Monthly Archives: December 2010

What triggers humanitarian action?

What constitutes humanitarian action, or triggers a humanitarian response? The obvious answers: a devastating natural event, like a flood or earthquake, or a devastating war, civil or otherwise, or a widespread illness outbreak, like HIV/AIDs.

But a staff member at ALNAP asks in a recent blog: what about urban violence? What about an ongoing cycle of violence that leaves local people and communities just as devastated and insecure as any of the aforementioned conditions that usually trigger a humanitarian response? What about, for instance, the unfolding violence in Rio de Janeiro, as government forces confront the drug gangs that have for years terrorized individuals and communities and wreaked havoc every bit as devastating as a series of tornados? (I realize a lot of people in the USA may not be aware of what’s happening in Rio right now, as its the violence in Mexico that dominates what little international news we get).

The author points out that, in such violent situations, large-scale involvement of international agencies would probably NOT be welcomed by local governments. But are there approaches from the humanitarian world that the local government and donors might undertake? He asks further:

How can humanitarian agencies engage with these issues, and maintain the flexibility to respond to needs in ways that are both principled and pragmatic, wherever they may arise? And how will programming need to change to ensure agencies provide timely and relevant assistance which delivers durable humanitarian outcomes in challenging urban contexts?

It’s a fascinating blog! If you are an aid or development worker, or a government person who might face such a situation, its worth your time to read.

(ALNAP is the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action).

 

Another anti-volunteer union

Unionized school employees in Petaluma, California, some of whom have been laid off due to budget cuts, do not like it that parent volunteers are now doing the work they were once paid to do. But even more: the union does not believe volunteers should be involved in the schools at all. Loretta Kruusmagi, president of the 350-member employees’ union bargaining unit at Petaluma Junior High School in California, said of the parents. “Our stand is you can’t have volunteers, they can’t do our work.”

On the one hand, I completely agree that the primary reason to involve volunteers should never be to save money:

But, ofcourse, on the other hand, volunteer involvement is essential for all sorts of other reasons, and I question the credibility of nonprofit organizations and government agencies focused on services to the public, like schools and state parks, that do not involve volunteers in a variety of ways, including in decision-making roles.

I believe passionately that certain positions — even the majority of positions in entire programs at some organizations — should be reserved for volunteers. The majority of programming by the Girl Scouts of the USA is delivered by volunteers. The majority of programming by the American Red Cross is delivered by volunteers. Going all-volunteer can be the right thing to do for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with money saved: It’s been true for the Pine Creek Information Center, it’s been true for the Aid Workers Network, and it’s true of lots of other organizations.

Why involve volunteers? What are the appropriate reasons?

    • Volunteer involvement allows members of the community to come into your agency, as volunteers (and, therefore, with no financial stake in the agency), to see for themselves the work your organization does.
    • Community engagement is community ownership. Volunteer involvement demostrates that the community is invested in the organization and its goals.
    • Involving volunteers — representatives of the community — helps educate the community about what the organization does.
    • Certain positions may be best done by volunteers. Volunteers can do anything. They can be counselors, advisers, theater ushers, short-term consultants, board members, projects leaders, project assistants, event coordinators, event staff, first responders, coaches, program leaders, classroom assistants, and on-and-on. Always be able to say why your agency wants volunteers, specifically, in those positions rather than paid staff (and never say it’s to save money!).
    • Involving volunteers creates support for your organization in other ways. How many volunteers are also financial donors? Have volunteers spoken at local government meetings or written letters to the editor of your local newspaper on your organization’s behalf? Are there any influential community members (elected officials?) who are former volunteers with your organization? What have volunteers done to educate friends and family about your organization and its mission?
    • Involving volunteers can be a reflection of your organization’s mission. If you are a nonprofit theater, for instance, you probably involve unpaid ushers. What have ushers experienced that is a reflection of your mission (which may be to present theater productions of that are of cultural significance for your community, or to ensure that community members of all ages and backgrounds are introduced to and educated about the place of theater in our society, etc.). If you involve volunteers as interns, how could you tie this involvement to the mission of your organization?
    • Involving volunteers can help your organization reach particular demographic groups — people of a particular age, in a particular neighborhood, of a particular economic level, etc., especially groups who might not be involved with your organization otherwise.
    • Involving volunteers can create partnerships with other organizations (nonprofits, government, business). Involving volunteers from a corporation might spur that corporation to give your agency a grant. Involving volunteers from a government office could lead to a program partnership.
    • Volunteer involvement can garner good PR (in media reports, government reports, blogs, etc.) regarding your community involvement.

There is no question that parents have the right to help out in public schools! Union president Loretta Kruusmagi is wrong, wrong, wrong to say otherwise. Just as the union of professional firefighters in the USA is wrong to “not condone” volunteer firefighters. Volunteers can, in fact, be the loudest non-Union voice in support of unions and other professionals. Since volunteers have no financial interest in the organization where they donate their service, their voice of support for professionals and their services, and their voice against budget cuts, can get the attention of the community, funders and the press.

For schools, nonprofits and others thinking volunteers are a great cost-cutting idea, see Frazzled Moms Push Back Against Volunteering.

To learn more on how to talk about the true value of volunteers, I highly recommend Susan Ellis’ outstanding book From the Top Down. The third edition has just been released.

Aid workers in fiction – new ABC show in January

There’s nonfiction books and documentaries about humanitarian workers, but not many dramatizations. I suspect the lack of novels, movie dramas and TV show dramatizations about aid workers, both paid and volunteer, is not because audiences wouldn’t enjoy reading or seeing such; rather, it’s probably because of the difficultly of writing a story that isn’t stereotypical, formulaic, or patronizing: person from North America, Europe or Australia goes to a poor part of the world and helps poor people and experiences wacky cultural differences while learning from local people and growing personally as well. Roll credits. There’s also the big fear of insulting people in developing countries, showing them as needy, ignorant, ineffectual, childlike, etc. while the aid worker is always benevolent and knowledgeable.

Not that such fictionalizations aren’t tried, sometimes with success:

    • I think Northern Exposure did probably the best job of any work of fiction of showing an outsider coming into a ‘foreign” place to help: Dr. Fleischman wasn’t an international aid worker, but going from New York City to rural Alaska comes about as close as you can get, and the local people, including the indigenous people, were presented in a very respectful light, each character allowed to be quite individual, interesting and, yet, less-than-perfect (human!).
    • The Constant Gardener does a decent job showing just how powerless aid workers are amid the chaos of extreme poverty and the influence of much better funded entities and armed groups. I thought the episodes of ER in Season 9 and 10 when a few characters worked in the Congo did a similarly good job of showing such.
    • I adored the VISTA volunteer in the novel in The Milagro Beanfield War, for being so utterly naive and unprepared and finding his situation completely surreal – I’ve so been that person at various times over the years (and, for the record, VISTAs are much better prepared for their placements these days!).
    • The Poisonwood Bible does a fantastic job of showing the very bad (and a bit of the good) by missionaries who are in a poor country to preach and do a little development work as well. While most aid workers are not missionaries, there’s some excellent do NOT do this moments in the book humanitarian workers can learn from.
    • The story arc from the TV show ER, starting with “Kisangani,” which originally aired 15 May 2003, through “Makemba,” which originally aired 11 Dec. 2003 , where two of the show’s doctors are working at a clinic in the Congo, is an excellent representation of what humanitarian work in a conflict zone can look like.

I write all this in anticipation of Off the Map, which will premier in January on USA-based television network ABC and will probably get shown in other countries as well eventually. The series takes place in “la Ciudad de las Estrellas,” a village in the South American jungle. “Six doctors, all of whom are running away from some sort of emotional issues and personal demons back home, arrive at the clinic and soon realize their new path is much different than anything they’ve ever dealt with as they battle the elements in this challenging and dangerous environment.” Sounds like there’s great potential for it to be stereotypical, formulaic and/or patronizing. But I’ll give it a try. I already see a big story problem: a poor village wouldn’t get SIX doctors. They’d get ONE doctor, if they were lucky, and that doctor would be the only one in a 500 mile radius.

If any executives are looking for stories to adapt to fiction, look no further than Peace Corps Worldwide, “where returned volunteers share their expertise and experiences.”

Slackervism on Facebook again

Back in January of this year, those of you on FaceBook probably saw lots of female friends, family and colleagues posting a colour/color in their status updates  — just one word, or a group of words, like “pink” or “blue” or “nude” or “white with black trim.” It was the color of the bra the posting person was wearing. Some people claimed it was an effort to raise awareness about breast cancer.

However, there is no data whatsoever saying that this what-color-is-your-bra campaign increased the number of women getting medical checkups regarding their breast health, doing self-examinations regularly, etc. There’s no data whatsoever that says someone knows about breast cancer now and how it impacts women that didn’t already know that before the campaign. Yes, Susan G. Komen for the Cure said they got some donations they think may have because some people followed up their bra color status with a link to its web site. But others reported no donations at all.

Lately, people are changing their Facebook profile photos to a cartoon character. They say this is to raise awareness about child abuse. Yet, there is no information offered on child abuse, no information offered on how to prevent such, etc. And there’s no data whatsoever that says someone knows about child abuse now that didn’t already know that before this “campaign.” No one is discussing child abuse; they are discussing cartoon characters.

I think it is yet another example of slackervism, where people clicked something online, or did something equally simple online, and walked away thinking, “Wow, I really made a difference”, but they didn’t. My fear is that these people then do not do what’s really needed — like volunteer or make a donation to an organization like Parents Anonymous, or Prevent Child Abuse America or know how to report suspected child abuse — because they think what they’ve done on Facebook has real impact, that that’s enough to make a difference.

And it’s interesting to note that when I challenged friends and colleagues about this — when they would post the cartoon photo and say, “This is to raise awareness about child abuse”, and I would post a comment asking “how”, people because very defensive, claiming that I didn’t care about child abuse or was “spoiling the fun.” Yes, it’s a lot of fun to change your profile to something silly — I do it often on my personal FaceBook page. But creating this false sense of activism is dangerous. Here’s what so many people are thinking as a result of campaigns like this: Why make time to volunteer or why reserve any money to help others when just clicking helps someone somehow? I can change the world just by clicking something or changing my Facebook status, right? Have a look at the Community Service section of YahooAnswers or similar online fora to see how often people ask for ideas for “just click and help” web sites, because they “love helping without having to really do anything(do a search on FreeRice if you doubt me).

I made recommendations regarding the bra color-to-raise-cancer-awareness last year, detailing what would have taken this from slackervism to real activism. So, what would have made this cartoon-charater-as-a-profile-pic a true social marketing/health marketing campaign, with real impact (changed behavior, new awareness, etc.) regarding child abuse?

    • Encouraging people to not only change their profile picture, and not just saying it’s to prevent child abuse, but also, to link to a web site for more information about child abuse, including specific aspects of such: child neglect, shaken baby syndrome, child sexual abuse, etc., and information on what to do if you suspect child abuse.
    • Having a banner on the home page of your child abuse-prevention or information site saying, “Did you change your FaceBook status photo to a cartoon character?”, which links to a page focused on educating people about child abuse and encouraging people to participate in the campaign.
  • Having a FaceBook fan page specifically associated with this campaign, and using it to not only educate about child abuse, but also, to survey fans about the impact of the campaign regarding their actions (did they have a discussion this week with friends about child abuse, or just cartoon characters?)

Online volunteering / virtual volunteering is not slackervism. Here’s more on what ROI for online action really looks like. Also see the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) status updates on Facebook from Nov. 25 – Dec. 2, 2010, for an example of an EFFECTIVE online awareness campaign using Facebook regarding preventing and responding to abuse of women.

Baby Boomer Volunteers – don’t believe all of the hype

Volunteer researchers and consultants have been talking about how new retirees from the “Baby Boomer” generation (born between 1946 and 1964) will affect volunteer support and involvement since at least the 1990s. I did a presentation back in 1998 or so about such, to an incredulous audience; I did an updated version of the same presentation just this year, more than 10 years later, and the audience was completely receptive, probably because they have already worked with so many volunteers from that generation.

The Baby Boomer generation volunteers differently than the greatest generation – that’s something I think most everyone agrees on. However, some of the expectations and predictions about what more Baby Boomer volunteers really mean for volunteer managers are… well, they are “out there.” Andy Fryer does a great job at his December OzVPM blog of talking about the realities of involving Baby Boomer volunteers — and countering the hype. It’s Australia-focused, but what he says really applies to most of the Western world, including the USA.

And speaking of Australian colleagues, be sure to subscribe to Martin Cowling’s new blog!

 

International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development

December 5 – today – is International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly per its resolution 40/212 in 1985.

This is not a day to honor only international volunteers; the international in the title describes the day, not the volunteer. It’s a day to honor, specifically, those volunteers who contribute to economic and social development. Such volunteers deserve their own day. Such volunteers are part of the reason I bristle at all the warm and fuzzy language used about volunteers.

I think it’s a shame to try to turn the day into just another day to celebrate any volunteer — there are plenty of days and weeks to honor all volunteers and encourage more volunteering; why not keep December 5 specifically for volunteers who contribute to economic and social development, per its original intention?

And just to be clear: by volunteer, I mean someone who is not paid for his or her service, and if he or she has a “stipend”, it covers only very essential expenses so the volunteer can give up employment entirely during his or her stint as a volunteer, rather than the stipend being as much, if not more, than some mid and high-level government workers of a country are making. Yes, that’s a dig.

Here’s how I volunteer.

Dec. 3, International Day of Persons With Disabilities

Knowbility is encouraging corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, web developers, software designers, IT managers, policy developers and others to join in using the United Nation’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities, December 3, to start or renew their commitment to online accessibility.

The goal of full and effective participation of persons with disabilities in society and development was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1982. The annual observance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities aims to promote a better understanding of disability issues with a focus on the rights of persons with disabilities and gains to be derived from the integration of persons with disabilities in every aspect of the political, social, economic and cultural life of their communities.

“The UN’s day provides a great opportunity for all of us to talk about the vital importance of digital inclusion,” said Sharron Rush, executive director of Knowbility, an Austin, Texas-based national nonprofit with a mission to support the independence of children and adults with disabilities by promoting the use and improving the availability of accessible information technology. “Without the commitment of everyone to online and software accessibility, millions of people who are blind, are visually-impaired, have mobility impairments or who have cognitive or learning disabilities will be left out as customers, clients, and students.” 

A great way for companies and various professionals to start or renew their commitment to online accessibility is to attend AccessU West, January 10-12, 2011, to be held at San Jose State University and presented by Knowbility.

AccessU provides three days of cutting-edge IT accessibility classes lead by world renowned accessibility experts. The keynote speaker will be Dennis Lembree, author of the internationally-recognized Web Axe, a podcast and blog focused on web accessibility. Lembree is an accomplished web developer who has worked for a variety of companies including Ford, Google, Disney, and currently, Research In Motion.

Other classes include:

    * “Real World Accessibility for HTML5, Css3 and ARIA” with Derek Featherstone
* “Testing for Web Accessibility” by Jim Thatcher
*  “How accessibility ties to usability goals” by Whitney Quesenbery, past President of the Usability Professionals Association (UPA).
* “Bake Accessibility into the CMS: Drupal & Accessible Content” with Kevin Miller

See you at AccessU West!

International Association of Fire Fighters is anti-volunteer

Some of the most vocal opponents to volunteers being used to replace employees and save money are volunteer managers and volunteer management consultants.

Yes, the people who are in charge of promoting volunteer involvement in nonprofits and in singing the praises of volunteers are the same people who balk at the idea of paid staff being let go and replaced with unpaid staff in order to balance the books.

We volunteer managers and volunteer management consultants believe passionately that volunteers have a much more important value than saving money:

  • involving volunteers gives community members a first-hand look at organizations and issues important to their neighborhoods, environments and families.
  • involving volunteers gives the community a feeling of ownership in an organization or issue.
  • involving volunteers creates advocates for an organization or issue, advocates that a lot of government officials and potential funders will listen to with particular interest since they have no financial stake in the organization they are promoting.
  • involving volunteers gives a diversity of people a voice in the organizations that involve them.
  • involving volunteers augments the work of paid employees.
  • some tasks are more appropriate for volunteers than paid staff, not because of level of responsibility but because of the kind of task. This can include everything from mentoring programs to disaster services (the majority of services by the American Red Cross and Girl Scouts of the USA, to name but two organizations, are delivered by volunteers, and that is NOT to save money!)

We volunteer managers and volunteer management consultants continually speak out against volunteers used as replacements for paid staff in order to save money.

So it’s with a great deal of confusion, sadness, and even anger that I recently discovered that the International Association of Fire Fighters, a labor union in the USA representing professional firefighters, is against volunteer firefighters:

Let me be as clear as possible. We as a union, by Convention actions, do not represent or condone volunteer, part-time or paid on-call fire fighters… We as a union, by Convention actions, do not represent or condone volunteer, part-time or paid on-call fire fighters… Although an IAFF member may make a personal choice to join a volunteer fire department, that personal choice is one that can have serious consequences under our Constitution, including the loss of IAFF membership.

Harold A. Schaitberger
General President
International Association of Fire Fighters
September 20, 2002 letter to all IAFF Affiliate Presidents 1

Volunteer firefighters could have stood side-by-side with IAFF members and fought against budget cuts or efforts to replace paid staff with volunteers over the years. Volunteer firefighters could have fought together to ensure firefighting programs are fully funded. They could have been united in calls for firefighters, paid or volunteer, to receive all the training that is needed among all firefighters, paid or unpaid. Instead, the IAFF has declared war on volunteer firefighters — and volunteers in general.

In a meeting with a representative of the State of Oregon Fire Training Section last year, I was informed that the agency makes no distinction among professionals or volunteers when delivering or certifying firefighting training. To them, they are all firefighters, and they are judged on their official credentials and experience, period, not whether or not they are paid.

As it should be.

Before 1850, no city in the USA had fully paid, full-time firefighters.2 Cities began to employ full-time firefighters when people realized full-time firefighters were needed to deal with the number and kind of fires happening in large cities. The USA is now a mix of paid and volunteer-staffed fire houses. But at some point, some paid fire fighters in the USA decided volunteers were a threat. And the IAFF has made that schism official.

This is in stark contrast with Germany, a country that is frequently derided by various folks here in the USA for being too inflexible in its labor laws and government social safety nets, all of which are most definitely pro-labor. It may come as a shock to you, if that’s your point of view, that Germany has a much longer tradition of volunteer firefighting than the USA; many of its volunteer fire companies are much older than our own country. Paid firefighters see no threat from volunteer firefighters, and the firefighting union there happily allows professional firefighters to volunteer in fire fighting stations in their own villages where they live (in contrast to the big cities where they work). I can find no record of a professional fire station in Germany having been converted into an all-volunteer station in order to save money. Even now, Germany has more volunteer firefighters, per capita, than in the USA, and no professional firefighter has lost his or her job to a volunteer.

IAFF’s position on volunteer firefighters is outdated, misguided, outrageous and wrong-headed. It does nothing to protect the jobs of paid firefighters. The consequences of that stand are to the detriment of communities, citizens and environments — and even to paid firefighters themselves.

I could also write an entire blog about the fallacy of the word “International” in IAFF’s title, but I’ll save that for another time.

I hope that state and local volunteer management associations all over the USA will take a public stand on this issue. Please blog about it. Please put something in your Facebook status about it. Tweet about it. Put something in your newsletter about it. Maybe we can help IAFF see that volunteers are not a threat, that volunteers are, in fact, in support of career firefighters. Maybe IAFF members will seek new leadership that understands this.

More:

1 Schaitberger’s comments have disappeared from the IAFF web site since this blog was originally published.

2 Ditzel, Paul C. Fire Engines, Firefighters: the Men, Equipment, and Machines, from Colonial Days to the Present. New York: Crown, 1976.

Volunteerism FAIL

The Town and Country Inn and restaurant in Chattanooga, Tennessee (USA), was a for-profit business. Then it laid off 14 of its paid staff, who were being paid minimum wage ($7.25/hour) and room and board. It then asked these former employees to sign papers formalizing their transition from employee status to “residency volunteer status” with the newly formed Town and Country Foundation, and agreeing to undertake tasks in return for their housing — tasks that are the same as what they were being paid to do before. The motel claims to have organized a nonprofit foundation, but there’s no listing of a board of directors anywhere for the public to read, no mission statement, no volunteer recruitment strategy, and the owner of Town and Country, David Bernstein, seems to believe he still owns the organization, even though, as a nonprofit, it’s now owned by the board of directors — whomever they are.

I have talked about the appropriateness — and inappropriateness — of increasing volunteer-involvement in response to budget cuts before, most recently in this blog, Going all-volunteer in dire economic times: use with caution, which focuses on local volunteers in a small community in the state of Washington that mobilized to get a national forest center operating again, staffed entirely by members of the local community. While the national forest center went all-volunteer for all the right reasons (though I still had a lot of cautions about that), the Town and Country Inn and restaurant is exploiting volunteers and its nonprofit status, period.

An organization should involve volunteers because the organization wants to involve the community in its work and give people without a financial interest in the organization a firsthand look at how things work. It should involve volunteers to reach constituencies/demographics not current reached among staff and clients. And, most importantly, it should involve volunteers because volunteers are more appropriate to undertake certain tasks, rather than paid staff, not to save money, but because clients prefer to deal with volunteers, because it gives the community ownership of the program, etc.

Give certain nonprofit organizations all the money they need to hire all the paid employees they need and the Girl Scouts of the USA, the American Red Cross, and many other organizations, large and small, would still deliver the majority of their services with volunteers. Why? Because there are many services that are best delivered by volunteers, and because the strength of these organizations comes from the volunteers being the primary owners of these organizations.

The US Department of Labor is, supposedly, investigating what’s happening in Chattanooga. One question on the IRS form to establish a nonprofit in the USA asks whether the new entity is the successor of an old entity and, if it is, the business must explain that transistion — I think we all should see that answer.

Let’s hope these federal agencies are, indeed, investigating. Because this is wrong in every way.

More at the Nonprofit Quarterly and Chattanooga Free Press.