By Mark Goldsmith

Many people new to retirement discover something fairly quickly, especially if they didn’t give their post-career days a lot of thought ahead of time.

In theory, endless rounds of golf or relaxing next to the pool all day every day seemed enchanting. Deadlines, gone. Work responsibilities, gone. Unhappy customers, gone.

Unfortunately, purpose and fulfillment also were gone, which prompts some people to go back to work. In fact, about 3.2% of workers who were retired in March 2021 were working again by March of this year, according to an Indeed Hiring Lab report from April. That amounts to roughly 1.7 million retired people who decided to become unretired, some for financial reasons but others no doubt for fulfillment reasons.

But this is where nonprofits can step in and provide those restless retirees the purpose they need while also helping to solve a problem that nonprofits face. Attracting as many committed volunteers as possible has been the secret to success for many nonprofit organizations. And, of course, not all volunteers are equal. The best ones are those who are truly committed to helping vulnerable populations and who do what is necessary to achieve that objective.

Other than the actual work they do, consistency is the most important facet of a volunteer’s profile. You want people who can show up on a regular basis and who can be counted on. This is where retirees could be the perfect fit because so many of them can bring such dependability. They are less likely to have competing demands for their time, and many have a built-in record of dependability from a lifetime of successful work.

They also have a remarkable variety of skills that can greatly impact the nonprofit world. The skills and abilities that made them successful in business, for example, are transferable to the nonprofit world. Combining those hard-earned skills with a passion to help cure a social ill can make a huge difference in the lives of people in need.

Many retirees already volunteer, but nonprofits may not be taking full advantage of what could be a potential avalanche of volunteers. After all, about 10,000 baby boomers reach retirement age every day. Not all will retire – at least not right away – but that’s a lot of people who may be looking for ways to contribute to the greater good.

Here are a few tips on how to persuade them do that:

• Help them understand why they are needed. At some level they probably already know, but remind them that society at large remains in great need of solutions for issues that continue to plague our country. Whether it is poverty in the inner city or elsewhere, the rights of women and children, the criminal justice system, housing, special education, job training, mental health, or one of the many others out there needing assistance, there are many opportunities available.

• Offer to assist them in taking an inventory of their skills and experiences. Even some older people intrigued by the idea of volunteering may be unsure about how they can best fit in. That’s where nonprofit leaders or volunteer directors can step in and help them work that out. Have them consider such questions as: What are they good at? What personality traits characterize them and make them appealing to others? Why do people listen to them? As they evaluate themselves, they can begin to determine what makes them feel good about accomplishing difficult tasks, which will give them a clearer idea of what they have to offer. How they like to spend their time is important because the nonprofit and the volunteer both want to avoid a bad match. Perhaps the volunteer has a 40-year history of working as an administrative assistant, which makes helping in the office an obvious choice. But they may also have a hobby, such as carpentry, and they would be happier if those skills could be put to use. The volunteer needs to both love the cause and love what they are doing to help the cause.

• Sell them on the intangible rewards. Those active in the nonprofit sphere know very well the feeling that comes from making a difference in someone’s life. It’s important to let volunteers know that one of the most eye-opening aspects of volunteering is that you never know what might evolve once you decide to make the move to volunteer. You cannot overemphasize enough to them that many times they will get even more out of the experience than the people that they are volunteering to help.

Finally, make the case to retirees that not only can they help create brand-new lives for those in need, but also create a brand-new life for themselves, one with passion and purpose. An encore career of sorts that involves making a difference rather than making money.

As they see the results of their efforts, they likely will feel privileged to do the work and it will never feel like a chore.

About Mark Goldsmith

Mark Goldsmith (www.marklgoldsmith.com), author of From Madison Avenue to Rikers Island: The Making of a Social Entrepreneur, is founder and CEO emeritus of Getting Out and Staying Out, a nonprofit that provides educational, vocational, job readiness, counseling and other services to young men who have been incarcerated. Prior to his nonprofit work, Goldsmith was an executive in the cosmetics industry for more than 35 years, rising through the ranks at companies like Revlon, Yves St. Laurent, and Almay before starting his own company, Inventory Management Systems, specializing in trading excess inventories of well-known brand names for media time at similar values.