What volunteering for an association returns
Volunteering for a professional association returns something to the member and asks something in exchange. The work shows employers and clients a member's skills and commitment, it develops skills that carry over to the workplace, and an association relies on members giving their time to it.
What it shows an employer or a client
One speaker on professional associations advises that volunteering in an association's activities builds a member's CV, because the work is visible and is a real way to show the member's skills and commitment to the association and its mission and objectives. A volunteer may eventually want to join committees, and to take a leadership role or not, but volunteering is really important, because the more active a member is, the more people they come into contact with.
In a 2016 study of the impact of volunteering on success in the workplace, 80% of hiring managers and of those with influence over hiring managers said that people with volunteer experience move more easily into leadership roles.
One writer on networking in medical writing advises that a writer can offer help directly to a target, such as an established medical writer or an organisation like EMWA, and can treat this as a form of internship, but should be cautious of being exploited. One good alternative is to assist in a club or an organisation, where the volunteer's activity and assistance are transparent and fellow members are ready to support them. Organisations are, in general, very generous in giving the recommendations a writer may one day need.
What the work develops
In the view of one writer on networking, taking up the many volunteering opportunities in EMWA is the best way to hone writing and editing skills, for example for EMWA's website or its journal, and liaising and organisational skills, by helping to organise conferences, and these skills are transferable and much sought after in the medical writing business. Such volunteering also keeps a member up to date on developments in regulatory writing, pharmacovigilance and other areas.
One AMWA president describes the association as as much a resource for professionals as an opportunity: through volunteer activities such as teaching workshops, organising a conference session or serving on a committee, members can contribute to the organisation while often gaining valuable experience and honing their own skills. Such volunteering provides solid hands-on experience with skills and activities of high value in the profession, including writing, editing or both, developing programmes or content, managing projects, organising meetings, giving presentations and applying technical skills such as the use of software. It is one way for a member to advance professionally, whether they are more proficient in a specific area and want to share or apply that knowledge, or are seeking direct experience to learn new skills. Volunteering in AMWA has often been described as "getting back more than you put in". He agrees to an extent with the saying that the reward for hard work is the opportunity to do more, but qualifies it for AMWA, where the reward for hard work is an opportunity to learn, to teach, to participate and to build for the future, the volunteer's own and the profession's.
One member honoured by AMWA for her contributions to the association holds that volunteering helps members build their networks and refine their skills, and provides opportunities to build new skills. As members move through their careers, she holds, it is important to give back to the community by contributing their time, experience and expertise, and volunteering provides opportunities to do that. Membership on its own provides ample benefits, and a member who takes advantage of all the association offers will grow in their practice of the profession, but volunteering amplifies those benefits.
According to EMWA's president in 2013, those who benefit most from the association are the motivated individuals who volunteer to serve on the Executive Committee or board, teach workshops, or provide other year-round activities, such as helping with the journal, the website or social media. Volunteering brings a member into contact with a large network of experts in medical writing, helps develop and demonstrate leadership skills, and provides the opportunity to share and exchange professional knowledge. Being a member of the Executive Committee in particular gives excellent opportunities for career advancement, but other roles can also help and can give back a substantial benefit.
Another AMWA president holds that leadership and volunteering are connected: many people develop leadership skills through volunteering, and good leaders recognise the value of volunteers. As she grew in her field, AMWA seemed to her the perfect fit for honing her leadership skills, and she recognised this to be true soon after she began giving time at the chapter level; the more she served, the more those skills grew. She holds the chapter level to be a great place to break ground and help build leadership skills.
A third AMWA president observes that many members get involved in the association to learn and willingly give back to help each other grow, and that, she is sure, many never envisioned, when they first joined, all they would learn or accomplish or the ways in which they might get involved. Her own volunteer work for AMWA served her well in the workplace, where she grew professionally in many ways. Her president-elect tells new members to get involved, speak up and volunteer, guarantees that they will get as much out of it as they put in, and likens being or aspiring to be an AMWA volunteer or leader to the army: "the hardest job you'll ever love".
The third president's own path ran from committee work through an officer post as president of the Florida chapter, national committees and the Executive Committee to AMWA's presidency, and she holds that the leadership skills learned along the way carry over to the workplace.
One AMWA member, a few years after joining, was asked by his chapter's publicity chair, who was moving up to the chapter presidency, to take over publicity, and within a few years he was chapter president, a role he had never thought he could do, given the knowledge and leadership ability of those who had come before him. Had he declined the invitation, his fear would have been realised, because knowledge and leadership ability are exactly what he gained from these volunteer experiences. He credits volunteering for AMWA with his success as a medical writer and as a freelance: it brought him no clients and no pay, but, beyond the confidence he already had, a level of confidence he had not known was possible, which has enabled him to approach his life and his business without limits.
Other AMWA members name what volunteering gave them. A freelance writer says volunteering enabled her to learn new skills, such as meeting planning. She urges those newer to medical writing and to AMWA to jump right in and get involved, saying that AMWA has plenty of opportunities for everybody. Another member, who joined the association's 75th anniversary committee and became her chapter's website manager and LinkedIn manager, was not very familiar with LinkedIn before she began managing the chapter's group, and now has many more connections and confidence in starting conversations. A third, who attends as many conferences and lunches as she can, has helped with the association's website revisions, edited articles and served on committees, and feels that in doing so she is enriched professionally and meets many other members who are intelligent, enthusiastic and supportive. She feels that volunteering is the way the association can be meaningful to a person.
EMWA's president for 2022–23, by then a volunteer for eight years, believes that volunteering for the association was instrumental in his development as a medical writer. It allowed him to develop his network, make friends and acquaintances involved with medical communications, learn from them, collaborate with them and eventually build his freelance business. His advice, especially to freelancers, is to look for opportunities to volunteer.
Another freelance medical writer highly recommends getting more involved in an association, because it boosts many things for a career and for a business, especially a freelance one.
What the association asks in exchange
According to EMWA's president in 2013, EMWA is an organisation of medical writers who volunteer their time to provide all members with what they need to improve in their profession. Its president for 2022–23 holds that its core strength is its volunteers, and that it can be difficult to believe that an association such as EMWA, with all it has to offer its membership, is run entirely by volunteers. According to AMWA's president for 2009–10, AMWA, like many professional organisations, relies on its volunteer members to help plan and implement its programmes, and even a small number of volunteers can have a big impact across the membership. Its success is built on the volunteer contributions of hundreds of members over the years, from plenary organisers to presidents. Every contribution has moved AMWA forward and in turn given the volunteer direct experience of that effort and, he hopes, satisfaction. AMWA's president for 2021–22 reports that its volunteers help deliver its programmes and services while supporting the overall functioning of the organisation, and in 2020 and 2021 its virtual conferences, its continued educational resources, its support for chapters and committees, and its growth in membership would not have been possible without their work. She hoped members would consider volunteering, because members are meant to leave organisations such as AMWA better off than they found them.
EMWA's outgoing president in 2015, completing two years on the Executive Committee, had been involved with every aspect of the association: the finances, education, public relations, the website, the journal, the conference, the constitution and the head office. Until she became vice president she had no idea how much goes on behind the scenes, or how many volunteers are involved in delivering the association. She had enjoyed the two years far more than she expected, and encouraged anyone interested in getting involved to make contact. Her successor said that projects similar to EMWA's expert collaborations on clinical study report and protocol guidance were planned, opening doors for experienced members, whom she encouraged to volunteer, and asked members with a particular expertise to step forward, since individuals contribute their personal knowledge.
One long-standing advocate for the profession told AMWA members that volunteerism is the lifeblood of the organisation and that they must become advocates for themselves and their community of professionals and volunteer their time and energy, an investment which, unlike many in that economy, would pay dividends. As a young man in the 1970s he had viewed Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener as a hero, and he had come to view him with pity; passive resistance without cause, he holds, is not the road to take, and in the end one can either "prefer not to" respond, react or deliver the message, or get involved in the association and the profession and further the cause.
The same advocate later said that professional organisations such as AMWA, EMWA, ISMPP and TIPPA rely on volunteerism, on people willing to dedicate a certain portion of their waking life to the good of the profession and their fellow professionals, and urged members to rise to the occasion, self-advocate, volunteer and contribute to the profession.
Another member honoured by AMWA for his contributions holds that the association's future will be what its members make it, and that the profession depends on people helping people, not always in ways that yield direct financial benefits. If members give generously, the association will gain strength and all will benefit; if they withhold their gifts, it will weaken and all will suffer. He asks members to encourage each other to keep volunteering and giving back to the profession through the association.
An AMWA president who drew energy from her own efforts for the association thanked its members for giving their time and talents and asked them to reflect on what they receive in return. Her questions were whether they had learned something they did not know before; whether, on moving to a new city and transferring chapters, they had found an instant network of friends and contacts; whether they had attended workshops or other sessions at chapter or national meetings and acquired skills they used elsewhere; whether they had volunteered for or been asked to do something they were not sure they could do, which was an opportunity to challenge themselves and paid off; and whether, involved directly or not, they had felt a special thrill or pride in something AMWA had accomplished.
Drawing on Shar McBee's To Lead is to Serve, she notes that sacrifice literally means to make sacred, and that although one may think of it as giving something up, something even better evolves when one does: the seed sacrifices itself to the soil, the day to the night, the wood to the fire. Volunteers, she holds, already know that to accomplish anything one must first be willing to give. She holds that one may not always know at once the outcome of one's efforts, but that all good work does have its reward.