Why the ‘Same Ten People’ Argument Does Nothing

If you’ve never heard the expression, “The same ten people volunteer for everything,” you’ve never lived in a small town.

In fact, you’ve probably never been a huge player in any kind of community because in spaces that need a lot of volunteer work, this is a common frustration.

Let’s say, for example, that there was a huge school event involving both the elementary and the high school students. One of the moms, who happened to put hard work into this particular event, couldn’t seem to get enough volunteers. Consequently, she ended up planning, organizing and carrying out the event mostly herself. 

The next day this mom came across some other moms after church and expressed her frustration that they left all the work to the “same ten people” and didn’t sign up. After all, she had seen their kids enjoying the event.

The problem, here, is it’s really obvious that volunteer work has strong benefits, for communities, for individuals, for youth and especially for small towns. But getting hung up on the “same ten people” concept can often do more harm than good — especially if it doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.

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One distinction to make is that the biggest frustration in this scenario was the shortage of volunteers, not that it was the same volunteers.

You might be surprised to find, as I was, that this situation is quite common no matter the size of the community; there just need to be enough people to see a need. In fact, it is commonly referred to as the bystander effect explained in detail by Shrouded Science.

Essentially, the theory is that if too many people see a need for volunteers, the effect is that no one — or only one person — does the work, assuming someone else will do it. Societies have found ways to combat this bystander effect through creating incentives to volunteer. Taxes encourage maintenance for certain things that would normally require a volunteer like street lights, libraries or parks.

But altruistic volunteerism still tends to suffer.

In small towns, the bystander effect can make it seem as though there are not enough volunteers in the first place, and you can see why that would be frustrating. But making enemies out of people we view as outside the “same ten people” is not the solution.

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One possible solution to the problem of too few volunteers might be to get more people used to doing community service from the get-go.

This is the basis of Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson’s idea to make community service a high school requirement. “We want them to be doing a little bit every year and get in that habit of community service,” she said in an interview with FOX 13 News.

“Of course, there’s the benefit to the community. But then there’s the benefit to the individual student as well,” she said.

She added that high schoolers who do community service are more likely to vote, to be more civically engaged throughout their lives and to even be happier. Indeed, since the 1990s, studies have consistently shown the benefits of community service for young people.

This program could be a real boon to small town communities in need of a few extra bodies, but there’s still one problem: defining community service. Until you define where that service is really essential, you cannot solve the problem of the frustrated moms after a school activity.

Perhaps high school kids could divide and conquer, focusing on the issues that matter most to them and their career paths. This was a strategy mentioned in one of the studies previously cited.

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The best thing for the community might not be to define the “same ten people,” but to instead define the activities involved in community service. 

Defined in very simple terms by Dan Jasper, founder of Street Civics, “Community involvement is meaningful, consistent participation in activities that support and improve upon social wellbeing.”

Dan listed several areas that might qualify a person as being involved:

1. Improving public health.
2. Supporting public education.
3. Enhancing environmental management.
4. Reducing homelessness and poverty.
5. Fostering the arts.

Members of small communities tend to be pretty busy picking up the slack on all of these activities. EMTs and firefighters help with community health and safety. Coaches, tutors, and para-professionals spend countless hours investing in public education, sometimes for pay, but more often for little to none.

Tourist businesses contribute to public activities, fundraisers, environmental management and goods for the community. Food bank volunteers, 4-H members and church groups work to meet the needs of the poor and needy.

Some ten or so people spend their time almost 24/7 thinking about each of these needs in the community, but they’re all such different spheres.

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The same ten people volunteer for one thing, and maybe the same ten people volunteer for something else, but does it really matter? 

Obviously communities and individuals would benefit from needed service, yes. But let’s focus more on understanding the bystander effect, creating service-oriented teens and defining the needs in the community and be a little kinder to our neighbors in the process.

That is the only way to help a community get away from the “same ten people.”

– by Abbie Call

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Read more about small communities in Who Is a Local? by Karen Munson.