Category Archives: Community / Volunteer Engagement

Corporate Volunteer Programs: What Do Nonprofits Want From Them?

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersA blog today lists what corporations want from nonprofits, schools and other mission-based organizations for employee volunteering. It’s called Corporate Volunteer Programs: What Do They Want From Nonprofits?

Yes, yes, nonprofits, schools and others know what you want, corporations. The corporate world has written endless presentations and blogs about it. You remind us of it during your lectures at conferences on corporate – nonprofit “partnerships.”

But here’s a thought: how about considering what nonprofits, schools and other mission-based initiatives want from corporate volunteer programs?

(1)   Respect the expertise at the organization where you want to volunteer

Teachers are not teaching because they couldn’t make it in the corporate world, and just because you are a marketing director at a Fortune 500 company does NOT you can do their job for a day. The same for all the other people working at nonprofits and other mission-based organizations: many have experience, training and certifications you do not have. Respect their professional training and experience. Don’t imply that you could step into their roles for an hour or two – just as you know they couldn’t step into your role at your company.

(2)   Volunteering is not free.

It takes a tremendous amount of resources to design volunteering experiences that will give you the things you want, as detailed in this blog, like encouraging greater teamwork amongst employees, or enhancing skills development for your staff “resulting in deeper job satisfaction and retention.”

Are you ready to pay for the time of staff at these nonprofits, schools and other organizations to develop these volunteering opportunities for you, not to mention the time they need to supervise and support your employees? Are you ready to say to nonprofits or schools, “Tell me how much staff time will be required to create these opportunities, including staff time for meeting with us and supporting us as we do these activities, and we will pay for that time”?

(3)   Nonprofits & Schools Needs > Corproate Volunteering Needs

A mission-based organization is driven by its mission, and that may mean saying no to your offer of volunteering, no matter how “skills-based” you want the volunteering to be. Your fantastic idea for a one-day volunteering event for your employees which will make your staff feel all the things you want might not fit into the schedule or priorities of the organization. Your marketing team’s stellar idea on a new online community may not fit the organization’s critical organizational needs – or may be beyond the time or capabilities of staff to manage when your corporate volunteers move on to something else. Respect that.

A good starting point for developing your corporate volunteering partnership is to sit down with the nonprofit, the school or other organization you want to help and ask, “What do you need? What are your biggest challenges? What does success look like at this organization?”

And then listen. Not just for one afternoon – listen for days and weeks. Go to the events and activities the organizations already undertakes, and sit in on their staff meetings, and just listen. When offering your volunteers, frame the offer on what the organization needs, not on what it is your corporation wants to do. And work together to develop what success will look like for the organization as a result of your volunteering, and how the organization can communicate best to you when things aren’t working.

Here’s a radical idea: why not treat the nonprofit or school or other organization as your client?

Also see:

Volunteers: still not free

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersWikipedia is free – for users. Its more than 12 million articles can be accessed free of charge. It’s maintained by more than 100,000 online volunteers – unpaid people – who create articles and translate them into over 265 languages. That makes Wikipedia/Wikimedia the world’s largest online volunteering endeavor.

Unlike most organizations that involve volunteers, Wikipedia doesn’t screen the majority of its volunteers: anyone can go in to the web site an edit just about any article, any time he or she wants to. You want to volunteer for Wikipedia, you just start editing or writing any article. That makes the majority of its volunteer engagement microvolunteering, the hot term for short-term episodic online volunteering.

But, wait — maybe Wikipedia is not free…

This is from a blog post in 2012 regarding its latest fundraising campaign:

The Wikimedia Foundation’s total 2011-12 planned spending is 28.3 million USD.

Funds raised in this campaign will be used to buy and install servers and other hardware, to develop new site functionality, expand mobile services, provide legal defense for the projects, and support the large global community of Wikimedia volunteers.

That emphasis is mine – some of those millions of dollars are needed to support Wikimedia’s involvement of volunteers. Because volunteers are not free. It takes a tremendous amount of time, effort and expertise to wrangle more than 100,000 online volunteers and all that they do on behalf of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. And that takes money.

But it’s not just Wikipedia: any nonprofit organization, non-governmental organization (NGO), school, government initiative or community initiaitive that wants to involve volunteers has to:

  • Provide at least one staff member – an employee or a volunteer – to supervise and support volunteer work, to ensure volunteers don’t do any harm to the organization, its clients or other volunteers/staff, and to ensure everyone working with volunteers has the support they need to do so appropriately and successfully. That person has to know how to do that part of his or her job, even if it’s just 25% of his or her job, and that might require the organization to send the person to workshops or classes, to subscribe to e-volunteerism (the leading online resource in the USA regarding volunteer engagement), to read books about volunteer screening, supervising volunteers, child safety… and that takes FUNDING.
  • Everyone that works with volunteers must make sure the work volunteers undertake is of the quality and type the organization’s clients deserve. That might require sending multiple staff members to workshops or classes, to read books about volunteer screening, supervising volunteers, child safety… again, that takes FUNDING.
  • Staff has to develop activities for volunteers to do — activities that often would be probably be cheaper and done more quickly by staff themselves. Those activities must be in writing, to ensure everyone’s expectations are the same. And, newsflash: the majority of people charged with this task do NOT know how to do it! They need support and guidance in creating volunteering assignments. Who is going to do provide that support and guidance?
  • The organization has to monitor volunteers, record their progress and report it to the board and donors, as well as to the volunteers themselves and, perhaps, the public. That takes time and expertise.

Any organization that does not allocate time and resources to these volunteer management tasks ends up with:

  • people applying or calling to volunteer and never getting a response
  • people coming to volunteer and standing around for the majority of the time, wondering what to do
  • volunteers that don’t complete assignments – which means the organizations has to either recruit more volunteers and start again, or give the work to employees
  • volunteers that don’t complete assignments correctly
  • volunteers that blog and tweet about their negative experience with your organization and, perhaps, about volunteering in general!
  • staff that does not want to involve volunteers

Volunteers are not free. I’ve said it many times before, before, and before that and… well, you get the idea.

I’ll keep saying it until I stop hearing people say, “Volunteers are great because they’re free!”

I’ll keep saying it until campaigns to encourage people to volunteer also include resources to help nonprofit organizations, NGOs, schools, communities and others involve and support more volunteers.

And don’t even try to say volunteers save money, because that starts yet another blog rant…

Can potential volunteers find you?

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How Easy Is It to Find This Online: Your Organization’s Volunteering Opportunities?

Let’s find out…

Go to Google or Bing.

Type in the name of your city (and, perhaps, your state too, if there are many cities in your country with the same name) and the word volunteer. Or the words volunteers.

For instance:

Portland Oregon volunteers
Henderson Kentucky volunteers
Austin Texas volunteering

Or add a keyword (or words) related to your organization:

Portland Oregon animal shelter volunteers
Henderson Kentucky children volunteers
Austin Texas computer volunteering

What comes up? Does YOUR organization show up in the first page of results? On the second page of results? If it doesn’t, look at your web site: does your web site use the name of your city and state and the word volunteer on the home page, on the page about supporting your organization, on the page about volunteering with your organization, etc.?

Also try this with Twitter: type in the name of your city and the word volunteers into the search function. What comes up? Are people looking for volunteering opportunities (meaning you should contact them!)? Does anything your organization has tweeted recently come up?

In short – how easy is it for people using the Internet to find volunteering opportunities at your organization? If it’s not easy, then is it any wonder you are having trouble recruiting volunteers?

Also see:

REQUIRED Volunteer Information on Your Web Site

Your flow chart for volunteers
(example of an effective volunteer in-take process)

No more warm, fuzzy language to talk about volunteers!

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Volunteers are neither saints nor teddy bears.

But you would never know it from the kinds of language so many people use to talk about them.

Back in November 2009, I got a mass email sent out from United Nations Volunteers to several thousand people that illustrates this oh-so-well. It said, in part:

This is the time to recognize the hard work and achievements of volunteers everywhere who work selflessly for the greater good.

Selflessly?

And then there are those companies that sell items for organizations to give to their volunteers, with phrases like:

Volunteers spread sunshine!

Volunteers… hearts in bloom!

In a word – yuck.

Not all volunteers are selfless! Yes, I fully acknowledge that there are still some volunteers that like to be thanked with pink balloons and fuzzy words – but could we at least acknowledge that there are many thousands of volunteers who do not respond to this way of being recognized?

Volunteers are not all donating unpaid service to be nice, or to make a difference for a greater good of all humanity or to be angels. Volunteers also donate unpaid service:

  • to gain certain kinds of experience
  • for a sense of adventure
  • to gain skills and contacts for paid employment
  • for fun
  • to meet people in the hopes of making friends or even get dates
  • because they are angry and want to see first hand what’s going on at an organization or within a cause, or to contribute to a cause they feel passionate about
  • to feel important
  • to change people’s perceptions about a group (a religious minority in a community may volunteer to demonstrate to the majority that they are a part of the community too, that they care about other people, etc.)

NONE of those reasons to volunteer are selfless. But all of them are excellent reasons to volunteer, nonetheless – and excellent reasons for an organization to involve a volunteer.

These not-so-selfless volunteers are not less committed, less trustworthy or less worth celebrating than the supposed selfless volunteers.

Let’s quit talking about volunteers with words like nice and selfless.  Let’s drop the fuzzy language and start using more modern and appropriate language to talk about volunteers that recognizes their importance, like

powerful
intrepid
audacious
determined
qualified
innovative
revolutionary
fastidious

Let’s even call them mettlesome and confrontational and demanding. That’s what makes volunteers necessary, not just nice.

In short, let’s give volunteers their due with the words we use to describe them.

And don’t even try to say volunteers save money, because that starts yet another blog rant…

Volunteerism-related research wish list for 2012

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I’ve blogged about what I learned or relearned in 2011 that I want to take into 2012.

Now, here’s a wish list for volunteerism-related research that I hope organizations like the Independent Sector, any ARNOVA members, The Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR), and others will delve into in 2012:

  • what are the top three factors are that keep nonprofits, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations from involving more volunteers
  • what are the top three factors are that these organizations feel affect their retaining of volunteers
  • if these organizations honestly believe their volunteer force needs to represent a diversity of ages, cultures and backgrounds; and if so, why, and if not, why not
  • what training all staff at an organization need in order to involve more volunteers and better support volunteers (not just the person in charge of recruiting and managing volunteers)
  • how these organizations know if their volunteer engagement is successful or not, how they define that “success”, how they know if there is a problem, etc.
  • how often these organizations revisit and revise their employee, volunteer and client policies with an eye, specifically, to safety of each of those groups
  • if such organizations have an online discussion group or intranet for their volunteers (would love to know how many have such versus how many don’t), and if they do, how they view the group’s effectiveness as a way to communicate with volunteers

I would love to know, through a survey of volunteers:

  • how many read and send email most every day
  • how many use Twitter
  • how many use Facebook
  • how many would feel comfortable using Facebook, Twitter or any social media as a part of their volunteering, versus those that would NOT want to do so (I’m hearing from many volunteers who are saying they do NOT want to mix the two)

I’ve already offered what I would love for someone to research re: microvolunteering, that I think would actually be of value to the charity sector.

If anyone does actually do this kind of research – as opposed to the oh-so-tired what motivates volunteers research that I AM SO TIRED OF – I will be happy to promote your work every way I can, because this research is needed. Greatly needed. We thirst for this data… I would dance for this data…

And for individual nonprofits, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations involving volunteers: why not create a free survey on SurveyMonkey and find out for yourself what volunteers are thinking about your organization, what Internet tools they use, what tools they might like to use with your organization, etc.? And share what you find? Your volunteers will see it as volunteer recognition.

volunteer managers: you are NOT psychic!

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A colleague recently posted that this was one of the things that makes a great volunteer manager: going with your gut feeling.

UGH! Dislike!

In my trainings, I say just the opposite: do NOT assume your gut is telling you the truth.  

NEVER let your gut be your guide to decision-making.

I’ve had volunteer managers tell me that their gut reaciton to applicants to volunteer is their primary guide to keeping “bad” people out of their program. And, so, I remind them of all of the many people who had no negative gut feeling about clergy, coaches or youth group leaders before or while those people abused children. And of all many people who did not have a negative gut feeling about that boyfriend, spouse, family member or friend who, after years of knowing each other, turned out to be a liar, a cheat – even a killer.

Everyone in the Penn State/Second Mile scandal went with their gut instead of following good policy and procedures. Look where it got them!

Linda Graff once told me that one of the most chilling things you will ever do is sit in a courtroom and watch all of the many people ready to testify on behalf of their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, neighbors, co-workers, etc. – oh, no, that person could NOT do the things you have accused him/her of. It’s impossible. I KNOW this person. I don’t care what your evidence says – I know in my soul he/she is a good person. Those people’s guts told them one thing – and despite the facts, they prefer to listen to their gut.

I have almost let my gut feeling turn volunteers applicant away — and those people have turned out to be some of my best volunteers. What I was actually doing was hearing my prejudices: about age, about culture, or about education (or lack their of). And I was honest enough to explore that and admit to it.

I have had people tell me, after working together for a couple of months, “You know, my first impression of you was insert-negative-comment-here. You have turned out not at all to be that way.” And I thank them for NOT going with their gut!

I’ve had endless numbers of volunteer managers tell me that their gut reaction to virtual volunteering is NO WAY IS THAT SOMETHING MY ORGANIZATION SHOULD DO.

In the course of my job, I never let my gut make decisions for me. Ever. Yes, my gut reaction might lead me in a direction, but if my gut is telling me something in the work place, such as don’t accept that person as a volunteer or that new idea just isn’t worth trying, I don’t make a decision based on that – I do more investigating and questioning. When it comes to effectively supporting and engaging volunteers, I need facts. Why am I having that feeling that such-and-such isn’t a good volunteer? Is it that he is being evasive in his answers? Is it that she seems too good to be true? Is it that he looks like an ex-boyfriend? When I start answering those questions honestly for myself, I either come to the concrete, fact-based reason I don’t want the person as a volunteer or I have to accept that my reluctance is more about prejudice than reality.

Volunteer managers: you are not psychic. There are no such things as psychics. Listen to your gut, but do NOT let it make your decisions, and if you haven’t said in the last three months, “Wow, my gut was wrong about that!” then you are NOT being honest with yourself!

Also see:

Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us by retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole (with co-author Alisa Bowman)

Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton

Beyond Police Checks: The Definitive Volunteer & Employee Screening Guidebook by Linda L. Graff

 

A missed opportunity with volunteers

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A colleague recently told me that she and a group of co-workers arranged to go to a nonprofit thrift store for one day and help the organization sort through computer donations. She and her colleagues had a great time:

“It was super fun!”, she said. “I got to sort through equipment, to tear apart computers, to take a hammer to outdated computers. We had a great time!” But she added, “No one ever asked me for my name. They didn’t have a sign in sheet. They didn’t capture any of my information. And I have no idea what all this work that I did means to them.”

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Again.

These volunteers merely got work done. This nonprofit merely got free labor. Nothing more.

Here was a great opportunity for this nonprofit organization to make connections that could lead to more volunteering, more volunteers, more awareness of its work and new financial donations! Here was an opportunity for these volunteers to learn about all that this nonprofit does, that it’s not just a thrift store but, in fact, a job training organization. A rich, longer-term, meaningful relationship could have been created.

Instead, the nonprofit just got some work done, and the volunteers had fun for a day. There is more to volunteer engagement than that – even for onsite episodic or microvolunteering volunteering like this, with just a few hours of work no requirement for future commitment.

I have no idea what all this work that I did means to them.

That comment in particular is the one that hurts me to the core as a volunteer management advocate.

Here’s what should have happened:

  • There should have been a sign in sheet for the volunteers. The names, postal mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of every participant should have been captured. This isn’t just to create a way to followup with volunteers later for further volunteering or fundraising; it’s to mitigate risk, to have a recourse in case volunteers damage property, hurt someone, or engage in inappropriate activity. It also says to volunteers, “You are more than just bodies doing work to us. You are people. We recognize that.”
  • Someone from the organization should have taken photos of volunteers in action, and asked for a group photo as well. The photos should have been posted to Flickr with recognition of the volunteers, either by their names or by the company they were representing. Some of the photos should have ended up on the organization’s web site as well. Photos could have been tweeted during the work as it was happening. Posting photos is a great, easy, cheap way to thank volunteers, to entice others to volunteer, and to say to everyone, “We are a nonprofit that is doing things!.”
  • Someone from the organization should have emailed each of the volunteers the day after the event, thanking each person for his or her service, noting why the service was of value to the organization, and telling the person how he or she could volunteer again in the future. The email should also have invited each person to subscribe to an email newsletter or follow the organization on Twitter or “like” the organization on Facebook – something that would allow the person to stay connected to the organization, know about new volunteering opportunities, etc. The email should have also invited each volunteer to opt-in to receiving postal mail from the organization.
  • Local TV stations should have gotten an email or fax from the nonprofit an hour before volunteers arrived, saying, “Hey, here’s a great video opportunity for you…” TV stations are often scrambling for video the the evening news cast. Someone taking a hammer to a computer would have ended up on a local news station for sure!

That’s volunteer engagement / community engagement 101. That’s not extra work – that’s what any organization should already be doing with volunteers that are going to show up for just an hour, or just half a day, or just one day. If an organization can’t do that, should they be involving volunteers at all? I don’t think so.

Also see

How to Get Rid of Volunteers – My own volunteering horror story. One of the most popular blogs I’ve ever published.

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.

Keeping Volunteer Information Up-to-Date
Suggestions on how to keep volunteer information up-to-date, with the goal of getting the information your organization needs with minimal effort on your part.

Required Volunteer Information on Your Web Site
If your organization or department involves volunteers, or wants to, there are certain things your organization or department must have on its web site – no excuses! To not have this information says that your organization or department takes volunteers for granted, does not value volunteers beyond money saved in salaries, or is not really ready to involve volunteers.

Mission statements for your volunteer engagement
(Saying WHY your organization or department involves volunteers!)
In addition to carefully crafting the way you talk about the value of volunteers, your organization should also consider creating a mission statement for your organization’s volunteer engagement, to guide employees in how they think about volunteers, to guide current volunteers in thinking about their role and value at the organization, and to show potential volunteers the kind of culture they can expect at your organization regarding volunteers.

 

Your questions/comments re volunteers & technology

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There are several topics on TechSoup right now that would be great places for those of you that work at nonprofits, NGOs, schools, government agencies – as employees or as volunteers – to share some of your knowledge, your questions, your confusions, etc., regarding using computer, handheld and Internet tech. Jump in!:

Just click on any link and join in the discussion with your comments or questions. Brag about what you or your volunteers are doing. Whine about what you can’t figure out. Ask a question and get help!

Registration required, but it’s easy and so worth it.

What I’m taking from 2011 for 2012

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logoIt’s December 2011. Here’s what I will be taking with me into 2012:

  • The Second Mile/Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal. This was more than the case of one pedophile; this was a colossal management and policy failure by a nonprofit organization and a university. Will you use this as a starting point for an open, honest discussion and review at YOUR organization? The case reminded me that I need to keep asking questions that make nonprofits uncomfortable regarding how they screen and supervise volunteers.
  • Virtual Volunteering is accepted as mainstream, as this recognition by CNN this year confirms. So, no more calling it “new.” That includes microvolunteering, which was identified and called byte-sized volunteering as early as 1997.
  • There is no excuse whatsoever, no matter how awesome the work that is done, no matter how large the task at hand, for a nonprofit organization, a non-government organization, a government agency or an international agency to not be vigilant about measuring its results and reporting on what it is doing, because, as the  Three Cups of Tea Fallout showed, the consequences hurt ALL mission-based organizations.
  • Too many agencies, governments and even charities themselves remain obsessed with valuing volunteers based on the hourly wages they aren’t paying them. One of the most popular blogs I wrote in 2011 was regarding the huge misstep by the United Nations Volunteers programme, IFRC, ILO & John Hopkins University make HUGE misstep this year regarding how to assign value to volunteers. Those that use this method – assigning a monetary value to the hourly work by volunteers – create problems like this with the USA’s union of professional firefighters. Or this with the unionized school employees in Petaluma, California. In addition, judging volunteers by their number of hours remains a bad idea as well, and it’s important to keep showing why.
  • Corporate folks really do NOT always know best when it comes to nonprofit and volunteering initiatives, as a certain stupid name for this new online volunteering service for nonprofits demonstrates – and as does the organizers’ continual denial that the name is offensive.
  • For-profit companies that try to pass off watching videos as community service do NOT like it when their activities are brought to light online and in the press by me, as oh-so-many nasty comments submitted to this blog – courts being fooled by online community service scams – demonstrate. I stopped posting the comments because they attacked me for things I never said regarding this company, and because they were sinking to the level of this, received today: Haha fuck you, bitch. Stay classy, guys.
  • Volunteer managers really do have a sense of humor: two of my most popular blogs this year were How to get rid of volunteers and Volunteer Manager Fight Club.
  • Twitter rocks. I’ve added hundreds of new followers in 2011, but much more importantly, I have learned things I never would have otherwise, met people at agencies I’ve long had my eye on, and gotten the word out about my own resources and activities to people and organizations that actually read and respond to such. Facebook was making me lose hope for the Internet as a meaningful way to meet people and exchange ideas; Twitter has restored that hope.
  • The world economy is still bad. Most of the jobs I had in 2011 were budgeted by my clients in 2009 or 2010. I’m not sure anything has been budgeted in 2011 to work with consultants – or hire new employees – for 2012, based on how my calendar is looking. One government program got eliminated entirely just before I started work! Even if the recovering starts in 2011, we will be feeling the consequences from these bad years for quite a while.

What did you learn in 2011? What are you going to do in 2012 regarding nonprofits, charities, humanitarian efforts, community capacity-building and/or volunteers?

Recruiting Computer/Network Consultants (paid or volunteer/pro bono)

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There are two reasons mission-based organizations (nonprofits, non-governmental organizations, and public sector agencies) need to recruit computer/network consultants, paid or volunteer/pro bono:

  • Staff at mission-based organizations such as nonprofits, NGOs, schools and government offices have a great deal of expertise in a variety of areas – but, often, such staff do not have expertise in computer hardware, software, and technology-related networks. That means that staff at such organizations often have to rely on consultants, either paid or volunteer, for such expertise.
  • An organization needs to recruit paid or volunteer / pro bono consultants to participate in its program delivery to clients or the public: an organization that helps nonprofits build accessible web sites, for instance, or a community center that helps the low income community it serves regarding computer literacy may want these consultants, paid or volunteer, to design and lead classes.

Staff at mission-based organizations such as nonprofits, NGOs, schools and government offices have a great deal of expertise in a variety of areas, such as health care, child welfare, environmental management, community outreach, human resources management, microfinance, emergency logistics, and on and on. But staff can feel a sense of both awe and fear about tech consultants — that whatever the consultant says goes. Staff may feel unable to understand, question or challenge whatever that consultant recommends.

What can mission-based organizations do to recruit the “right” consultant, whether paid or volunteer, for “tech” related issues, one that will not make them feel out-of-the-loop or out-of-control when it comes to tech-related discussions or the delivery of tech-related services?

See this updated version of Recruiting Computer/Network Consultants (paid or volunteer/pro bono)