Every few years, we are told that donors are fatigued and volunteers are disappearing. I’ve never found that explanation convincing. More to the point, I simply don’t buy it.
What I see instead is a growing misalignment between how institutions are required to operate versus the many people who actually want to contribute.
In the Toronto region especially, volunteering has become increasingly difficult to navigate. Police background checks are slow and layered requiring expensive hardware, online access, and more than a little computer savvy . Screening processes requiring numerous attestations are long, standardized, often irrelevant and intrusive, while probing everything from footwear to personal values.
Much of this feels excessive, but it’s important to say clearly: these requirements are rarely of the non-profit’s own making. They are imposed through insurance requirements, liability regimes, funder expectations, fear of negative media exposure and public-sector contracting rules that leave organizations with little room to adapt or push back.
Non-profits are often just the last stop in a long chain of onerous risk management decisions they did not design. They are in place to protect us against headline producing exceptions but they have the inadvertent effect of preventing bona fide and motivated volunteers from participating.
The effect on volunteers is real. Processes intended to protect can end up discouraging participation, especially among people who have already given years—sometimes decades—of their time. The result is not a lack of goodwill, but a quiet decision by many to step back rather than navigate another maze of compliance for a role they could otherwise easily perform effectively.
A similar dynamic plays out in fundraising. Increasingly, donors are told that their contribution will be doubled or tripled, that their gift will ‘unlock’ other funds or dramatically extend their reach. I understand why organizations use this language; funders demand it, and matching campaigns have become a standard tool. But for some donors, this framing misses the point. It treats giving as leverage rather than participation.
When I donate, I’m not trying to maximize my personal impact multiplier. I’m asking different questions. Is this organization working alongside governments, or merely reacting to them? Is it engaging the private sector where appropriate? Is it coordinating with other non-profits, or operating in isolation? Is there evidence that the system is improving, not just that services are being delivered one person at a time?
My own volunteering and giving now stretch back to the mid-1980s. Over time, my motivation hasn’t faded; it has sharpened. I care deeply about people being fed, housed, and supported—but I care just as much about whether the structures around them are becoming more effective, more durable, and less reliant on perpetual crisis.
And I know I’m not alone. There are many donors and volunteers who are not primarily driven by emotional proximity to those being helped, but by a commitment to making systems work better. That doesn’t mean they care less. In many cases, it means they care more—enough to focus on outcomes, coordination, and long-term improvement rather than symbolic reassurance.
The mistake is to interpret this as disengagement. It just isn’t.
What it is, is a different form of engagement, one that values effectiveness over sentiment and partnership over persuasion. Non-profits are often caught in the middle, constrained by requirements they didn’t choose, trying to speak to funders, governments, and the public all at once.
If we want more people to give and volunteer, the answer is not to question their compassion or donation choices by calling the result ‘fatigue’. It is to make room for contributions motivated not just by caring, but by the desire to participate and see things actually work—and keep working—better – over time.