Booming And Busting of A Student Volunteer Club Part 1

In May, 2013, I joined a student volunteer club in Bangkok, which aims to equip high-potential high school students with activity design and leadership skills while inspiring them to make a positive impact on society. The club required the new joiner to complete two development camps for rural schools per year, then finish by organizing the camp for the new cohort. When I joined, it was already the 15th generation. No one can anticipate that the club will be disbanded 5 years later for numerous possible reasons.

I believe a key factor is human capital, as I witnessed during those five years, and learned from the 15th year of the club: in my cohort, some of us were referred by alumni, either as friends or relatives. When one cohort is connected to the next, the referrer has an incentive to encourage the referee to complete their course, ensuring the next generation joins and carries the club. On the contrary, with the referee active in continuing the club, the referrer is expected to provide guidance and support. When one referrer participates in meetings, it pulls a close-knit cohort to participate as well. As this type of network grew, it glued both between and within cohorts.

However, we cannot rely on the referral program to fill 80 participants; at best, we could get roughly 6.25%-12.5% from it. So, the rest relies heavily on the application. Of the 29 questions, half are about cultural and leadership fit. We expected that, when our vibrant energy and creativity, along with the camp theme and PR, met with a questionnaire, it would yield an attractive camp that would attract high-quality students who would love to join. In the end, we successfully admitted 80 students, the most passionate and vibrant, from 7 cohorts.

With the club’s operating model that reset everything for the next cohort to start anew, the later generations often found it harder and harder to operate the club, from funding up to almost $6,100 a year, an amount that overwhelms high school students. Not to mention the energy to gather scattered friends since they’re from multiple schools across Bangkok. This isn’t an easy feat; the working group is required to sacrifice parts of their lives, including time with a high school friend, and prepare for university admission.

That’s why, if the current cohort cannot admit the right, qualified applicants, and the activity in the camp doesn’t promote enough bonding and passion, we risk creating a loosely knit working group. Then we risk disbanding the club, since the club hinges solely on the next generation.