Category Archives: Nonprofit/NGO/Agency Management

My wakeup call regarding risks in volunteering programs

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When I first started promoting the work of the Virtual Volunteering Project back in 1997, the question asked most frequently was, “How do you keep people safe from online volunteers who might be predators?”

I took those safety concerns to heart and, for months, poured over information from the FBI and from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children at the time. I learned all I could about who harms other people, particularly children, and what situations put children at most harm. And I was stunned at what I learned: the vast majority of missing children who have been taken by someone were taken by a non-custodial parent, not a stranger. And that the vast majority of people that harm children are family members or someone known and trusted by the family.

I also researched identify theft – and was stunned to discover how often this theft is perpetrated by family members or someone else living in the house where the victim lives: using the victim’s credit card, opening credit accounts, open new bank accounts, getting loans, withdrawing funds from the victim’s bank account, using the victim’s health and/or dental insurance for their own use, claiming the victim’s government benefits as their own and filing false tax returns or claiming the victim’s tax refunds.

I revisit these subjects regularly, and in more than 20 years, the facts haven’t changed about where the dangers regarding abuse and identity theft come from. When I reference these facts regarding safety in a training, it sometimes draws gasps from the audience. I remind workshop attendees that Larry Nassar was well known to his victims, their parents and coaches and trusted by many. So was Jerry Sandusky. So are many of the clergymen facing charges related to child sexual abuse. And I ask: what policies do YOU have that would prevent this at your organization, by a volunteer, client or staff member you know and trust but aren’t observing every second during his or her service? Does your organization have a speak up culture or a culture of avoidance?

I also remind them that Big Brothers / Big Sisters brings adults and children together and that these adults and children interact far from the eyes of any staff members or family – and the organization has a stellar safety record. How does BBBS do such an incredible job regarding safety? Safety is embedded in every part of their organizational culture. They don’t just do a criminal background check: they interview candidates for volunteering, they observe them, they reference check them, they train them, they have intensive and repeated interactions with them, and they train client families about safety as well. Participants are continually reminded of safety guidelines and warning signs. They also have strict guidelines about situations mentors and children are, and are not, allowed to be in, like any situation where there would be a changing of clothes in front of each other or others, such as in a gym locker room – and participants are continually reminded of these guidelines.

None of this is to say that protecting volunteers and clients from strangers isn’t important, or that doing activities online doesn’t incur risks. But it’s a sobering reality that people, including children, are harmed by people they know and trust far more than strangers. If your risk management for volunteers or clients focuses only on strangers, you are cultivating an environment where very bad things can happen.

And for the record: I’ve been studying virtual volunteering since 1996, and still have no account of an online volunteer causing harm to an organization. If it hasn’t happened, it WILL happen, because there is no way to interact with humans, online or face-to-face, and absolutely prevent, 100%, that anything bad will happen as a results.

For more information:

This excellent article by David Finkelhor, the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire

The myth of stranger danger by Heather Ryan

The Center for Identity Management and Information Protection, housed at Utica College.

August 2019 update:

In an article in Ms Magazine, Amanda Ruzicka of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said:

Research has shown that adolescents commit up to half of all child sexual abuse incidents against younger children, and that the onset of this behavior peaks at age 14.

Let that fact sink in. And consider how many nonprofits bring adolescents together with younger children, as clients or as volunteers, and don’t have this fact in mind. It does not ALL mean that these nonprofits shouldn’t bring adolescents together with younger children but, rather, that appropriate precautions need to be taken regarding adolescents being along together, let alone with children. And it’s another example of how we focus so much on stranger danger – but not on the much more common risk. And please note that the Moore Center has an excellent program to help address this risk, summarized below from the same article the same article in Ms Magazine:

We also know that most times adolescents engage in harmful sexual behaviors with younger children because of factors like the absence of adult supervision, or a lack of knowledge about appropriate sexual behaviors and how their actions can impact themselves and others—not because they are bad kids. Our Responsible Behavior with Younger Children (RBYC) program aims to provide sixth and seventh grade students with the knowledge, tools and skills they need to model healthy behaviors with younger children and their peers. RBYC focuses on what behaviors are harmful and constitute sexual harassment or child sexual abuse, the consequences of those behaviors, as well as why these behaviors are harmful and how to prevent them. Students learn about real-life scenarios when harmful sexual behaviors could take place, how to take the perspective of a younger child and how respond in a healthy and empathetic way. Other sessions highlight the developmental differences between adolescents and younger children, healthy behaviors with younger children and peers and how to be a good bystander or upstander… we focus on preventing child sexual abuse in a manner that takes the responsibility off of children to protect themselves, and instead focuses on preventing perpetration.

And remember that the Boy Scouts of America kept a file of more than 7,800 Boy Scout members that had committed sexual crimes against boys in their program – none of those predators were unknown to their victims and were often well known to the parents of their victims – no strangers. The growing number of lawsuits allege that Boy Scouts staff and volunteers were aware that the structure of the institution was a convenient landing spot for child predators and did nothing to rework the organization or protect its charges.

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The cost of my greatest weakness

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logoIf you have ever been interviewed for a job, you are familiar with some version of the question “What’s your greatest weakness?”

My greatest weakness is the couch and a great day’s lineup on the classic movie channel here in the USA. But I know that’s not what someone in a job interview is wanting to know. Rather, they want to know what my greatest weakness is in the workplace.

Of course, so many people answer this question with, “I love to work! I’m a workaholic!” Spoiler alert: I don’t say that and saying it doesn’t make a person a good candidate. A workaholic is unhealthy for both employee and employer.

The reality is that “What’s your greatest weakness?” is a bad job interview question. All it does is make interviewees nervous and set them up for failure later. The potential hire is declaring to a potential employer, “Here’s what you need to be on the lookout for if you hire me!” And the employer WILL remember the declaration and be on the lookout for it – and probably be hypersensitive to any hint of a new employee showing it, in fact. Were it to be a truly fair question, everyone in the room would share their biggest weakness with each other, so the potential employee could decide if it’s the right office culture for him or her.

When I am interviewing candidates, I never ask that question. Instead, I ask “What frustrates you most in the workplace and how did you address it?” I’m not looking for a “Oh, nothing frustrates me, I love work!” answer. I’m not looking for a red flag either. What I’m trying to do is to see how self-aware someone is and trying to just get a feel for what kind of person they are. A red flag would be “I’m never frustrated in the workplace!”

But, with all that said, when I’m asked that “What’s your greatest weakness?” question in a job interview, I am honest. And my answer is this:

I ask a lot of questions and, often, this really frustrates my co-workers. 

When someone introduces a new project, or when I join an initiative, even one that I’m familiar with, I ask a lot of questions. I’m not trying to be critical and I’m not trying to play “gotcha” – I trying to understand an activity as completely as possible. I don’t just ask if something happens, but how it happens and who is responsible for different pieces of a project. The answers help me be clearer in my communications, help me know my own responsibilities and help me to be able to better support co-workers. It also keeps me from making a lot of mistakes that can hurt a project later.

Unfortunately for me, people often find my questions annoying. So many people see questions as criticism, even as a personal attack, especially if they cannot answer all of the questions. People starting new projects or people who haven’t introduced someone new to a project in a long while often haven’t thought about some of the issues I raise, and I think they feel called out when I ask my questions. People managing established projects are often shocked that I have questions, especially if it’s a project that has existed for several years. Again, I’m just trying to understand so that I can do the best job possible and prevent avoidable mistakes on my part.

In an effort to not seem critical, I often find myself prefacing my questions with apologies, something so many women do in order to try to head off any feelings that we’re “too aggressive.” Apologies I find myself making are statements like “I’m so sorry to bother everyone with this, but…” or “I’m sorry if the answer to this is already on your project web site but…” or “I hope everyone can be patient with me, but I don’t think I’m clear on some things…”  These kinds of self-depreciating apologies that women are conditioned to do are not something most men are conditioned to do. Women are conditioned to want to be liked and to assume responsibility for others’ feelings. Women apologize for being direct in an effort to somehow justify our questions, even our opinions. Professional women are told in so many ways: be assertive, but only if it doesn’t upset anyone else. It doesn’t matter how calm a woman remains, how civil a woman’s demeanor, how cool and collected she remains: it DOES hurt to ask when you’re female in the workplace.

Dr. Robert Alberti and Michael Emmons, authors of Your Perfect Right, provide a few questions to consider before choosing to be assertive, as quoted in the blog “Quit Being a Pushover: How to Be Assertive“:

  • How much does it matter to you?
  • Are you looking for a specific outcome or just to express yourself?
  • Are you looking for a positive outcome? Might asserting yourself make things worse?
  • Will you kick yourself if you don’t take action?
  • What are the probable consequences and realistic risks from your possible assertion?

Note that this blog is from the blog The Art of Manliness, not from an article to help women… the advice for women trying to be assertive is far, far different. Google it for yourself if you don’t believe me.

Still, I find these questions helpful to me. These qeustions have often kept me from asking a question I really wanted to, but didn’t, because the political cost will be too great. It hurts not only to bite my tongue, but weeks or months later, watch someone have to deal with something that could have been prevented, and perhaps my question could have prevented it – but I chose not to speak up because the consequences for me in terms of hostility or defensiveness by co-workers just wasn’t worth it.

The other frustrating thing I do in the work place is to take notes. Later, I sometimes refer to those notes when there is some disagreement on what was said or decided. Again, I’m not trying to be hurtful or critical but, rather, to be clear. And, to be honest, I’m often trying to cover my butt, as we say in American English. If I’ve done something wrong, I will absolutely take responsibility for it, but if I’ve been directed to do it that way – sorry, but I’m giving credit where it’s due. It’s not an easy strategy because no matter how diplomatically or gently I try to reference decisions from a previous meeting, my thorough note-taking does sometimes end up making people angry – they feel called out. And, let’s face it, who likes to be proven wrong?

Perhaps my weakness is that I like things explicit and transparent.

I offer this blog both as sympathy and encouragement to others like me, as well as a warning to potential employers of me. But before you shrink away in horror, I also ask this: wouldn’t you rather it was me, someone on your team, asking tough questions, rather than a potential funder or member of the press? Bridges are supposed to be stressed tested. Think of your project as the bridge and me the test…

Also see:

Frank description of what it’s like to work in communications in the UN

If nonprofits were brutally honest with funders

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How will the community be transformed as a result of this grant? 

Hahahaha, that’s a good one! This grant is for $5,000! And people say funders don’t have a sense of humor! 5K will allow us to pay for six weeks of rent, which means we can stay open, and who knows what awesome stuff we’ll accomplish during those six weeks, am I right? Please add three zeroes if you really want to see transformation.

This is from a hilarious article from Nonprofit: Adorable Festive by Vu Le, Executive Director of Rainier Valley Corps, and is something every nonprofit, NGO and government program will have a hearty laugh about – it’s something every foundation and corporate philanthropy program manager should read as well.

Read it, have a laugh – and, seriously, think about how you could say some of these things diplomatically in a funding application. Because it needs to be said.

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Your organization is NOT immune to sexual harassment

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When people you don’t like are accused of horrible behavior in the workplace, it’s easy to condemn those people – and you should.

But sooner or later, someone you like, maybe even care for, will be accused of horrible behavior. Watch your reaction carefully when it happens: do you start excusing the behavior of your colleague, friend or family member if the accusations turn out to be based in truth and he or she did, indeed, do what the accused is claiming?

I bring this up as more and more people are coming forward in the USA now with details of very famous, powerful people, mostly men, harassing and assaulting them, usually work-related colleagues. As I’ve watched, I’ve recalled the warning I’ve made in many, many workshops where I am training those that recruit and manage volunteers – a warning that’s often been met with skepticism and a response along the lines of None of MY volunteers would ever do that! No one I know and care for would ever do that!

My trainings regarding volunteer management often talk about screening potential candidates, policies and procedures, and risk management. I warn people at my workshops about the dangers of going with just their gut when ensuring safety, and about the vital importance of being methodical, consistent, dispassionate and dedicated to WRITTEN safety policies. And I say, point blank, that eventually, someone you really, really like, maybe even really, really care about, is going to be accused of sexual harassment – or worse – and you are going to think, “But I never experienced that and I never saw it and he/she was always SO WONDERFUL.” And that may, indeed, be your absolutely true experience with that person. But that doesn’t negate what one person is saying about another person’s bad behavior. If you’ve taken my advice and are methodical, consistent, dispassionate and dedicated to your WRITTEN safety policies, you are going to get through this fairly and appropriately in the workplace and protect yourself from a lawsuit, even if the accusations turn out to be true. But if the accusations are true, then in addition to dealing with any legal and public relations fallout, you will have to do a lot of soul-searching about your relationship with that person who has harassed or otherwise mistreated someone.

If you are thinking, hey, it hasn’t happened at our organization, so it never will, I’ve got news for you: it’s going to happen. The only way to prevent it from happening at or through your organization to disband your agency.

I’ve never let safety or legal concerns prevent me from creating volunteering opportunities nor from bringing multi-generations of volunteers together. You shouldn’t either. But if you don’t have WRITTEN policies regarding volunteering safety, sexual harassment and workplace respect, or you haven’t discussed those policies with your employees, consultants and volunteers in a while – and I mean DISCUSS, not just send people a link to them online – here’s your opportunity, right now. Google is awash with great advice on these subjects. And I would love to help!

Be strategic, be deliberate. But don’t delay.

November 16, 2020 update: Recommendations for preventing & responding to Sexual Harassment in the Nonprofit Workplace. Excellent guidelines from the National Council of Nonprofits. 

Further reading and resources:

State of organizations working with people in UK criminal justice system

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersClinks is a registered charity in the United Kingdom, based in London. Clinks began life in 1993 as London Prisons Community Links. “Clinks supports, represents and campaigns for the voluntary sector working with offenders.” Note that the phrase “voluntary sector” is the British term for what we call the nonprofit sector in the USA, or the third sector, and by “offenders”, they mean people in, or having recently left, the criminal justice system. Charities in the voluntary sector in the UK may or may not involve volunteers to be a part of the “voluntary sector”, though Clinks reports that more than 90% of the charities it works with do involve volunteers. “Clinks aims to ensure the sector and all those with whom they work, are informed and engaged in order to transform the lives of offenders and their communities.” Clinks employs 21 staff and has over 600 members.

Each year Clinks surveys voluntary sector organizations in the UK working somehow with “offenders” to collect information about how healthy their sector is, the role the sector is playing in society, and the well-being of service users. Results are anonymised and collated a yearly state of the sector report, tracking “key trends for voluntary sector organisations working with offenders and their families.” One interviewee said that “…the needs vary from homelessness, rough sleeping, drugs and alcohol, social and cultural isolation, health, poverty and debt, a very holistic picture of needs that we are presented with and often very complex needs.”

This is a summary of their 2017 State of the sector report, published July 2017 (note that spellings in this paragraph and the report are British):

During a year of political instability, voluntary organisations continue to support the most vulnerable people despite a shifting funding landscape and increasing and changing service user needs. In our latest state of the sector research, organisations told us that they’ve seen an increase in the number of people they are supporting, with more complex and immediate needs, resulting in organisations developing more flexible and creative working and recruiting more volunteers. They have dealt with large reductions in funds, and have struggled to get full cost recovery on services, and some closing services. Through all of this the sector remains innovative and creative, with many designing new services to meet emerging need and responding to a changing landscape.

All I can think as I read this paragraph is that this is also probably true of every social service agency in the USA as well, nonprofit or governmental. I wish we had such an organization here in the USA that would do such a yearly state of the sector for social service nonprofits and government agencies in particular, to find out what’s happening among all those mission-based groups taking on society’s most serious social issues – not just those working in the criminal justice system, though that would be incredible as well.

Also from the 2017 report:

On average volunteers spend 16 hours a month volunteering for organisations that filled out our survey. Organisations told us that on average, the maximum time someone volunteers per month is 80 hours, whilst the minimum time is 8 hours. Volunteers undertake a variety of roles, which include working directly with service users… Organisations often recruit volunteers who have specific skills to support their work, such as research or marketing.

These volunteers in the UK working for charities that are involved somehow with law offenders engage in a variety of tasks (again, British spellings):

  • Organising or helping to run an activity or event  57 %
  • Befriending or mentoring people (clients)  57 %
  • Secretarial, admin or clerical work  50 %
  • Giving advice, information, counselling (to clients)  47 %
  • Getting other people involved  36 %
  • Leading a group, member of a committee  36 %
  • Visiting people (clients)  29 %
  • Other practical help (to clients) e.g. helping out at school, shopping  23 %
  • Raising or handling money, taking part in sponsored events  21 %
  • Representing (I have no idea what this means)  20 %
  • Proving transport, driving  17 %
  • Campaigning  8 %

From the report:

Organisations find it challenging to recruit staff and volunteers, with 50% saying it is slightly or very difficult to recruit volunteers and 57% reporting this to be the case for staff recruitment. The conditions in some prisons, such as high levels of violence, staff shortages and a rise in the use of psychoactive substances, is having a negative impact on organisations’ ability to recruit and retain staff.

Organisations find it more challenging to retain volunteers than staff, with 70% of organisations reporting it is slightly or very easy to retain or keep staff, with 59% of organisations reporting this to be the case for volunteers. On average, organisations reported that it is slightly or very easy to train both staff and volunteers. When discussing the training needs of their staff and volunteers, one interviewee said that due to the changing needs of their service users, they are having to develop a different approach to training.

Again, as I read these paragraphs, I wish we had such an organization here in the USA that would do such a yearly report on volunteers at social service nonprofits and government agencies in particular, to find out what the volunteers are doing and the challenges the organizations are facing in recruiting, supporting and keeping them. I would also love a comparison of the UK sector working with people in the criminal justice system and the same in the USA. Anyone? Anyone?

Here are Clink’s other surveys since 2011.

 

Civil Society Capacity Building: Why?

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logoMy favorite kind of professional work is building the capacities of civil society organizations, especially in transitional and developing countries, to communicate, to change minds and to engage a variety of people and communities, through communications, dialogue and volunteering. But the term civil society isn’t used in USA as commonly as it is elsewhere, and many don’t understand exactly what I mean when I talk about my favorite type of work.

Civil society is a term commonly heard outside the USA when discussing community development. Civil society is a term for the assortment of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), nonprofit organizations, activist groups and institutions that, together, demonstrate the interests and will of residents of a particular area. Note, however, that these interests do not have to be the will of a majority of residents.

Civil society organizations include:

  • academia
  • activist groups
  • charities
  • clubs (sports, social, etc.)
  • community foundations
  • community organizations
  • consumer organizations
  • cooperatives / co-ops
  • foundations
  • non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
  • non-profit organizations (NPOs)
  • political parties
  • professional associations
  • religious groups
  • social enterprises (an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being)
  • support groups
  • trade unions
  • voluntary associations
  • foundations, government funders and international agencies have been supporting civil society for many years in developing countries. The goals with such support is to:
  • foster social equality (access to civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights, health, economic prosperity, education, social engagement, etc.)
  • foster civic engagement, including volunteerism
  • create a greater sense of ownership of what happens within a community by those that live there
  • create greater participation in addressing critical community and environmental needs
  • ensure a diversity of voices are represented in community decision-making
  • act as a counter to negative forces such as corruption, extremism, anarchy, etc.
  • ensure that civil society can work within the range of actors required for a country’s development.

This new resource explores why is it important for a country to have a robust, sustainable civil society, what is meant by the phrase civil society capacity building, and how capacities of civil society are strengthened.

Also see:

Essential digital networking skills of the modern nonprofit worker

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angryjayneNo matter your role at a nonprofit or other mission-based organization – marketing, management of volunteers, directing a program, accounting, human resources (paid staff) management – you must have a solid understanding of certain digital skills, skills that go beyond how to use database software, to be able to do that job well.

Every job at a mission-based organization – nonprofit, NGO, charity, school, government agency, etc. – requires being able to efficiently process large amounts of information from a variety of resources, being able to respond to people quickly with accurate information, being able to work with a variety of different people via online tools, being up-to-date on developments that can affect that job and knowing about emerging innovative practices. Going to conferences and reading magazines and paper newsletters are great to build your knowledge, onsite classes are great to build your skills – but just going to such events and reading only print information isn’t enough anymore to continuously build your skills and knowledge. And conferences and onsite classes are often out-of-reach, financially, for many nonprofit workers.

The good news is that digital skills are easy to acquire, and are much more about being an effective communicator with humans than having a computer science degree or being a programmer.

At minimum, the modern nonprofit worker, regardless of his or her role – human resources management, program assistance, marketing, whatever –  should:

  • Respond to email quickly
  • Manage email well, to the point that he or she can quickly find a particular email from a particular person from a particular time period
  • Be able to communicate effectively via email, including in situations addressing conflict or talking with someone for whom English is not his or her first language
  • Be a veteran of participating in online presentations and know what makes an effective online presentation
  • Have taken and finished at least one online course that took longer than two hours to finish.
  • Know how to work remotely, not just writing and responding via email, but participating in phone conferences and checking in regularly
  • Be able to effectively facilitate a phone or online meeting
  • Know how to use Twitter or Facebook or whatever comes next to connect with essential information for his or her job (experts in his or her field, legislation that could affect his or her work, etc.) – that doesn’t mean he or she needs to be a social media outreach expert, just that they know how to use social networking to NETWORK as a part of his or her job. And that means more than just posting information; it means knowing how to engage with others.
  • Know how to look for social media keyword tags that might relate to his or her work in some way
  • Know how to upload, or download, photos to Flickr, or a similar online platform
  • Know how to reduce the size of a photo (so that it can be included in an email newsletter, attached to email, etc.)
  • Know how to recognize misinformation online and be committed to being truthful online
  • Not be afraid to try new technologies more than once

In addition, senior staff at any mission-based organization should know how to work with online volunteers and understand the basics of virtual volunteering; even if all your volunteers are “traditional”, you need to explore virtual volunteering.

Yes, it would be great if you understood Instagram and Snapchat and whatever else intensive, shiny social media tool comes down the lane, especially those that are used exclusively or primarily by phones and tablets – but unless you are a marketing director or manager of volunteers, those are just nice to know, but not absolutely necessary.

Put it into your official work plan to get up-to-speed on essential digital networking skills – practice will get you where you need to be!

Also see:

Capacity Assessment Tool for Mission-Based Organizations

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This is AWESOME: a free NGO Capacity Assessment Tool. It can be used to identify an NGO’s or a nonprofit’s strengths and weaknesses and help to establish a unified, coherent vision of what a mission-based organization can be. The tool provides a step-by-step way to map where an organization is and can help those working with the agency or program, including consultants, board members, employees, volunteers, clients, and others, to decide which functional areas need to be strengthened and how to go about to strengthen them.

Sharing the results of using this tool in funding proposals and even on your web site can demonstrate to donors and potential donors the capabilities of your organization.

The tool was compiled by Europe Foundation (EPF) in the country of Georgia, and is based on various resources, including USAID – an NGO Capacity Assessment Supporting Tool from USAID (2000), the NGO Sustainability Index 2004-2008, the Civil Society Index (2009) from CIVICUS, and Peace Corps/Slovakia NGO Characteristics Assessment for Recommended Development (NGO CARD) 1996-1997.

EPF also hosts a clinic to support NGOs and the Georgian civil society sector, on the first Friday of the month from 3 to 5 p.m., and has a grants program for NGO initiatives in Georgia.

Also see:

Requirements to volunteer are getting out of hand

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersThere are requirements in some school districts for students to perform a certain number of volunteering hours with nonprofit organizations. And courts across the USA often sentence law breakers to work unpaid – to volunteer – a certain number of hours with nonprofit organizations.

I’ve not been opposed to these requirements, though I do feel that schools and courts need to sit down with nonprofits and talk about the costs of such volunteer engagement for nonprofits. Organizations are not sitting around saying, “Gee, we’ve got all this work to do, I wish some people would come do it for free.” Volunteers are not free: they must be screened, supervised and supported. Tasks must be created for volunteers, and nonprofits have NO obligation to accept every person that says they want to volunteer. If you want nonprofits to involve more high school students or court-assigned volunteers, you are going to have to fund these nonprofits so that they have the resources to do that.

Now, I’m reading about governors and state legislators in the USA wanting to require even more people to volunteer.

For instance, as of January 2016, more than 17,000 food stamp recipients in eight Kentucky counties had to begin part-time work, education or volunteer activities to keep their benefits. Childcare is not provided for these food stamp recipients for their part-time work, education activities or volunteering time.

In addition, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin wants to require unemployed Medicaid members to volunteer in order to receive those benefits.

Danielle Clore, executive director of the Kentucky Nonprofit Network, had a lot to say to Bevin’s office when it asked the group to support his proposal:

The bottom line is this will cost nonprofits money – money and resources we don’t have to spare. It takes professionals to effectively manage volunteers. For the experience to be valuable for both the agency and the individual, volunteer efforts have to be managed. Is it worth the limited and precious resources of a nonprofit to manage a volunteer that is there because ‘they have to be,’ not because they want to be? Nonprofit employees are spread so thin as it is and I feel like a volunteer requirement for anyone not truly committed to the mission of the agency isn’t an effective use of anyone’s time.

I do not typically take people who are ‘required’ to volunteer, because they don’t make good volunteers. Also, 20 hours is A LOT OF TIME. We don’t allow people to volunteer that many hours because at that point they could be considered a part time employee employee, and you have potential legal issues to consider.

Emily Beauregard, executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health, told Kentucky Health News in an interview, “We need to provide them with the support services that they need, but forcing people to volunteer in order to get health care doesn’t make anybody healthier. We know this. There are data to suggest that. In fact, sometimes these stringent requirements put people in a position where they are unable to get care and then they get sick, and they are unable to work.”

I have nothing to add to Ms. Clore and Ms. Beauregard’s comments – they are RIGHT ON.
Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina also now have these requirements people receiving food stamps must volunteer with a community service provider for a certain number of hours.

Here’s another example, and it may be even worse: in the proposed budget by Ohio Governor John Kasich, House Bill 49, he stealthily includes a line item requiring all licensed educators in Ohio to complete an unpaid internship with a local business or chamber of commerce as a condition of license renewal. As written, this requirement would extend to all educators — including teachers, principals, superintendents, and other school administrators — licensed by the Ohio Department of Education. This shameful proposal is wonderfully skewered in this editorial by Sue Grodek. Kasich is insulting teachers, who must already complete vast numbers of hours of classroom time and teacher training, by requiring them to be free labor for business-focused organizations, implying that teachers lack “real world” experience. It’s absolutely outrageous!

There’s no question that these requirement for volunteering from certain groups is now out-of-control. If you want to require any group to volunteer, you had better sit down, face-to-face, with leaders of organizations that involve volunteers, and work really hard to get their buy-in. You had better be able to say why it is to the organizations’ benefit to involve these people – and you had better not say it will save them money, because it will NOT. In fact, you had better have money to offer to cover the substantial costs of asking them to increase the number of volunteers they involve. And most of all, you better have data showing that this type of required volunteering is needed by the volunteers themselves. 

Nonprofits: if you aren’t worried about this now, then wake up. You have every right to write your state and national legislators, as well as local media, and tell them NO. It’s never been more important for your organization to create a mission statement just for your volunteer involvement. Otherwise, you can expect not only increased expenses as you take on more volunteers you didn’t recruit yourself, but also an even bigger backlash against all volunteering.

Will the various associations of directors of volunteers in agencies (DOVIAs) and associations of managers of volunteers and what not take a public stand on this issue? I’m not holding my breath. But kudos to the Kentucky Nonprofit Network and the Nonprofit Association of Oregon and others for taking a strong public stand against political moves that will damage nonprofits and their clients.

Also see:

A grassroots group or nonprofit org = disorganization?

2 Replies

logoThree comments I received or read in the last few weeks via email or social media:

As a nonprofit, we can’t always make updates and changes to our web site quickly…

As an all-volunteer organization, we won’t be able to do much marketing for this event…

We haven’t replied to people that have posted on Facebook saying that they want to volunteer because we’re an all-volunteer movement and we’re progressing methodically…

Being a nonprofit, or being an all-volunteer organization, or being a grassroots group organizing a march, has nothing to do with a group or organization’s ability to:

  • make simple changes to its web site
  • market an event
  • provide quality customer service
  • have an up-to-date list of the board of directors or senior staff on the web site
  • say on the web site what volunteers do at the organization and how to express interest in volunteering
  • say on the web site what the organization needs in terms of volunteer support
  • respond to emails in a timely manner
  • refer all phone calls and emails to the appropriate person immediately
  • quickly reply to every person who wants to volunteer, even with a simple message that says “you will hear from us in the next two weeks with next steps”

Legitimate reasons for not doing those things is because the organization or group:

  • is suddenly and severely understaffed (mass staff walk out, mass layoffs…)
  • has other immediate, urgent priorities in that specific moment (building burning down, death of a client, etc.)
  • is inefficient
  • is disorganized

If you have ever wondered why so many people from the for-profit sector think nonprofits are incompetent, that people that work at nonprofits aren’t experts, this is why: because we use our nonprofit status, or our volunteer staffing, as an excuse for not being able to do the basics of customer service, management and marketing.

My reaction to someone who says As a nonprofit, we can’t always make updates and changes to our web site quickly… or As an all-volunteer organization, we won’t be able to do much marketing for this event… is this: maybe you should dissolve your organization, or seek new leadership for your organization and its programs. And my reaction to anyone that says their group doesn’t have time to respond quickly to every person that expresses interest in volunteering is this: in fact, you don’t have to involve volunteers at all, and you should say so.

Yes, I’m talking to all you folks organizing marches as well.

When you get an email from someone asking why certain information isn’t on your web site, or why you aren’t updating your Facebook page, or why your nonprofit wasn’t represented at some event, here’s an idea: apologize to the person for not having the information or activity that you should have had, tell that person you are currently understaffed, and ask if he or she would be interested in volunteering with the organization to help you correct this. For instance:

Thanks so much for the email noting that we haven’t updated our Facebook page for four months, and haven’t posted any information about our upcoming event. Our marketing manager is currently on maternity leave, and we are looking for a volunteer to help us with social media management for the next four months. Would you be interested in helping us? 

Or

Thank you for writing about your frustration about trying to volunteer with your organization. People that want to volunteer with us deserve a quick response to their expressions of interest. Would you like to help us do that? Would you be interested in volunteering to help us quickly respond to people that want to volunteer?

Yes, I know, I wrote a similar blog back in 2012.

Also see: