For those who do volunteer, Why do you volunteer to serve in your HOA/COA?

PLEASE, Only reply on this thread if you have volunteered (you need not have served but you should have at least volunteered to serve).

I'm starting this thread and it's sister thread (why don't you volunteer) based on a comment in a different thread that, paraphrased, simply stated that nobody is forcing you to continue to serve.

If you have volunteered to serve on your Board or on one of your Committees the question is:

1) Why did you initially volunteer?

2) If still serving, why do you continue to serve?

Interesting question. Having been a member of multiple associations for over 40 years (not continuous), my reasons have evolved/changed.

My initial reason was I had an issue with something. Once that issue was addressed, I lost interest. I was busy and the issue was resolved so bye, bye. You could say I was the classic one issue person.

My middle years involvement was to help but also be sure things stayed as I liked the way things were. Less the one issue person but also a bit of liking and wanting it to stay similar.

Now I am faced with our association being turned over to the owners. I am involved as an appointed member of the BOD. Not sure I will run for election but if I do it will be because I do not want the inmates taking over the asylum.

Hmmmm...maybe my reasoning is the same as my middle years. Other then experience at it, maybe I have not evolved that much......LOL

I initially volunteered at the first general membership meeting I attended. To be honest, this was initially done to meet people in the neighborhood. I was appointed to the Architectural committee and due to differing interpretations of the governing documents (between myself and the Board)I was removed from that position after only 6 months of serving. I left with a "you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone" attitude.

The second time I volunteered was, similar to John, because there was an issue between myself and the Board. I was again appointed to the Architectural Committee and later elected to the Board.

I continue to serve mainly because of the concern of how other Board members see our Reserve funds. Currently the funds are assigned by line item to each capital asset. There are those who serve who see it as one big pot of money and would have no issue (unless challenged) to spend as much as was needed with little to no concern for future needs in other areas (like milling and paving of our roads). So basically, I continue to serve to keep from having to pay a special assessment in order to resurface our roads in the future.

I got involved 4 years ago because something didn't seems right. In an association of 317 units, there are about 7 people that will stand up and do the right thing and three or four that will always make things bad for others no matter what. The rest, well they don't get involved. Don't kid yourselves, it's all about politics. In two years, I have saved our association over $200K in water savings alone. I was elected President, they used the legal firm and management company to try and recall two Board members, myself included. You try and stand up for the people who don't want to get involved because you know it's the right thing to do.

I have worked for management companies for the past two years. I see the problems first hand everyday. There are some bad management companies and bad law firms. I am sure there are good management companies and good law firms, but unfortunately, few and far between.

Where I see the most problems is in associations with 100 of more units. Quorum is always a struggle even with reduced quorum. What make more sense is doing away with quorum for the election of directors. People think the annual meeting and elections are one event, there are two separate events. If our government elections were done in the same fashion, we would not have elections, but appointments of cronies. What make more sense is have a candidate get the signatures of 5 percent of the membership to support them for office. Why 5%? It's the same number required of the membership to call a special meeting. The ballots of everyone that cast a ballot are opened and the votes counted.

The annual meeting is a different story. Only items on the agenda can be discussed and voted upon by the membership who attend the meeting. The agenda has to be mailed to every member no later than 10 days before the meeting. If you want to have a voice, then you better so up or forever hold your peace. By law in California, if not posted on the agenda, no discussion or vote can take place unless 33 1/3 of the members are present, either in person or by proxy. We have our safeguards. No small group can unfairly dominate the association. For eight years we had no election. The past three years we have. You want a seat on our Board, you better campaign hard, because the next person will.

The vast majority of people have no idea what they got themselves into. I see it everyday of the week. If my wife and I had to do it over again, we would look at that "for sale" sign and say, "let's check the one down the road, without the association."

I've told my story several times here of why I volunteered... It was a sappy love story at first. I had been in an extremely abusive relationship and moved into my HOA. I met "Mr wonderful" who was the president of the HOA. Thought I found the man I was going to marry and settle into this wonderful place. A month later "Mr. Wonderful" turned out to be a scumbag con-man. Turns out from talking to neighbors that he was highly suspect to ripping off the HOA and crooked as the day is long. A fact that I soon discovered was 100% correct. This even from his own words.

It was discovered that how he stayed in power was to spread lies and rumors against those who ran against him. He would often mention how "crazy" that person was and would not be a good board member or officer. Turns out the one guy that wanted to run against him had reported him to the authorities for doing work without a license. Mr. Wonderful then spread vicious lies about him so that no one would vote for him. None of them knowing the truth that he had been reported to authorities. I had found out many of Mr. Wonderful's lies...

However, Mr. Wonderful also knew how to use people. He even stated that he thought of the people in our HOA as "Puppets and he the Puppet master". He planned on using me to take over his duties as President and have me replace him. He thought that he could manipulate me and get me to do whatever he wanted me to do. Let's just say that I took this "Opportunity"... So I ran as Vice-President the first year and won hands down. His plan was for me to be Vice-President the first year to train me then for me to take over President the next year. The reality is that he just wanted me to do his job but he take credit for it. I about blew a steam out my ears at our meetings when he laid claim to everything I had done as if he had done it.

Surprise! The next year came around and I was easily elected president because he claimed he "quit". The truth is that I was clearly elected by the membership and he had no chance to be re-elected at all. This is when I took action. I fired his good drug dealing friend our landscaping crew. Put up for bid the new lawncare contact. I put in several new policies. Formed a neighborhood watch. Foreclosed on a home he had let go for several years. Cleaned up the place and fixed things that were neglected. The best part is that I got his hand out of the till the best I could. Made a rule that one had to be licensed/insured to make a bid on ANY repairs or work for the HOA. This forced him to be licensed as a business. Still had to hire him due to the membership still liked him, but I would hire others.

In the end, my hard work and dedication protected many homeowners from greedy underhanded people who did not have the best interest of the HOA at heart. I turned the place around to make it more attractive to potential buyers. It was a much better place when I left than when I arrived. Wish I could say that Mr. Wonderful had gone away but sadly I can't. He reared his ugly head and formed a mutiny to get me out. Which did not matter as I had already announced I had bought another house and had quit as President. Just going to return as a board member to help with the transition. Mr. Wonderful had his new girlfriend as President... As for me, I'd rather teach now those living in a HOA so that they can learn from my mistakes or my improvements. My volunteering came from the heart... It's just my heart was bigger than just one person....

I had a few complaints about lack of transparency, rudeness and other things. a ffriend suggested when a position came open that I do something rather than just complain. He was right. So I ran and was elected to a 3 year term.

Exactly. The well was poisoned in my neighborhood. Because of all the fighting not many people wanted to get involved.

Why did I volunteer? To stop all the frivolous spending and mismanagement.

In short, someone has to keep the morons in check.

I have previously volunteered to do things for our HOA with the simple goal of making the community a little nicer and maybe a little friendlier. For a short while in the beginning, people seemed to be happier. However, the next year, the Board President (who got his buddies to run for the Board specifically so he could be nominated as President) created nightmare after nightmare. I continued to volunteer with the hopes of engaging the homeowners and create some pleasantness. After the Board President did the same thing this year (get his buddies on the Board to make him the President after the previous Board ended up removing him as President for legal reasons), I gave up the volunteering. So to answer the question, my experience is that I (as well as others) will cease to volunteer if they feel they are being used or abused by a Board.

If a Board truly wants to have volunteers, treat people nicely. Watch how you address others (because everyone else is watching and nobody wants to work with a jerk). Recognize the value that others provide by working for free. Don't exhibit favoritism (ie my buddy can have their project approved but not anyone else). Don't authorize HOA funding for volunteer projects that are a conflict of interest or not in the best interests of all homeowners or for line items that should never be paid for with HOA funds. Keep in mind that not all projects should be done by volunteers (anything where the HOA would desire a warranty or guarantee and anything that requires a certain level of expertise beyond the scope of volunteers should NOT be done by volunteers). As an example, if the HOA authorizes landscaping by volunteers and then the landscaping dies or fails to thrive, the HOA is not going to recover the expense whereas using a contracted landscaper should bring some type of warranty or replacement agreement). Any Board should be able to discern if there is a conflict of interest for a so called volunteer. Some conflicts of interest are even obvious (volunteer works for a contractor and then wants the contractor to get the bids).

Good luck and thank you!

There are two reasons I volunteer: (1) most of the time, nobody else will and (2) unless I'm on the board, the board doesn't do anything except collect assessments and pay the bills. Doing nothing includes not giving proper notice for meetings, not having an agenda for meetings, not producing minutes for meetings, and just not holding meetings at all, not enforcing the CC&Rs, and not producing the required reports and documents. The members don't want to disband the HOA, but they also don't want to serve on the board. Since I'm one of the people who wants to retain the HOA (for a variety of reasons), I volunteer because someone has to; most of the time, I have to beg other members to serve on the board with me.

As for why people don't volunteer: we have a very small HOA. We've never been able to find a management company that will take an HOA our size, and if we did we probably couldn't get the members to approve the additional expense. People burn out, especially as we have one member who loves to have his attorney send letters every time the board does or doesn't do something he disagrees with or dislikes, or come to meetings and complain, make demands, and threaten to either not pay assessments or sue everyone. The fact that he apparently hasn't ever read the governing documents and shows complete lack of understanding of HOA law and management doesn't stop him from being a vocal gadfly through his attorney (who is apparently also in the dark, although he has apparently read enough of the governing documents to include snippets in his letters). This one member burns up more of the BOD's time and attention than all the rest of the members put together x5. It makes it difficult to serve on the board, and to get people to serve on the board.

My house is in escrow and I can't wait to resign.

Karen,

I think that a discussion on a States involvement is best served by discussing it on a thread specifically for that topic. This also helps readers to better find topics that may relate to their specific issues more easily.

There have been two recent threads along that line of discussion. This one seems to be a good match:

Subject: Department of HOA Regulation and Enforcement

and this one seems to be along a similar path of discussion:

Subject: Making unqualified volunteers qualified

or a new topic could be started.