Difference Between "Volunteering" and "Pro-Bono Consultancy"?

"unless they are forced to"

That is the case with most lawyers. The American Bar Assoc. recommends 50 hrs a year. Some states it's mandatory to practice in their state.

and they still volunteer

I'll go with that.

But it applies to everyone but lawyers. They don't do things to feel good about doing it.

So a Sanitation Engineer that volunteers to pick up trash is doing it pro-bono.

Indeed. Think Fred Sanford.

They don't do things to feel good about doing it.

Don't generalize! There are laywers and there are lawyers. Believe it or not, some lawyers are good people and want to help other people in need.

both of them?

I've met a few good ones; but I've met enough greedy ones, that I feel as if I can generalize. Lawyers have a bad reputation for a reason.

I have been a lifetime volunteer, mostly with sports teams but not exclusive. To volunteer is to commit an effort of your time but you cannot donate for free. Believe me, it costs a lot of money to "volunteer". The only compensations for volunteering is the good feeling of helping someone else and the many friends you make that can last a lifetime. Pro bono work is not paid but seldom does it cost the person real dollars and in fact is often paid expenses and attaches their business name to that effort like sponsorship. Either way, pro bono or volunteer everyone should commit a small effort somewhere to provide some opportunities to others. They are both good.

That sounds good to me.

as long as there is one being "bono'd" is also accurately read for the "pro-bono" to apply to one's reporting certain occurrences of things for discussion...

accurate theorizing with knowledgable or scientific scientia ricerca vs. avoidance of a mere conjecture without experience of the math nor evidence in front

sorry, that is all the English ya get ttoddayy

Wouldn't someone tidying up litter or helping the poor whilst singing.... "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" be pro Bono?

Groan! Sorry.

When chimps engage in interspecies charities, it's pro bonobo.

I think this is right. Milo

I don't think pro-bono automatically implies recognition. I have a personal situation where a professional service provider offered me pro-bono services that I will not go into details about. It was purely to help me in a bad situation, and he's not likely to get any "mileage" out of it other than my gratitude.

So I'd say, how loudly or often the individual proclaims "I'm doing it pro-bono!" is the indicator about how much tit he expects to get for his tat.

("Tit-for-tat" is an English (American?) phrase for exchange, if English is not your native tongue)

PWSlack-

Hypothetical Question-

An engineer is a member of his local unpaid non-profit fire company. He takes extensive training including, but no limited to:

Firefighter 1: 170 hours

Firefighter 2: 100 hours

Pump Operations 1: 30 hours

Pump Operations 2: 30 hours

Engine Company Operations: 16 hours

Truck Company Operations: 16 hours

Tactical Ops in strip malls & public Storage Facilities: 8 hours

Tactical Ops at basement fires: 8 hours

Firefighter safety: 8 hours

Elevator emergencies: 8 hours

Bail-out systems 1 & 2: 16 hours

Electrical Safety: 8 hours

Air Management: 8 hours

Defensive Driving Course: 8 hours

Knots: 8 hours

Rappelling 1 & 2: 20 hours

Confined Space Awareness: 4 hours

Confined Space Rescue 1: 16 hours

Rigging for rescue: 16 hours

Vehicle Extrication- awareness, operations, technician: 24 hours

Trench Rescue- awareness, operations: 20 hours

Low Angle Rescue: 16 hours

Fire Officer 1 and 2: 96 hours

Strategy and Tactics: 16 hours

Incident Safety Officer: 8 hours

Incident Management Systems, levels NIMS 700, 800, ICS-200, 300, 400: 65 hours

Heavy Lifting and Moving: 24 hours

Instructional Techniques for Company Officers: 24 hours

Fire Officer 1 and 2: 100 hours

Building Construction: 8 hours

Fire Instructor 1 & 2: 100 hours

Compressed Gas Emergencies: 24 hours

Total: 1,023 hours training

Plus 3 hours once a week, plus at least 1 day per month, plus parades, student fire safety demonstrations, fairs, and numerous other things each month besides the Santa run each year.

There are others with less training who have jobs doing the same things and get paid for it. Some of them also participate in this non-paid non-profit organization on their time off. We both get up at 2:00am to respond to your residence whether it be a false alarm on a smoke or CO monitor or the worst- a conflagration.

We also assist paid department when they do not have enough manpower to complete their objectives. We do the same work, side by side, but he gets paid I don't.

When we both work at the non-paid non-profit organization, why is he doing it Pro-bono and I am volunteering? We are both doing the same work, why not the same term? Yes some of the work is physical but the physical won't succeed without the brain, knowledge and skills.

Why does my department have the word "volunteer" in it's name and I am termed as a volunteer but the other guy in the same department is doing it pro-bono?

Yes, we still rescue cats out of trees!

Good Luck, Old Salt

P W Slack-

I am somewhat surprised that no one has commented on the previous post. It is becoming a more frequent question with the gradual change in the availability of personnel of various and different backgrounds. What is the rescue squad member (1st aid squad) when they are a combination paid/volunteer squad? These have crews responding which have a paid member and an unpaid member responding side by side. Both have the same skills. The only difference will be one is paid and one is not paid. Since there is a smaller pool of personnel to participate unpaid, more depts. are staffing with paid/unpaid members.

Personally for me it is even more confusing. I am an engineer who does pro bono work for various organizations. I also do consulting with my skills. Why am I considered a volunteer when I do the same exact work for my "volunteer" fire co. but a engineer doing pro bono when I do the same work for a private company. In line with this, why an I doing pro bono when I do piping design work for the local rescue squad but volunteering when I do the same work for my fire company?

This type of problem is more and more frequent when there is a situation where fewer people can respond due to other more personal requirements take higher priority (child care, 2nd job, 3rd job, longer work days, longer travel times, sports, etc).

This is a very important question to me, and many others, since I not only belong to a local fire company but also a county haz mat response team as an unpaid volunteer. I am the primary technical resource and am doing a portion of the same position I had before I retired. Am I a engineer doing pro bono or a volunteer doing technical work voluntarily?

Your comments please.

Good Luck, Old Salt

The dry, not-funny definition:

Volunteer = giving of one's time and efforts with no expectation of reward.

Pro-Bono = giving of one's time and effort in their professional capacity with out expectation of monetary reward.

Profession = what you get paid to do, regardless of your level of training or proficiency.

JRiversW-

Thank you for your clear and understandable reply. Also thanks for intentionally making it not humorous which could make it harder to comprehend. I agree with you on the definitions but applying them to some "gray" areas still has me stumped. I was in a discussion with 2 engineers and 2 "civilians". I asked them the question and got various answers. The non-engineers agreed with your statement, the engineers could not agree do to there experiences and viewpoints. One, who primarily does piping and instrument design and oversees it's construction, presented a very good scenario he has been in. He works a 40+ hour engineering job, coaches a little league team and assists with other more complicated aspects of the league. He said he had spent a previous week-end designing and overseeing the construction of field drains for a new playing field. Next week-end joined the labor gang and finished up the drains. During the next week he coaches his son's team. Cloudiness comes from what were labors, (pro bono), or volunteer? At work- professional; designing the drain system (pro bono or volunteer?) finishing the job with primarily a shovel and bulldozer (pro bono or volunteer since he oversees construction and occasionally takes a shovel to test soils) and coaching the team (volunteer).

The other engineer said that it was all paid or pro bono. That was his statement, but it is irrelevant here.

The firefighter referred to in the first post is me, but only mentioned since I am most familiar with me for an example.

In summary, when is an engineer a pro bono engineer or a volunteer engineer? Neither gets paid so that is not a determining point. What if an outside engineer designed the drains but didn't finish the job or botched it and our engineer had to finish it?

Your input please. These guys have a dinner with their wives and also my wife and myself as the moderators riding on this. I plan on eating good and heavy that night!

Good Luck, Old Salt

So, if a Clown volunteers to work a circus, that would be pro-Bozo, right? But what would you call it if a clown gets elected to the White House?

Obozo?

Failure of the opposing party to field a better candidate, twice!

You can't squeeze blood out of a stone.

I look at it this way...

When I volunteer to do something I'm the one taking the initiative to get involved with the project.

When I do pro-bono consulting it's in my field of expertise that I would usually get paid for, and the request is from the party needing assistance. I don't go looking for pro-bono jobs. :-)

When I reformat a hard drive:

At work - I get paid.

At the animal rescue down the road - volunteer.

Advising OP on CR4 - Pro Bonehead.

Interesting reading. Thanks to one and all.

in a mind of conjecture and opining-

may I suggest

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pro-bono

aha

am I on to something in the "seems" ?

or·ga·ni·sa·tion

,

or·ga·nise

,

or·ga·nis·er

British variant of organization, organize, organizer

organisation or organized...

whatever; and seems a quiet volunteering, pro-bono-ing is a strength and a blessing:

GrandFather Hans Ernst pro-bono'd "look for the DESIGN in everything" as a Director of Research - then putting to work a re-institution of Pro-Practice, Co-op industry and student at the u of Cincinnati with also inclusive: the volunteering adn pro-bono giving of information by his "mathematician" later- Dr. Gene Merchant, in the machine tool systemic industrial information cross-pro-bono and as well paid, too:

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/1998/03/29/bus_merchant29.html

[ ... give them information on what he knew, and they would in turn give him information ...]

All pretty heady stuff for congregational minister's son from Essex Junction, Vt., who first became interested in manufacturing after listening to an inspiring talk on the importance of manufacturing by the president of a Springfield, Vt., machine-tool company. After graduating from the University of Vermont with a degree in mechanical engineering, Dr. Merchant won a graduate fellowship at the University of Cincinnati sponsored by Cincinnati Milacron in 1936.

Almost from the moment he arrived at Milacron as a graduate co-op student, Dr. Merchant was put to work by Hans Ernst, Milacron's then director of research, analyzing the forces of friction between the metal-cutting tool and the work piece.

That research formed the basis of his thesis in 1940 and led to his groundbreaking work on the science of metal-cutting itself. Unlike Deming, whose name became synonymous with quality improvement, ''Gene was always very quiet. He wasn't looking for accolades,'' Mr. Messinger said.

In later years, he became a sort of roving manufacturing philosopher traveling all over the world to investigate the latest manufacturing innovations.

Because of his reputation, Dr. Merchant got into manufacturing plants where others couldn't.

''What Gene would do when he'd go someplace was give them information on what he knew, and they would in turn give him information,'' Mr. Geier said.

''When he'd come back from a trip overseas, we'd get all the (corporate) officers in a room and tell Gene: 'Now tell us what you saw and what we should be doing,' '' Mr. Geier said.

I always thought that the volunteer was usually nameless and desired no recognition or fee, whereas the ProBono was someone who would normally ask a fee, and who is waiving the fee in lieu of the recognition for their philanthropy.

Volunteers do it because they think YOU are worth it;

ProBonos do it because they think THEY ought to be worth it.