Here's how you can navigate the long-term effects of burnout on volunteer managers' careers.

Working with traumatized populations can lead to secondary trauma. Excellent resources are available to help raise awareness among staff and volunteers for this particular kind of burnout, and to build resiliency and inform coping strategies. Organizations working with homelessness, immigrants and refugees, LGBTQ youth, intimate partner violence, and other social concerns should be incorporating trauma-informed practices with clients, staff and volunteers.

I have as times go, by (30 years), found there are fewer, fewer new volunteers, which will eventually close our military, veterans Club. As a charity we have to have three key personal to have a branch, Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer. If we cannot replace any one of these appointments the Branch will close. If the Branch closes we cannot have a Club. This would have a drastic reaction to our members, who need to come together for welfare and Comradeship. To me as a Chairman this is becoming extremely worrying. At present the age group ranges from 70 to 90. This is a common problem, right across the voluntary service, especially with the Veterans sector.

Self awareness is key, being aware of how aspects of the role is affecting you is key so you can make small changes earlier so things don't progress to becoming more serious issues that can lead to full burn out.

Many people struggle with this, and many organisations don't have great cultures that nuture this thinking, making it often even harder for individuals. It is ok to set boundaries, it doesn't make you a mean person or not good at your job..it actually helps you be better at your job!

Having accountability for strategies set up is important, maybe your line manager, a Co worker, outsourced supervision or similar.

Consider your motivation. As a professional or a volunteer, are you doing this because you idealize progress? If you are in a situation where you really want to make a change, you are leaving yourself open to burnout just by walking in. If you can shift your motivation from a sense of progress to achieving a sense of support, you will have more meaningful experiences and less vulnerable to burnout. If you're working with a client, and you want them to make progress in a certain way, you may resent them if they don't succeed how you've privately decided they should. If though, you're connected to a sense of support, you can consider that your client is in a challenging situation, and you're there in support.