Tag Archives: episodic volunteering

Request to all those training re: volunteer management

Leave a reply

Are you teaching a volunteer management 101 class, where you talk about the basics of successfully managing volunteers?

Are you going to teach a workshop on how to identify tasks for volunteers?

Are you going to teach a workshop on how to recruit volunteers?

Are you going to teach a workshop on how to keep volunteers engaged/volunteer retainment?

Are you going to teach a workshop on how to recognize/honor volunteers?

If you said yes to any of these questions, then here’s a thought. Actually, it’s a very strong suggestion: you absolutely should include virtual volunteering, whether or not you ever say the phrase virtual volunteering. You absolutely should talk about how to use the Internet – email, a web site, social media, third-party web sites – in each and every aspect of those basics of volunteer management. No exceptions. No excuses.

Consider this: no high-quality marketing workshop about event promotion would not talk about the Internet. No high-quality HR seminar or webinar would talk about worker recruitment and not talk about the Internet. No high-quality management class about better-supporting large numbers of employees in their work would not talk about digital networking tools. So why do those that work with volunteers settle for volunteer management workshops, even on the most basic subject, that don’t integrate into the class the Internet use regarding supporting and involving volunteers?

I hear a lot of excuses for consultants and other workshop leaders who don’t talk about Internet tools in a course regarding the management of volunteers:

  • The volunteer managers I’m working with don’t work with volunteers that use the Internet or text messaging
  • The volunteer managers I’m working with are at organizations focused on the arts or the environment or animals or homelessness and therefore don’t need to talk about the Internet or text messaging
  • There’s a separate workshop for talking about digital tools
  • The volunteer managers I’m working with have volunteers that are over 55

ARGH! Not one of those excuses is valid for not integrating talk of the Internet throughout any volunteer workshop addressing basic topics like recruitment, retainment, task identification, etc. NOT ONE. In fact, I think anyone who attends a workshop on working with volunteers, especially a volunteer management 101 course, whether hosted by a volunteer center, a nonprofit support center, or a college or university, whether online or onsite, should ask for at least a partial refund if virtual volunteering is not fully integrated into the course (it’s either not mentioned at all or is briefly mentioned at the end of the class). There is NO excuse for this, it shows a lack of competency on the part of the workshop leader and it’s time to demand better!

As Susan Ellis and I note in The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, virtual volunteering should not be a separate topic amid discussions about volunteer engagement and management. Instead, virtual volunteering needs to be fully integrated into all such discussions and trainings. No more segregation at the end of the book or workshop! The consequences of not integrating Internet use into volunteer management 101 workshops? It ill-prepares people for working with volunteers. It also immediately contributes to the stereotype that nonprofits are out-of-touch and old-fashioned.

vvbooklittleWe called it The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook not because we don’t think there will be more to say about virtual volunteering in the future, not because we don’t think there will be new developments on the subject, but because we really hope it’s the last book focused only on virtual volunteering, because we hope all books written about working with volunteers, whether in general or regarding a very specific part of the management of volunteers, like mentoring or risk management or recruitment or board member support or whatever, will now fully integrate the use of the Internet/digital tools in their suggestions. We hope that every workshop on any aspect of volunteer management, and every certificate regarding the management of volunteers, will fully integrate the various uses of the Internet in their suggestions. There’s no excuse not to!

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

Leave a reply

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:

 

Why did we call it the LAST guidebook?

Leave a reply

vvbooklittle

In hearing about The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, you may have noticed two things:

    • My co-author, Susan Ellis, and I don’t talk about the guidebook as a revision of The Virtual Volunteering Guidebook that we wrote back in the 1990s. That’s because this new book was written from the ground up – we didn’t merely update that previous guidebook. While I think most of what we wrote in that first book remains valid, in terms of still being helpful advice to work with online volunteers, this new book provides substantially more information and reflects just how integrated the Internet is in our lives now versus back in the 1990s.
    • That standout word in the title: Last.

What do we mean by this being  The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook?

What we don’t mean is that there will or should never be a further need to write or talk about the latest developments in engaging volunteers online.

What we do mean is that, from this moment on, we hope that talk about virtual volunteering won’t be segregated to a separate book or separate chapter at the end of a book about volunteer management. Our dream is that this is a turning point regarding talk and training about volunteer engagement, and

  • any book about volunteer management, whether it’s a book about basic principals in general, group volunteering, episodic volunteering, skills-based volunteering, teen volunteering, whatever, has advice about using the Internet to support and involve volunteers integrated throughout the material. For instance, episodic volunteering, online, is called micro volunteering, yet workshops and other resources regarding episodic volunteering rarely talk about it – we hope that exclusion stops NOW.
  • any workshop about some aspect of volunteer management, whether it’s about the fundamentals of volunteer management, recruitment, risk management, adults working with children, whatever, fully integrates advice about using the Internet as a part of those activities.

In short, NO MORE SEGREGATION OF INTERNET-MEDIATED VOLUNTEERING. Virtual volunteering should not be an “add on” – not only in a book or training about volunteer engagement, but also, not in any volunteer engagement scheme at any organization. In fact, our dream is that we no longer hear about onsite volunteers as one group and online volunteers as another, separate group – how about we talk about volunteers, period?

Involving volunteers online is a practice that’s more than 35 years old. There are at least several thousand organizations using the Internet to support and involve volunteers. Actually, Susan and I believe virtual volunteering has, in some way, shape or form, been adopted by a majority of nonprofits and NGOs, whether they know it or not – we base this on the research that’s been done by others, our own research, and our observations in our extensive work with nonprofits. It’s even reflected in this discussion group regarding virtual volunteering on LinkedIn. And it’s based on this reality that we’re calling for full integration of virtual volunteering into any book or training about any aspect of volunteering.

Order information for The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

Also see our virtual volunteering wiki. Whereas the guidebook is written in a timeless manner as much as possible, focusing on suggested practices that the authors believe do not change, for the most part, this wiki will continually evolve as tracking and networking tech tools change, as new research is conducted, and as substantial news about virtual volunteering is announced.

If you read the book, I would so appreciate it if you could write and post a review of it on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble web sites (you can write the same review on both sites).