Tag Archives: USA

CNCS continues its old-fashioned measurement of volunteer value

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logoIt’s happened again: an official government body touting the value of volunteers as coming primarily because of the amount of money nonprofits and others save in not having to pay staff.

Here are the first and second highlights in an email I received today from a Corporation for National and Community Service distribution list I’m on, regarding the Volunteering and Civic Life in America 2014 (which actually is a report on stats from 2013, and only for the USA):

  • Nearly 63 million Americans volunteered nearly 8 billion hours last year
  • This service has an estimated value of $173 billion (based on the Independent Sector’s estimate of the average value of a volunteer hour)

These stats are the very first highlight on their web site as well.

Here we go again: the primary value of volunteers is the dollar (or Euro or whatever) value of each hour they donate – that means the value of their donated service is the money organizations didn’t have to spend on paying staff.

Yes, CNCS looks at some other benefits – about volunteers becoming financial donors, and about how increased volunteering rates may lead to lower unemployment – though, in fact, the same researchers whose study CNCS is using to say this have noted that they did not establish a causal link between volunteering and employment (page 2) . But at the top of every graphic or document about this report is always the same thing: the primary value of volunteer service in the USA was $173 billion. And that’s what we should be celebrating.

What are the consequences of CNCS, as well as other organizations, touting the volunteer-value-based-on-monetary-value as the primary value of engaging with volunteers?:

  • Governments can be justified in saying, “Let’s cut funding for such-and-such programs and, instead, get some volunteers to do it, because volunteers are free labor – they save money!”
  • Corporations can be justified in saying, “We’re cutting our funding programs because these nonprofits should just find some people to do the work and not be paid for it! That will save money. And nonprofits can, instead, create a half day for our staff to come onsite and have a feel-good volunteering experience – it won’t be any extra work for the nonprofits because, you know, volunteers are unpaid, and that makes them free!”
  • Unions can be justified in saying, “We are against volunteering. Because volunteers take paid jobs away.” That’s what the union of firefighters in the USA says – and the CNCS’s use of a monetary value as the primary value of volunteers says it’s right.
  • Economically-disadvantaged people that are being asked to volunteer are justified in saying, “How can you volunteer if you have no income, no money and are concerned about the means to provide your kids with something on their plates every night? With all due respect…I say, ‘Please be serious!’” (yes, that’s a real quote)

All of those scenarios are happening right now in response to calls for more volunteers, as I note in the links above and the links at the end of this blog. And there will more of them as a result of this continued approach by the CNCS and other organizations to always make monetary value as the primary value of volunteer engagement.

How to talk about the value of volunteers? Instead of looking only or primarily at the money value of the hours contributed, CNCS and other organizations could also look at:

  • Are there certain tasks that are best done by volunteers, rather than paid staff? Why?
  • Do increased levels of volunteer engagement lead to or relate to less violence in a community? Why?
  • Do high levels of volunteer engagement lead to or relate to healthier, more sustainable NGOs and civil society? Why?
  • Do high levels of volunteer engagement lead or relate to more voters, more awareness of what is happening in a community or more awareness of how community decisions are made?
  • Does increased volunteer engagement by women contribute to increased empowerment of under-served people and communities?
  • Does volunteer engagement by youth contribute to youth’s education levels or safety?
  • Are there certain kinds of volunteering that have particularly types of impact beyond number of hours given? What is the value of family volunteering, employee group volunteering, tech group volunteering (hackathons), teen volunteering, micro volunteering (micro tasks), virtual volunteering (online service), and other forms of volunteering that are enhanced or reduced in relation to traditional volunteering?

What an important, powerful study that would be that could help volunteers, the organizations that involve such, and the funders that finance the involvement of volunteers (because, of course, we all know that volunteers are never free, right?)!

Also see Initiatives opposed to some or all volunteering (unpaid work), & online & print articles about or addressing controversies regarding volunteers replacing paid staff, a list of organizations and initiatives opposed to some kinds of volunteering (unpaid work), or ALL kinds of volunteering, including unpaid internships at nonprofit organizations / charities. It is also a list of online and print articles about or addressing controversies regarding volunteers replacing paid staff. Most of the links are to initiatives or actions in Europe or the USA.

My other rants on this subject:

Judging volunteers by their # of hours? No thanks.

Research on USA volunteerism excludes virtual volunteering

Do NOT say “Need to Cut Costs? Involve Volunteers!”

UN Volunteers, IFRC, ILO & others make HUGE misstep

Value of Volunteers – Still Beating the Drum

pro vs. volunteer firefighters

Volunteers: still not free

Fight against unpaid internships will hurt volunteering

Advice for unpaid interns to sue for back pay

Should the NFL involve volunteers for the Super Bowl?

I agree with this anti-crowdsource campaign

Communication for Development (C4D): Addressing Ebola

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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Communication for Development (C4D) web site section shares information and materials any initiative can use to help educate individuals and communities about how to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus and how to care for those already affected.

Materials include:

  • Fact Sheets – For example, key messages, brochures with facts, and slide presentations.
  • Visual materials like a poster of signs and symptoms and a flip chart for health communicators.
  • Audio materials like songs and public service announcement (PSA) spots.
  • Training materials.
  • Guidelines for community volunteers.
  • Planning Documents – For example, a West and Central Africa (WCARO) strategy framework model.
  • Other Tools – the Behaviour Change Communication In Emergencies:  A Toolkit; Essentials for Excellence – Research, Monitoring and Evaluating Strategic Communication; and the UNICEF Cholera Toolkit.

The Communications Initiative also is compiling information from a range of organizations regarding how to address communications challenges regarding Ebola. It’s updated frequently, and it’s a must-read for any development communications or public health communications specialist.

Also see my own resource, Folklore, Rumors (or Rumours) & Urban Myths Interfering with Development & Aid/Relief Efforts, & Government Initiatives (& how these are overcome).

Jayne Works an Election in the USA

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Can you find me in this video at the Washington County elections office of people yesterday checking ballots to ensure they are ready for the counting machines? If you know me, you can. If you don’t know me: I’m in the front, wearing flannel. I got along beautifully with my Republican and Independent table mates – the Republican kept giggling at my jokes, especially as the night wore on. Can’t we all get along?

Here’s a video about how the whole process of ballot counting works in Washington County, Oregon (start about 1:15 for the specific details). Pretty much all of the same people in this video were there working this year’s election – the same people come back year after year. The people at the tables are not volunteers – we ARE paid for our work. In Oregon, registered voters receive their ballots by mail, and they can return them by mail so long as they will be received at a county elections office by election day, or, until 8 a.m. election night, voters can put ballots in an official ballot drop box (if they are in line to drop their ballot at 8, they are allowed to drop the ballot in the box later). If someone loses their ballot before filling it out, or never receives it, they can vote at the county elections office on election day before 8 p.m. People vote right up to the deadline – the rush at the deadline is frightening! 

I have been trying to work an Oregon election since moving back to the USA in 2009. My wish finally came true this year: I got the call while I was working for the United Nations in Ukraine, actually, and I had to stay up late one night in Kyiv to call the office back and say, yes, I was ready! I wanted to work the election both because I wanted to see how the experience compared to doing the same in Austin, Texas back in 1996, and because I need the experience in order to eventually work overseas as an OSCE election observer.

And here is the machine that sorted the ballots after their signature check, so that we could review them and prepare them for counting. I saw this video being taken, actually – in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Nov. 5. We were always happy when we heard this machine – it meant we would have ballots to count. It’s really boring when there are no ballots to count.

But by 6 a.m., when most everyone had been up for 24 hours, and working for 17 hours, all of the processes were stopped, and we were told we could go home and come back at 2 p.m. Wednesday to finish – we had more than three hours of work still to do, and the quality of our work was suffering. Unfortunately, after working Thursday, Friday, Monday, and then 17 hours straight Tuesday and Wednesday, I had to end my work when I left this morning – I’ll be going to Poland soon, and have MUCH to do to prepare.

Yes, I did tweet a few times during breaks, sometimes from my personal account, sometimes from my professional account. Never anything in appropriate. Kudos to Washington County for sometimes responding to those tweets!

The Wrong Way to Celebrate International Women’s Day

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Today is International Women’s Day. 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, which was first celebrated in Europe. In 1975, the United Nations began celebrating 8 March as International Women’s Day, and in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. Most countries have gone with March 8.

This isn’t a day to give women flowers or take them to lunch. It’s a day to remember that women are denied access to education, health care, income generation and life choices at a staggering rate compared to men. It’s a day to remember that women and girls are undervalued all over the world. Millions of girls are not tracked at all by their governments – there are no systems to record their birth, their citizenship, or even their identity. The 2009 World Economic Forum devoted one of its plenary sessions to the impact of educating girls in developing countries for the first time ever, and noted that only half a cent of every international development dollar currently goes toward girls.

A few days ago, word leaked that USAID is removing or watering down specific women’s rights requirements in funding proposals from organizations in Afghanistan. A senior U.S. official said in the Washington Post article, “Gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities… There’s no way we can be successful if we maintain every special interest and pet project. All those pet rocks in our rucksack were taking us down.”

Women are not pet projects. Women are not pet rocks. 50% of the Afghan population are not a “special interest.”

Let’s be clear: peace and prosperity in Afghanistan is NOT possible, in the short term nor in the long term, without ambitious targets to improve the lives women, and strict requirements by those organizations receiving USAID funding to meet those targets.

USAID’s watering down of women’s rights requirements in funding programs in Afghanistan further entrenches the practice of leaving 50 percent of the population living in deplorable conditions, depriving them of education and participation in even micro enterprises like raising a GOAT. I have worked with many Afghan women, and more than a few gender specialists based in Afghanistan. To a person, they all say the same thing: reforms for women will NOT happen in Afghanistan without sustained, clearly-stated pressure from donors.

    • When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
      (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)
    • An extra year of primary school boosts girl’s eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.
      (George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update, Policy Research Working Paper 2881 [Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)
    • Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers.
      (George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries, Social Science and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993].)
  • When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.
    (Phil Borges, with foreword by Madeleine Albright, Women Empowered: Inspiring Change in the Emerging World [New York: Rizzoli, 2007], 13.)

Give a man to fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Teach a WOMAN to fish, you feed her FAMILY for a lifetime. Teach a woman to fish, and everyone eats.

Empowering Women Everywhere – My Favorite Resources, a list of my favorite resources for information about the empowerment of women and girls. If you are looking to educate yourself on this issue, this is where to start.

Special added bonus: A video by Daniel Craig (007), narrated by Dame Judi Dench (who I met once!). The quotes are about women and men in the UK – but apply most anywhere. Something to think about, not just on today, International Women’s Day. You’ll smile at the image – but will you also think about the statistics you are hearing?