My parents introduced me to the importance of volunteerism long before I began my career in association management over 20 years ago. It started on a local level.

With the coaching of my mother and a strong 4-H club, my first experience as a volunteer occurred when I was about 10 years old playing bingo on Saturdays with residents at a long-term care facility. As an adult, I continued to volunteer by bringing home-cooked meals to shut-ins and made one really good friend in the process, Norma. She referred to me as ‘my Stephanie’ and knew on Sundays, she was in for a treat!

The United States is a nation of volunteers and many organizations and the people they serve, depend on them! Hospitals depend on volunteers to welcome patients to the facility, serve as patient advocates, provide pet therapy and more. Volunteers have helped to speed the process of vaccinating our nation against COVID-19. They are vital to so many aspects of our world, and we should never take them for granted.

For the past 20 years, I have been supporting or leading non-profit associations. I have a career in association management, and I have specialized in advancing professional organizations in healthcare.

I have loved this career for many reasons, particularly because it has allowed me to be part of advancing a mission to make healthcare better, a mission that affects every single person, and brings me profound purpose in my life.

In addition to purpose, there is joy. And the joy I have experienced as a non-profit executive is born from a special group of volunteers. These volunteers come from their profession. They have stepped up to give freely of their time and talent to make their profession better for their peers and to make healthcare better for all.

Volunteering with your professional association, dedicated to advancing an entire profession, is no small task. The responsibility is as profound as the goals these volunteers have for their profession. But, I have never met a volunteer who would not tell you that they got much more out of their volunteer experience than they put into it.

Volunteers at every level, from task forces to committees to boards give graciously of their personal time. They take night and evening conference calls for the association. They leave families and friends for weekend board meetings. We make sure to feed them well, but a nice meal and a glass of wine is little compensation for the gift that they give to their professional association: their time, their attention and their expertise.

One of the most challenging volunteer roles is to serve on the board of directors and the nominating committee. The future of their profession is in their hands, and they must exercise the fiduciary obligations of duty, loyalty and obedience. They must also exercise patience, kindness, cooperation and selflessness as they work with peers, who before they met as board members may have been strangers.

What I have learned as an association executive can be found in an African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And, together, we have the potential to change the world.

When there are disagreements, volunteers must seek understanding over winning. When there is a communications challenge, volunteers must deploy patience to go back and make sure that the entire board is engaged. Pride is secondary to the good of the order, the advancement of the profession and the pursuit of the mission.

Working together through professional [and trade] associations build strong bonds between staff and volunteers that cannot be overstated. The volunteer leaders put their trust in staff to be the constant of the association. Professional staff guide the ship, do the leg work. The volunteer board and CEO chart the course.

This week is National Volunteer Week, and it is with a full heart that I say THANK YOU to each of the volunteers who made our organization the beacons of light it is today, and I say WELCOME to the ones that follow and will have the future task of keeping those beacons strong. Your leadership is profound. Your commitment is unwavering. And your impact is bigger than you will ever know.

Stephanie Mercado, CAE CPHQ
NAHQ CEO and Executive Director

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