Monthly Archives: October 2013

mobile devices, mobile apps, texting & volunteers

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A recent blog post by VolunteerMatch on 5 Ways to Use Your Mobile Device for Your Volunteer Program, which has some good, basic advice as well as some comments regarding how to send a text to multiple people at once, reminded me of how often that this topic has come up on the TechSoup community forum in some shape or form.

So I have done my best to compile these previous TechSoup threads here:

mobile time tracking – for volunteers to track service hours?

What mobile apps do you promote to clients, volunteers, supporters, staff?

Mobile apps: what do managers of volunteers *want*

anyone using these mobile apps as part of their work?

Sending text messages to 50 non-smart phones

FrontlineSMS – FOSS management for text messages

Texting from a computer

Planning for handheld tech

Handheld Computer Tech in Community Service/Volunteering/Advocacy

Feel free to comment on any of these threads over on TechSoup with additional questions, experiences or comments!

The question I get asked again & again

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I often feel that most letters to Dear Abby and other advice columnists can be summed up thusly:

There is this thing I need to do or say, because I’m suffering per the behavior of someone else, but I don’t want to address it because it’s going to make me uncomfortable to say or do what I need to say or do, it’s going to make other people uncomfortable, and the people I’m speaking about/to may end up not liking me, have their feelings hurt, etc. So how can I do or say this thing that I really need to do in such a way that no one will be angry, I won’t be uncomfortable, everyone will listen, all is well afterwards with no resentment or hostility, and I get the change in behavior I need?

And I realized over the course of the four presentations I did in the last two weeks that most questions asked by managers of volunteers can be summed up thusly as well.

Two of my most popular blogs are about how managers of volunteers are under pressure to always please volunteers  and The volunteer as bully = the toxic volunteer. Both of these blogs reflect the aversion of managers of volunteers to conflict, complaints and uncomfortable conversations.

This aversion comes from a misplaced notion that managers of volunteers must be:

  • always nice
  • never confrontational
  • always welcoming of all volunteers no matter what those volunteers might say or how they may act
  • make everyone happy at all times

How do we change that expectation of managers of volunteers – both from others and by ourselves?

Also see this oh-so-popular blog, the Volunteer Manager Fight Club.

No complaints means success?

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Back in April 2010, I published the following blog. It became one of my most popular entries. Later that year, my blog home moved – and then, just two years later, it moved again. I managed to recover this via archive.org, and am republishing it here on what I hope will be my blog home for a long, long time:

——-

During my workshops in Australia last month, I asked managers of volunteers how their executive leadership at their organizations define success regarding volunteer involvement. And one of the answers really disturbed me:

“It’s successful if no one complains.”

The person who made this statement didn’t think this was a good measure of volunteer involvement at her organization; she was acknowledging a reality at her organization, but did not like it. And at least two other people said similar things about their organizations — that senior management did not want to hear about any problems with volunteers and, if they did, it meant the volunteer manager wasn’t doing her (or his) job.

It means that just one volunteer complaint — including complaints about being reprimanded for not following policy —  would result in senior leadership displeasure with the volunteer manager. One person said that her supervisor, in regards to complaints by a long-time volunteer who did not want to follow policy, “I just don’t want to hear it. Make her happy.”

I heard this theme a few times, in fact: that senior management was more displeased about getting a complaint from a volunteer than they were that the volunteer had violated a policy and been given a verbal or written reprimand.

If you are facing this, confront it head on:

  • Consider meeting one-on-one with the senior leader who thinks this way, to discuss why a complaint from a volunteer isn’t a sign of a failure in the program, why it’s often necessary to do something that upsets a volunteer (just as it’s sometimes necessary to do something that upsets an employee), etc. Talk about the consequences of not addressing problems with volunteers. Even if you walk away thinking you haven’t changed his or her mind, you’ve at least planted a seed of doubt in the senior manager’s mind about his or her thinking about volunteer management.
  • While volunteer management is not exactly the same as HR management, volunteer management does involve HR management, and reprimanding volunteers because of policy violations is an example of that. Meet with the HR manager to make sure your policies and procedures — and enforcement — are in line with each other, and that he or she endorse your practices at a staff meeting or a meeting with senior management.
  • Consider conducting a brief workshop for staff (over lunch is a great time) about how and why volunteers may be disciplined, why following policies and procedures is vitally important for the organization’s credibility and for staff and volunteer safety, the consequences of not addressing policy violations, how complaints from volunteers are handled, etc.
  • Include information about problems you face as the volunteer manager in your regular reporting and how you systematically, dispassionately address such.

And on a related note, here is my interview with OzVPM Director Andy Fryar, talking about the trainings in Australia last month.

Also see

The volunteer as bully = the toxic volunteer.

With Volunteers, See No Evil?

Freaking out over Facebook privacy?

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Facebook announced this month that it is removing the privacy feature that lets Facebook users hide from the social network’s search bar. That means that, if you use your real name on Facebook, anyone can find you. It doesn’t mean anyone can “friend” you, or see what you have posted to Facebook, if you have your privacy set to “friends only.”

A lot of people are freaking out over this. I’m not. Facebook doesn’t belong to me; it belongs to a for-profit company. The goal of that company is to make money. Facebook makes money two ways: by selling advertising and by selling information about you – information that you have voluntarily, freely, willingly, inputted into the system. I’ve known that from day one. I’ve known that about every online system I’ve used. Maybe it comes from being trained as a journalist – when I write something online, I think of it as publishing.

Short of deleting your Facebook account altogether, what can you do to protect your information on Facebook from being accessed by people and companies you do NOT want to see it?

  • Use your privacy settings to make your Facebook posts viewable only by friends, or at most, friends of friends. And remember that you can always do a “custom” setting, where a post is viewed only by specific people you choose – or NOT viewable by certain people of your choosing.
  • Every time you post, make sure, next to the “post” button, the option says just “friends.” If it doesn’t, change it!
  • Alter your name so that it isn’t exactly your name. Add an extra “s” somewhere. Or three “a”s where just one should appear. Or a Q as your middle initial. That can help confuse companies that are sold your information by Facebook regarding who you really are.
  • Create an email address to use only with Facebook. Yahoo or Gmail are but two options you could use. Change this under your “about” page (under contact info). Never, ever use this email for anything but Facebook. That’s another thing that will confuse computer programs trying to match your data with other information online.
  • Take your birthday off of Facebook. I know – it’s so much fun getting all those birthday wishes from your friends! But your birthday is precious information that should never be inputted into a social media database – it can be used for identity theft. You can still post “It’s my birthday!” in a status update if you want those birthday wishes!
  • Do not use Facebook to sign into ANYTHING other than Facebook! When you create an account on some web site, and it asks if you want to sign in with Facebook, DO NOT DO IT.
  • Don’t acknowledge all of your family connections through Facebook’s “relationship” feature. For instance, many credit card and bank accounts ask you for your mother’s maiden name, and if you have linked to your maternal grandmother on Facebook via the “relationship” feature, I can figure out what that is. You can still talk about and to your grandmother on Facebook – just take it out of the Facebook “about” database (a database that Facebook SELLS).
  • You could create two Facebook accounts – one that is the public, professional you, where you post things you wouldn’t mind anyone seeing and knowing, where you “friend” co-workers and classmates, etc., and one that is the wacky, snarky, political, outrageous you, where you “friend” only your close friends and family. That’s a violation of Facebook’s user policy, and if they catch it, they will make you delete one of these accounts. To avoid detection: make the names at least slightly different, do NOT use the “relationship” feature exactly the same way on both, don’t input the same hometown and employment information, and don’t friend the same people on these accounts.

If you are one of the people that has freaked out over Facebook’s announcement, it’s time for you to sit down and really think about how you use online social media. Who is the “online” you? You have control of that – so what’s going to be your strategy for the online you?

Also see: Why You SHOULD Separate Your Personal Life & Professional Life Online

Volunteer groups leading to financial donation/sponsorships?

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I’ve had an incredibly busy three weeks, preparing for, and then delivering, four trainings – two in Kentucky and two in Portland. Topics ranged from communications for small nonprofits (More Donors, More Volunteers and More Awareness: Doing It All With Better Outreach) in my home town of Henderson, Kentucky (more than 70 people attending – INCLUDING MY MOTHER) to a panel discussion regarding building relationships with current and potential even partners, part of the Arts Festival Conference 2013 in Louisville – which I was invited to partly because of this article I wrote in 2003 regarding finding sponsors (scroll down on the page to find it) and two all-day, intensive workshops on volunteer engagement essentials for AmeriCorps members serving in Oregon, hosted by Oregon Volunteers.

But I’m blogging today in particular about the presentation in Louisville, which was organized by ZAPP® / Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF).

There was an audible gasp from the audience when I suggested that a great way to build a relationship with potential sponsors  is to create volunteering opportunities for the employees of the company that festival organizers are targeting as a potential sponsor. People came up afterwards to ask, “Really?!”

Really.

There are many companies that are hungry to do something for communities and nonprofits beyond just buying a table at an event or having their name above the title of the event (“Acme Anvils Presents…”). Tell a company that 10, or 50 or even 100 employees could be involved in a one-day, just-show-up volunteering event and that company may very well ask you where to send the sponsorship check! And it seems to me that arts festivals present a terrific opportunity for this: event set up volunteers, tear-down volunteers, runners during the event, weather monitors, amateur photographers, tweeters and more.

True, Creating One-Time, Short-Term Group Volunteering Activities is not easy. But it’s an idea worth exploring if your event or program is in need of donors / sponsors.

How do I know? Because I’ve worked at a Fortune 500 company, directing its philanthropic activities, and I talk regularly with people who work at companies in the marketing or HR departments and do similar work. They love it when nonprofits don’t just come to them and say, “We need money – please give us some.” They like to hear about why the event or organization is important to the entire community, the real difference it makes, and how they can have a deeper connection than just a sponsorship check. They are being asked by employees for group volunteering events, and many companies see such events as ways:

  • to build employee cohesion
  • to allow people from different departments to work together in ways they never could in the work place
  • to allow employees to show talents and leadership abilities that haven’t been noticed in the work place
  • to give employees something fun to do

I also advised attendees to build a relationship with potential sponsors before ever asking for money: the first time they hear from you should NOT be when you ask for a sponsorship. Let them know about your events, let them know about your volunteering activities and invite them to participate, invite them to an open house – just meet to say “Hi, here’s what we do and wanted you to know. Tell us about YOU!”

I also talked at length about how arts festivals add incredible value to a community. Think about what people are looking for in a place to live: good schools, safe places, and LOTS TO DO, like farmer’s markets and festivals of any kind. Arts festivals – and arts activities of any kind (dance companies, live theatre productions, museums) add tremendous value to a community. Employers want to attract fantastic employees, and they OFTEN talk about community characteristics, including arts-related events and programs, to entice candidates to move or stay. So in making a pitch to a sponsor, talk about your organization’s value to the community – are you bringing a benefit to that company’s employees? THEN SAY SO.

Also see:

Creating One-Time, Short-Term Group Volunteering Activities
Details on not just what groups of volunteers can do in a two-hour, half-day or all-day event, but also just how much an organization or program will need to do to prepare a site for group volunteering. It’s an expensive, time-consuming endeavor – are you ready? Is it worth it?

Short-term Assignments for Tech Volunteers
There are a variety of ways for mission-based organizations to involve volunteers to help with short-term projects relating to computers and the Internet, and short-term assignments are what are sought after most by potential “tech” volunteers. But there is a disconnect: most organizations have trouble identifying such short-term projects. This is a list of short-term projects for “tech” volunteers — assignments that might takes days, weeks or just a couple of months to complete.

One(-ish) Day “Tech” Activities for Volunteers
Volunteers are getting together for intense, one-day events, or events of just a few days, to build web pages, to write code, to edit Wikipedia pages, and more. These are gatherings of onsite volunteers, where everyone is in one location, together, to do an online-related project in one day, or a few days. It’s a form of episodic volunteering, because volunteers don’t have to make an ongoing commitment – they can come to the event, contribute their services, and then leave and never volunteer again. Because computers are involved, these events are sometimes called hackathons, even if coding isn’t involved. This page provides advice on how to put together a one-day event, or just-a-few-days-of activity, for a group of tech volunteers onsite, working together, for a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO), community-focused government program, school or other mission-based organization – or association of such.

Article by me from 2003 re: Finding Sponsors (scroll down on the page to find it)

Don’t Just Ask for Money!
Something much more should happen if someone clicks on your web site’s “Help Us” link than a message that asks only for money.