Looking to see if my colleagues are experiencing a downward trend in volunteer recruitment?  Laws changed regarding earnings (see below).  Now that those who reach Social Security retirement age can collect Social Security and remain in the workforce.

"Retirees who turn 66 in 2015 can earn $41,880 before one benefit dollar is withheld for each $3 earned above the limit. However, after you reach your full retirement age, there is no limit on earnings, and Social Security payments are recalculated to factor in the temporarily withheld benefits. "If you are 66 or older, now you can work full time and collect Social Security benefits," Palmer says. "It's meant to put much more emphases on work incentives for people to both be able to collect Social Security and still be able to work at least part time."

Your insight is most appreciated.

I'm living proof that we are working!  I have been collecting full SS for the past 10 years.  Yipee!!

Seriously though, our prospective volunteers are looking for work.  They are mostly women in their sixties who either never worked or are out of work.  The fifty year olds are a two salary family.  How else do they get to do everything they want or need?  The question is...what can we do and how do we change to accommodate the younger generation of volunteers?

I have been thinking about this a good bit.  Our numbers are down less than 1% for this year over last right now.  My question is are people not interested, or is it because of lifestyle changes our model is out of date.

Seems everyone's life is more hectic now than it has ever been.  Many of those in the traditional volunteer age are either taking care of elderly parents or raising grandchildren as their own.

So maybe it is our model of expecting someone to commit to 3/4 hours on the same day of the week for a period of time that is the issue.  While we haven't taken action yet, it might be more about you are now trained to do this task for us, here is the schedule, you can sign yourself up to come in whenever there is an opening and you are available.

This would be a huge undertaking of retraining our way of thinking, retraining the departments who use volunteers and volunteers themselves.  It truly throws the concept that most of us use on edge.

Some of us are allowing some self scheduling now, but not to this extent.