Tag Archives: corporations

Corporate employees are often not successful at virtual volunteering. Why?

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In the 1990s, when I began promoting virtual volunteering – people engaging in volunteer roles and tasks via their computer from home, work, or wherever else they might be – many corporations balked at the idea of allowing employees to from their desktops. The reason given was usually that it would take away from employee’s productivity and profitability on behalf the company. The Disney Corporation happily put an item in their employee newsletter about virtual volunteering back in the late 1990s, but talked about it being a great thing employees could do from home, after work.

Now, almost 30 years later, I’m seeing a new trend: people promoting virtual volunteering as a great way for corporate employees to engage in philanthropy – in this case, the giving of their time and expertise – from their workspace, whether that workspace is at home or onsite at the company, but claiming that one of the benefits is that it is “time agnostic”, as one company put it: you do it when you have some extra time between work responsibilities, and it doesn’t come with all the challenges of traditional volunteering, like taking up SO much time.

I’ve seen this kind of thinking from the corporate world about all volunteering, not just virtual volunteering, and the results are poor, even disastrous, for the nonprofit, charity, school, NGO or community group trying to engage that employee as a volunteer:

  • The employee never does find that “extra” time in the work day, or after the work day, to complete the assignment. This is because, for volunteering to happen, you have to make the time for it – even if that time is at 8 p.m. in the evening, for an hour, that time has to be reserved and honored.
  • The employer is thrilled to celebrate that employees are undertaking virtual volunteering, but balk at the idea of the employee setting aside time during the work day to do it. Mentoring that young person or designing that brochure suddenly is not something the employer wants employees focused on – there is WORK to be done!
  • Both the employer and the employee don’t treat the host agency as a client, with real deadlines and real needs. Yes, very often virtual volunteering can be done on your own schedule, but only up to a point: there is a deadline associated with the role or task, or their are meetings or real-time, online activities associated with the task. If the volunteer doesn’t fulfill that role or task, the client – the nonprofit, the charity, the school, etc. – suffers. For one example, think about that student expecting to be mentored: what are the consequences for that student when the mentor cancels repeatedly? What does this do to one of the program goals, which was to build a trusting relationship between a mentor and that student?

Virtual volunteering is REAL volunteering, and so much of the “rules” of traditional volunteering still apply. Commitments are REAL. Deadlines are REAL. There’s nothing “virtual” about it. Corporations need to have strategies to address all of the aforementioned bullet points if they want virtual volunteering to actually make a difference for anyone.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

If only there was a detailed guide that could better guarantee their success in their virtual volunteering endeavors… oh, wait, there is! The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook is for those that to dig deep into the factors for success in supporting online volunteers and keeping virtual volunteering a worthwhile endeavor for everyone involved. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere than The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s based on many years of experience, from a variety of organizations. It’s like having me do an in-depth analysis of your program, or me helping you set up your own program, but without having to pay my hourly rate as a consultant! It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

If you have benefited from any of my blogs or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

Are charities “stuck up” – or the corporate volunteers offering help?

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I monitor the question-and-answer site Quora off-and-on, to get a sense of what people are saying about various subjects in which I’m interested, particularly regarding nonprofits, international development work, and/or volunteerism. Recently, this “question” caught my eye:

Why are many charities full of stuck-up people?
I have built an association/network of professionals willing to help charities in the form of skills-based volunteering – i.e. consulting charities with our skills, for free.

But with a very few exceptions, most charities response was to just shrug us off, don’t reply to us or when they reply sound either skeptical or ask for all sorts of background check information.

Worst, some of the people I got in touch with in person would look away at events (or ignore immediately), not accept my invitation on LinkedIn and other little behaviors that make me feel these are some of the worst people I have met in my life. Which sometimes makes me wonder: are they afraid of “competition”? Or have some kind of deep-rooted prejudice against people from the corporate world?

Yeah, jaw-dropping, I know. The problem is, of course, right there in his approach to nonprofits and the language he uses, and sadly, it’s the approach so many corporations have regarding donating their expertise to nonprofits.

My response on Quora:

My first reaction is – why do people promoting skills-based volunteering think nonprofits don’t already have people that are highly-skilled? Why do they think nonprofits are sitting around, wishing someone would show up and do some work for free?

Nonprofits are businesses. And just as a business cannot hire every marketing manager that shows up to work, a nonprofit cannot involve every volunteer that wants to help with marketing, no matter how experienced that person is.

Just as finding a job requires networking and building relationships, so does volunteering, especially for a volunteer that wants to take on a high-responsibility role.

I became so frustrated by the attitude of the “I’m from the corporate sector and you should be grateful that I’m here!” people that I wrote this web page: Donated Services for Nonprofits/Mission-Based Organizations to help guide “skilled” volunteers that want to take on roles at nonprofits in line with their expertise.

Have a read – and think about your own attitude when approaching nonprofits.

His response:

As far as my group is concerned, we don’t think they are not highly skilled – but many of the charities we approached are doing pretty poorly and could do much better with help of “corporate” professionals who can offer a different perspective. Our purpose is to consult, not to join their ranks. Frankly we have seen charities with the most awful and off-putting websites and advertising material. No offense, but sometimes low resources and lack of corporate experience DOES lead to low quality – that’s what I have seen.

Another cringe-worthy set of statements that show just why nonprofits would turn him and his volunteers away. My response, again, pointing out the language he uses and attitude he exudes:

I would never hire anyone, paid or volunteer, whose approach to me was, “Hi, you have the most awful, off-putting web site and advertising material I’ve ever seen. Your lack of corporate experience has lead to low quality. I’m from the corporate sector – I’ll fix it.” I would show you the door. Whether you want to be paid or donate your service, there is a way to approach a nonprofit about undertaking a project on their behalf, on selling them on YOU – and your approach, as shown here, just isn’t it.

And his response:

Obviously we don’t tell them off like that – that would be unprofessional. I was simply answering your question about why we would bother trying to help. But see… what else could I expect from a community of stuck-ups? Prejudice, low education, frustration… you name it! 🙂

And there you have it: his very first post revealed how he felt about nonprofits, and every other posts has as well. If you wonder why nonprofits don’t want to work with this group, look no further than their own words.

Also see:

 

Nonprofits *are* job creators!

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Recently, I heard a man on the TV ranting about why people without private sector experience are bad to serve in government offices. “They’ve never balanced a budget, created a job or had to struggle to make payroll!” he said.

And my head exploded. KAPOW.

When you are working in government, or a nonprofit, balancing budgets and struggling to make payroll is often MOST of what you do!

In the nonprofit and public sectors, the pressure to balance a budget – one that has often been cut drastically with no input from you, the person expected to balance that budget – is far greater than the for-profit/business world. And the struggle to make payroll is something I’ve seen far too often in nonprofit organizations, often because a corporation has slashed its own budgets and cut funding to the organization or initiative that had been promised for months, or a government agency suddenly had its budget cut and, therefore, had to cut the budget of nonprofits it was supporting.

And nonprofit organizations are job creators. Funding nonprofits, which are focused on improving or preserving communities for EVERYONE, are not only job creators, but also, the people that make communities places where people actually want to live and work – which helps those that start businesses. Nonprofits:

  • help improve education (which creates better workers),
  • help preserve and improve environmental health (which helps organic farmers and fishermen have better products)
  • help improve children’s health (which allows parents to have the time to work instead of caring for sick children – time, perhaps, even to start businesses)
  • help promote bicycle use (which helps create more business for bicycle shops, creates more ways for workers to get to their jobs, contributes to a healthier workforce, and creates more parking spaces for cars)
  • build and promote community gardens (which helps those that sell gardening implements and other supplies)
  • fund and manager arts organizations (which create jobs for actors, production staff and administration staff, as well as enhancing the community and making it more attractive to employers to locate businesses there)
  • build, sustain and grow universities and colleges (which train people in various areas of expertise – and these people become workers, even job creators, themselves)

and on and on.

The amount of misinformation being promoted by so many pundits and even elected officials in the USA regarding the realities of the third sector is startling, disheartening and destructive. I have worked primarily in the nonprofit and government sectors, and in those sectors, I most certainly HAVE had to balance budgets, create jobs and struggle to make payroll. In fact, I have had to be far, far more creative with resources and efficient in the use of time and resources than I have ever had to be in a for-profit setting. By contrast, most people I’ve known who have worked primarily in the corporate sector have little understanding of how to do a lot with a limited amount of resources: they can’t believe most nonprofits don’t have fully staff IT departments or the latest computer technologies, and are stunned that volunteers are, in fact, not free at all.

Nonprofits and government agencies have GOT to do a better job of talking about what they accomplish, what it takes to make those accomplishments possible, and how they make those accomplishments happen. Every nonprofit has an obligation to show their transparency and credibility, and to teach the media and general public about the resources and expertise needed to address critical human and environmental needs. The Internet has made it oh-so-easy to do that!

Also see:

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:

Corporations: here’s what nonprofits really need

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It turns out I’m not the only one who mocks the business community when they decide to “save” the nonprofit community: Kelly Kleiman does too! She goes after some of Silicon Valley’s business elite (the latest is the the “Palindrome Advisors group”) who are planning “to disrupt the nonprofit space”  with their business genius. And she could not be funnier – or more accurate – in her blog! As she states so well, the breathless accounts of these business efforts “ignore the fact that what nonprofits need isn’t more advice, it’s more money. When business people are ready to provide that—when they’re ready to serve on boards, not as agents of disruption but as securers of resources, and when they’re ready to advocate for a tax system that will underwrite the necessary work done by the voluntary sector—well, that will be news.”

Over the last 20 years, I have seen so many of these business movements come and go. I’ve sat in audiences of nonprofit conferences while the featured speakers – business leaders, often paid to give us their wisdom while the nonprofit trainers are expected to volunteer their training time – tell nonprofits, with great contempt, all that they are doing wrong and how they need to act more like businesses. Nevermind that, a year or two later, their businesses have gone under with the bursting of the latest tech bubbles, while all the nonprofits they scorned are still around.

Yes, we need businesses to partner with nonprofits. But how about this:

  • Businesses sit down with nonprofits and LISTEN to what they need.
  • Volunteer not just on an advisory board but on the front lines, for several weeks: go through the volunteer orientation and get some time with the clients served by the nonprofit.
  • Sit in on some staff and volunteer meetings, and listen, don’t talk, a few times.

Learn about nonprofits first. Then talk.

I still dream of nonprofits waking up and marching into the corporate world and saying, “You need to do things differently. Let us help. Let us disrupt your for-profit space. Let us show you what it’s like to be driven by a mission rather than your profit. Let us show you how to do so much with so little resources. Let us show you what it’s like to use old computers to try to access your fancy tech tools, because you refuse to fund our ‘administrative costs.’ Let us show you how to balance the whims of donors with the very real needs of our clients. You could learn so much from us!”

Also see:

(note: most of these URLs no longer work, as my former blog host is now defunct and archive.org got rid of their archives for some reason)