Street Corp. in Boston a few years ago, joined YMCA Training Inc., a New Directions volunteer project where its clients help immigrants and low-income adults find jobs. At State Street Corp., Mr. Williams had spent much of his "mental energy looking for local people we could train to operate in a global market, but run our business in their own country," he says. "Now I'm doing the same thing. I'm finding really capable immigrants who never bothered to put down on their r�sum� that they ran a restaurant in their home country. Somehow they get it in their minds that their experience back home doesn't matter here."

IT'S ALL RIGHT TO BE SELFISH...

Of course, you want to do something meaningful as a volunteer, and that's reward enough. Or at least it's supposed to be. But the biggest incentive for many volunteers is what they get from the work -- whether it's freebies from, say, the local theater group, or pats on the back from a nonprofit's leadership, or the simple satisfaction that comes from meeting and making friends with other volunteers.

"People tend to focus very heavily on the idealism of this phase of giving back," says Mr. Freedman at Civic Ventures, who has participated in focus groups with volunteers who have recently retired. "But when you talk to people who are involved [as volunteers], they say there are more immediate aspects that appeal to them. The relationships and a sense of purpose are just as important as some of the more lofty ideals in getting a satisfying experience."

Rich Yurman, in his work as a volunteer in San Francisco, gets to feed his desire to be a grandparent and compose poetry. For eight years, the 68-year-old writer and retired teacher has tutored schoolchildren, mostly Asian immigrants, through Experience Corps. He turned to the organization after several years of working with a counseling group for abusive men and hearing how many had been abused as children. Plus, "I hit age 60, and this sudden surge of wanting to be a grandparent came out of who-knew-where," he says. "I have children who are not going to have children."

This year, Mr. Yurman is working one-on-one with a third-grader whom he calls an "amazingly intense" poet. She jots down ideas to write about in a little notebook he persuaded her to carry around. Among her material: notes from her family's gambling trips to Reno, Nev. One day a week, the young girl and Mr. Yurman get out the notebook, "she picks out a topic, and we both write about it," he says. "It's just grand."

...AND TO PROTECT YOUR TIME

Just because you have more free time in retirement, you don't -- and shouldn't -- have to waste it.

"As I dedicate hours a week to doing [volunteer] work, I don't want the organization to take [unfair] advantage of that offer of time," says Mr. Williams, the retired investment banker. "The thing you find out when you retire is that you think you're going to have an awful lot of time, but you don't. It's a precious commodity."

When Mr. Williams, 57, decided to retire a few years ago, he wanted to make his family -- particularly his wife -- his top priority, since his career often had come first. Volunteering and a Chinese investment venture came second and third.

But even with that planning, Mr. Williams says, it's been hard to keep control of his time. For example, he learned to fly while working in Australia years ago and has a pilot's license. But after retiring, "I gave up flying for about a year and a half because I didn't have the time."

After two years, Mr. Williams says he finally feels like he's starting to find a good balance between volunteering and personal time. He dedicates two or three hours on most Mondays to the job-training project. And he spends the equivalent of a day and a half each week working on fund-raising and planning projects as a board member for Angel Flight New England. While working, he volunteered as a pilot for the nonprofit group, flying families needing sophisticated medical treatment from small-town airfields to big-city hospitals.

"I was surprised at how hard it was to get yourself organized and make it all work," he says. "By saying no sometimes, it seems I'll be able to do all three things at a level where I'm comfortable."

LOOK FOR GOOD TRAINING

Nonprofit groups and social-service agencies aren't all structured alike. A library, for instance, may have a few volunteers to shelve books, without being set up to offer frequent orientation, training, field trips and lectures solely for its volunteers.

In contrast, groups organized to train and put volunteers to work tend to offer more educational opportunities, chances to mingle with fellow recruits and greater recognition -- all of which may take on increasing importance in volunteer work that replaces a career.

Mr. Yurman, for instance, was drawn to Experience Corps by its speedy response to his inquiry about volunteer opportunities. He met with an Experience Corps coordinator for an hour and quickly discovered that he and the organization were "on the same page on how to deal with kids." He was hired and fingerprinted, and did several one-hour training sessions. "Within a couple of weeks, I was introduced to my first kid," he says.

Most important, Experience Corps offers continuing training and promotes interaction among its volunteers. "We go through exercises," Mr. Yurman says, "and you find out there are people doing this who have lived amazing, diverse lives."

HIRE YOURSELF IF NECESSARY

If you can't find a volunteer activity or position that interests you, create your own.

Steve Weiner, a 66-year-old retired university administrator in Piedmont, Calif., spent the first six years of retirement, starting in 1996, as "trial and all errors -- nothing painful, but just paths that I went down that I didn't want to stick with," he says. He volunteered as a consultant for a nonprofit group and served on a few boards. "I enjoyed them, but they didn't prove meaningful to me."

So, in 2002, Mr. Weiner and a colleague created the Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit advocacy group trying to make sure that California's higher-education system will continue its tradition of admitting all qualified students who want to enroll. Since 1960, such access has been all but guaranteed under California law -- but a lack of funding and limited classroom space now threaten that promise.

Mr. Weiner's lobbying work has "called on all the knowledge, experience and relationships that I had developed before," he says. "I had to join with others to create entirely new enterprises [for] this particular point in my life."

On the East Coast, Jim Beaton, a 66-year-old retiree who managed real estate as vice president of corporate services and facilities for New England Financial Corp. in Boston, became intrigued when he heard about an effort to start a farm on Cape Cod. The nonprofit venture, called Dana's Fields, hopes to rehabilitate homeless people by teaching them basic skills involved in running a small business, such as cooking, maintenance, and using a computer.

The project, part of the Housing Assistance Corp. in Hyannis, Mass., didn't really have a single person to guide it through what has proved to be a contentious approval process. Enter Mr. Beaton.

"I had gone through the rigorous process of [obtaining permits for] a large office building in Boston, and I used to tear my hair out, saying, 'My God, it shouldn't be this difficult to do things,' " he recalls.

Mr. Beaton offered to serve as head of a committee to get the farm off the ground. This time, he didn't mind the obstacles. "It became kind of a mission for me," he says. "We've managed to get to where we are with [almost] no funding, other than some grants from the Boston Foundation and pro bono work, local churches' fund raising, and a walk for the homeless. It's been a real bootstrap operation."

STAY (VERY) FLEXIBLE

Finding the right volunteer work can be tougher than finding the right job. Often, expectations are impossibly high: You're newly retired, eager to "make a difference," and convinced that you and your talents are needed and welcomed. Perhaps you've even taken a hard look at an organization or a cause and you're confident that the fit is right. And then, after a month or two, you're looking for the exit.

Remember: Volunteer organizations, for all their good intentions, can be as unpredictable as any business, experts say. Leaders come and go; missions change; budgets expand and shrink.

Patricia Weiner, a 63-year-old retired lawyer and Steve Weiner's wife, tried three volunteer positions before finding the right one. While she was still working, she read a book about Court-Appointed Special Advocate programs, in which volunteers speak for abused and neglected children in courts. "I really thought that CASA was going to be the one thing that I was going to want to do for years and years," Ms. Weiner says. But she grew frustrated when the foster child she was assigned to represent was moved to another county. Sadly, the two were "just about at the bonding point," Ms. Weiner recalls.

Next, after joining the board of the Family Violence Law Center, Ms. Weiner realized she didn't want to attend meetings at night. And after she and her husband read to the blind for an hour a week for two years, they grew tired of the half-day commute involved.

Now, Ms. Weiner works with the first free-standing children's hospice in the country, leads school tours at the Oakland Museum of California, and also works in the book section of the museum's annual "white elephant" sale.

"I do think there is some trial and error, and it is healthful," she says. "I'm not sorry I did any of them." And they helped her narrow her focus to helping children. "It wasn't conscious -- I just brought together things I cared about and where other interesting people were involved."

Write to Kelly Greene at kelly.greene@wsj.com