Tag Archives: evaluation

Judging volunteers by their # of hours? No thanks.

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I would never judge the quality of an employee by how many hours he or she worked. When I see someone regularly working overtime, week after week, here are my thoughts:

  • That person’s job might be too much for one person; that job might need to be broken up into two positions.
  • That person might be doing things he or she shouldn’t be doing, and ignoring what should be priorities. I wonder what isn’t getting done?
  • That person may not be qualified for this position.
  • That person may have personal problems that aren’t allowing him or her to get this job done.

So, if I wouldn’t think the number of hours worked by an employee is a good indicator of their job performance, why would I judge a volunteer by the number of hours he or she contributes?

When judging volunteer performance, I look at:

  • What did he or she accomplish as a volunteer for this organization?
  • How does this person’s volunteering – specifically this person’s time and effort – have a positive effect?
  • How did volunteering have a positive effect on him or her?

Which is actually how I judge paid employees as well…

I gather that data by:

  • surveying volunteers, employees, clients and the public, through both traditional online and printed surveys and formal and informal interviews
  • reading through feedback that comes through emails, memos and online discussion groups
  • listening and writing down comments I hear
  • observing their work for myself

What about you? Is your organization still giving out volunteer recognition based on number of hours provided to an organization? Is the person who donated 100 hours to your organization last year really more valuable than the person who donated 20?

Who IS that person in charge of your social media?

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There is a large international organization I follow on Facebook and Twitter, and I’m sorry to say that its been making major missteps via these social media tools.

In the last four weeks, whomever is in charge of social media at this organization has posted a message that, in my opinion, was completely inappropriate and put the organization in a very bad light, as well as repeatedly posting inaccurate information relating to the mission of this organization and not responding to most online questions and criticisms. But no one seems to be noticing at the organization – the mistakes keep happening, and when I made inquiries to two people who work for the organization, they had no idea what was going on online (in fact, they weren’t sure who was in charge of social media activities). 

It’s painfully obvious that there is no strategy regarding this organization’s use of social media. Perhaps the job has been handed over to an intern or two – after all, if you are in your 20s, you are just automatically an online social media expert, right? It’s also obvious that no one in senior management is following the accounts regularly – because if they were, these very public missteps wouldn’t have gone on this long.

It brings to mind a long, long time ago, way back in the 1990, when a lot of marketing directors at nonprofit organizations handed over web site development and management to the person in charge of IT – the person who kept the computers running. These marketing managers saw the Web as technology, rather than as outreach. Web sites for these organizations often were packed with flashy web features, but light on information, and answers to basic questions that someone goes to a web site for – where the organization is located, the nearest free parking, the nearest mass transit stop, hours of operation, upcoming event information, how to volunteer, etc. – were oh-so-hard to find. Many marketing directors were oblivious to the web site’s shortcomings – they never looked at the site beyond a unveiling of such (at which pizza and soda was served in the break room and a good time had by all).

Back in 90s, I worked at an organization where I was the internal communications manager – but ended up in charge of all Internet outreach. The marketing director (to whom I did not report) thought the Internet was a fad and said he wasn’t interested in it, so I was in charge of building the organization’s web site, and in undertaking all online outreach via email and online discussion groups. He never had any idea what I was doing, and was never interested in sitting down and learning. After several months, he realized his mistake, as what was happening online was being talked about by people and organizations we were trying tor reach much more than our print materials.

I said it back in the 1990s, I’ll say it again now: everyone has a role in an organization’s outreach, online and offline. The receptionist needs to see the organization’s main brochure before it goes to print, or the web site before it’s launched – she or he knows the primary reasons why people call the organization, and she or he can make sure these publications include this information. The people that deliver the organization’s programs or interact most with the public, as well as senior managers, including the head of marketing, need to follow the organization’s social media profiles, and their feedback about such needs to be listened to. Everyone at the organization needs to have copies of print publications and, if they have a comment about the usability of an online tool or how the public is responding to the organization online, senior management needs to listen to them.

Just as importantly, your organization needs a fully integrated social media strategy, a plan that puts a reason behind every Facebook status update and every Tweet, one that answers the questions What are we going to accomplish today with our social media use? What are we going to accomplish this week with our social media use? Three months from now, how are we going to measure social media success? Does the head of marketing have a written outreach plan, and are online tools fully-integrated into such – not just mentioned? Does the head of programming have a fully-integrated plan for using online tools, including social media, in his or her written strategy for the coming year?

And, finally, make sure whomever is posting those messages to Facebook or Twitter or GooglePlus or whatever on your organization’s behalf is fully supervised. That person needs to be sitting in on every marketing meeting and every public event. That person needs to be presenting a briefing on what’s happened in the last week – and not just number of tweets, number of Facebook status updates, number of “likes”, number of “friends”, etc., because numbers really mean nothing. And senior management needs to be following what this person is doing online in real time.

Delegating social media tasks doesn’t mean senior management stops participating online. Too many nonprofit organizations, international aid agencies and other mission-based organizations forget that.

Yes, research microvolunteering, however…

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I was oh-so-excited when I read that the Institute for Volunteering Research in the UK is going to be undertaking a project to research microvolunteering, a form of online volunteering/virtual volunteering that’s been around for many, many years – long before there were smart phones.

But I was oh-so-disappointed to see that IVR’s project will be focused only on microvolunteering from the volunteers’ point of view.

The hype regarding microvolunteering, a form of online volunteering, is similar to the excitement a few years ago regarding family volunteering. That excitement regarding family volunteering translated into lots of campaigns to encourage families to volunteer together, rather than helping organizations get the knowledge and resources necessary to create volunteering opportunities that entire families could undertake. The result was, and is, a lot of very frustrated families who want to volunteer, but cannot find opportunities. I see the same thing happening with microvolunteering – far more organizations and media articles encouraging people to try it, rather than resources to help organizations to be able to create microvolunteering opportunities and support volunteers in these roles.

What’s needed – desperately needed – is research about microvolunteering from the *organizations’* point of view, specifically:

  • what kinds of organizations are creating microvolunteering assignments (in terms of the mission of the organizations, whether or not they have a staff member devoted to managing volunteers, the level of tech-saviness of staff, etc.)?
  • what kinds of microvolunteering assignments are most popular with volunteers? (which attract the largest numbers of volunteers, or seem to always attract at least some volunteers)
  • what kinds of volunteer management practices are necessary to ensure microvolunteering assignments are completed such that they are of value to the organization?
  • how is success measured by organizations regarding microvolunteering assignments? (is it just in number of volunteers that were involved or the amount of work done? Or do some organizations track different measures, such as volunteers’ perceptions changed, volunteers’ awareness built, volunteers signing on to longer-term projects, volunteers becoming donors, etc.?)
  • what are the challenges to organizations creating microvolunteering assignments and to effectively supporting volunteers undertaking such assignments?
  • when microvolunteering doesn’t work, from the organization’s perspective (it has no real impact on the organization, the volunteers don’t go on to become more longer-term volunteers, donors, other kinds of supporters, it’s a lot of work for very little, real return, etc.), *why* doesn’t it work?

Unless researchers try to get answers to these types of questions, unless microvolunteering research is focused on organizations themselves, rather than just volunteers, more organizations won’t create more microvolunteering assignments – and more potential volunteers will be frustrated when they get excited to participate in something that actually isn’t available to them.

UN Volunteers, IFRC, ILO & others make HUGE misstep

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I’ve been trying to follow the Global Volunteering Conference in Budapest (one of my favorite cities) from afar. It’s co-hosted by the UN Volunteers (UNV) programme and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and it has “gathered leaders from governments, UN agencies, non-government organizations (NGOs) and other international organizations to discuss ‘Volunteering for a Sustainable Future.'”

I recently read this statement by UN Volunteers Programme Executive Coordinator Flavia Pansieri, and I cringed. It’s a call to value volunteers based on the money value of the hours they contribute.

Yes, you read that right. The measurement so many of us have been campaigning to end – or at least not make the primary measurement of the value of volunteering – is being officially embraced by UNV and IFRC.

As you will see from the UNV statement, the conference is touting that the value of volunteering across just 37 countries amounted to at least $400 billion and celebrates a new manual by the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) in cooperation with the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies  which aims to help statisticians and economists measure the value of volunteer work at the national, regional and global levels by tracking the amount, type and value of such work in their countries. The manual is a strategic plan to try to measure how many people are volunteering and to value their time based on industry/professional classifications were they being paid.

I’m all for the value of volunteering coming to the increased attention by policymakers. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and probably a lot more): Involving volunteers because of a belief that they are cheaper than paying staff is an old-fashioned idea that’s time should long-be-gone. It’s an idea that makes those who are unemployed outraged, and that justifies labor union objections to volunteer engagement. These statements, and others that equate volunteers with money saved, have dire consequences, which I’ve outlined here.

How to talk about the value of volunteers? Instead of looking for the money value of the hours contributed, UNV and IFRC and other players could look at:

  • Do communities that increase volunteering rates lower unemployment, or have more resilience in dire economic times? The National Conference on Citizenship (in the USA) did a study that found such. Couldn’t ILO do the same?
  • Do increased levels of volunteer engagement lead to less violence in a community?
  • Do high levels of volunteer engagement lead to healthier, more sustainable NGOs and civil society?
  • Do high levels of volunteer engagement lead to more voters, more awareness of what is happening in a community or more awareness of how community decisions are made?
  • Do high levels of local volunteer engagement relate to successfully addressing any of the Millennium Development Goals?
  • Does increased volunteer engagement by women contribute to increased women’s empowerment?
  • Does volunteer engagement by youth contribute to youth’s education levels or safety?

What an important, powerful study that would be! THAT would be a wonderful measurement of the value of volunteers that could help volunteers, the organizations that involve such, and the funders that finance the involvement of volunteers (because, ofcouse, we all know that volunteers are never free, right?)!

But, instead, as a result of UNV, IFRC, ILO and all of the other organizations touting the volunteer-value-based-on-dollar-value:

  • Governments can be justified in saying, “Let’s cut funding for such-and-such programs that the community relies on and, instead, get some volunteers to do it, because volunteers are free labor – they save money!”
  • Corporations can be justified in saying, “We’re cutting our philanthropic programs because these nonprofits should just find some people to do the work and not be paid for it! That will save money. And nonprofits can, instead, create a half day for our staff to come onsite and have a feel-good volunteering experience – it won’t be any extra work for the nonprofits because, you know, volunteers are unpaid, and that makes them free!”
  • Unions can be justified in saying, “We are against volunteering. Because volunteers take paid jobs away.” That’s what the union of firefighters in the USA says – and the UN’s action says it’s right.
  • Economically-disadvantaged people that are being asked to volunteer are justified in saying, “How can you volunteer if you have no income, no money and are concerned about the means to provide your kids with something on their plates every night? With all due respec…I say, ‘Please be serious!'” (yes, that’s a real quote)

All of those scenarios are happening right now in response to calls for more volunteers. And there will more of them as a result of this approach by UNV, IFRC and others.

It’s nothing less than a tragedy.

Also see: Judging volunteers by their # of hours? No thanks.

Being emotionally ready to volunteer – or to continue volunteering

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graphic representing volunteers

Culture Matters is an online curriculum specifically developed by the Peace Corps to help newly-accepted members acquire some of the knowledge and skills they will need to work successfully and respectfully in other cultures. It’s not just about cultural sensitive or cultural awareness, however; it’s also about knowing what to do when one is personally stressed out, feeling overwhelmed, etc. It’s a combination of self-evaluation and self-strategizing. It not only helps to build volunteers’ awareness of how to handle a variety of challenges, it also might help to screen out people who are not emotionally nor mentally prepared, or not emotionally resilient enough, to serve overseas.

Even if your volunteers are not going overseas, they can face feelings of isolation, stress, even fear, especially if they are in high responsibility or high-stress roles, such as

  • counseling women who have been abused (including rape victims)
  • fighting fires
  • providing emergency health care
  • participating in search and rescue missions
  • counseling low-income people regarding financial management
  • repeatedly communicating about a controversial issue that often incites hostility among some audiences
  • working in a facility that houses abandoned animals
  • mentoring high school students
  • serving food to people who could not eat otherwise
  • working with clients in a hospice program
  • helping at a free clinic
  • leading entire teams for a high-profile project
  • providing services to people who have lost everything to a fire or natural disaster
  • providing services to crime victims
  • training people in activities related to any of the above

Volunteers in these and other situations may need mental and emotional health support — activities that will relieve stress, address emotional conflicts, and help them explore how to balance work, volunteering, family and social activities. Otherwise, you risk volunteer burnout, or volunteers providing sub-par service.

Creating such an online curriculum for your own volunteers can be as easy as finding or recruiting a volunteer to interview current and previous volunteers, compiling their feedback into a draft curriculum, and then asking the volunteers to offer edits and suggestions. What a great assignment for someone looking for an internship as a part of their university studies, a retired human resources professional looking to volunteer for a limited task at your organization, someone who wants a project that will look great on their résumé, and on and on.
As part of creating your online curriculum for volunteers to help them handle stress, map resources in your community that can support your volunteers’ health and mental well-being. These can include:

  • communities of faith and secular/ethical societies
  • debt counseling services
  • for-profit and non-profit exercise clubs (private health clubs, the YMCA and YWCA, community pools, T’ai Chi clubs in the park, yoga classes, sports clubs. etc.)
  • centers for aging/senior support
  • free and low-cost health clinics

Also, develop a list of “escape hatches” — lists of of free or very low-cost places nearby where your local volunteers can get away, relax and recharge. This can be a list of nearby city, state and national parks, a list of cinemas in the area, places to get a massage, a manicure, a pedicure or a facial, dance studios, golf courses (even miniature golf courses), art museums, and on and on. If you visit each of these places, you may be able to establish discounts with these organizations for your volunteers.

Provide information about these resources (web site address, physical address, hours of operation, etc.) to all volunteers. Provide the information via a regular group meeting, and/or via your online community. Put brochures for these resources in a place where volunteers take breaks. You can also use the information in one-on-one situations, but the information should be provided to all volunteers, not just those you think might need it.

Provide information on how to reach these places by mass transit and by bike — or provide web site URLs where your volunteers can find this information.

Compiling all of the above information and putting it together on an internal web site or on paper, or gathering brochures from all these various different sites and making a display of them in a staff break room, is a great task for a volunteer.

Even if most of your volunteers don’t take advantage of these free and low-cost services, think of the message you are sending to your volunteers by providing this information: that you value them and their health, that you understand that their volunteering activities can be stressful, and that your organization CARES. What a powerful form of volunteer recognition.

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