Quit my 5 year volunteering gig after the board ignored my report twice

I spent 5 years on the social media committee for a local animal shelter in Akron. Last month I put together a full report showing we could double our donation reach by using free scheduling tools instead of manual posts. The board listened, nodded, then gave the same tasks to a new intern who hadn't even read the data. I walked out mid-meeting and haven't been back since. My friend says I should've stuck around to see it through, but I realized I was just a warm body they used to avoid paying for a real social media person. Am I the jerk for quitting when the shelter still needs help, or was I right to stop propping up their lazy system? Has anyone else hit a wall where your free labor stopped meaning anything?

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simon3781mo ago

Those 30 seconds it took to hand your report to that intern probably felt like a slap in the face. But you signed up to help animals, not to fix a broken board. Walking out mid-meeting might have felt good, but it gave them an excuse to say you were the problem, not their lazy habits. If you really cared about the shelter, you would have stayed long enough to make sure your ideas got tested, even if it meant watching someone else fumble them first. Pride is a cheap reason to leave a cause you claimed to believe in for five years.

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