"I'd love to volunteer, but I just don't have the time." I hear this constantly from potential volunteers—and increasingly, I think they're right. Not that they're making excuses, but that traditional volunteer programs ask for commitments that don't fit modern lives. The four-hour Saturday shift. The weekly commitment for six months. The mandatory training before you can do anything. For many people, that's simply not possible. Micro-volunteering offers a different path.

There's a particular kind of chaos that happens when 500 volunteers show up for an event and the registration process can't keep up. I've seen the line snake out the door, watched frustrated volunteers abandon check-in, and felt the panic of coordinators realizing their careful planning is unraveling in real time. After years of supporting events ranging from 50-person community gatherings to conferences with 10,000+ volunteers, I've learned what separates smooth registrations from disaster zones.

I need to talk about something that doesn't get discussed enough in our field: burnout. Not volunteer burnout—though that's real too—but the burnout epidemic affecting the very people who manage volunteer programs. If you're reading this while eating lunch at your desk, answering emails at 9 PM, or wondering when you last took a real vacation, this one's for you.

Last month, I sat down with a volunteer coordinator who was frustrated. "I can't figure out these younger volunteers," she told me. "They seem interested, they sign up, but then getting them to actually show up consistently feels impossible." It's a conversation I've had dozens of times—and I think we've been approaching it all wrong.