Tag Archives: probono

Volunteer Management: Once More with Meaning

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I’m not the only one constantly harping that we need to stop talking about volunteers in terms of money saved or in terms of “Hey, we’ve got all this work to do, let’s get some volunteers to do it” – and, instead, start talking about the true value of Volunteers.

Here’s a fantastic article from 2008 by Jennifer Woodill for the Nonprofit Quarterly that echoes what a small but growing number of managers, researchers and volunteerism advocates have been saying – there are much better reasons to involve volunteers than we don’t have to pay them!

And I don’t think it’s volunteer managers that are the biggest obstacle in changing this mentality – it’s donors, particularly from the corporate sector, as well as big organizations like the United Nations Volunteers program and John Hopkins University, which just cannot let go of the idea of volunteers being great primarily becaues they mean not having to pay employees or consultants to do work.

Way to go, Jennifer!

Also see:

Do NOT say “Need to Cut Costs? Involve Volunteers!”

The Value of Volunteers (and how to talk about such)

Corporate Volunteer Programs: What Do Nonprofits Want From Them?

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

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

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

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

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

(2)   Volunteering is not free.

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

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

(3)   Nonprofits & Schools Needs > Corproate Volunteering Needs

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

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

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

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

Also see:

Volunteers: still not free

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

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

But, wait — maybe Wikipedia is not free…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recruit board members to be board members, nothing more

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I have heard many representatives of nonprofit organizations say things like:

  • We need an attorney on our board, to take care of all our legal issues.
  • We need a PR person on our board, to help with marketing.
  • We need an IT expert on our board, to also help with IT issues.

In fact, there’s someone on the TechSoup community saying something like this now. And my response is: No, you do NOT. There are many reasons this is a BAD idea, and this article from Hildy Gottlieb, “Finding Pro Bono Help through Board Recruitment,” details why better than I can say myself!

Yes, it is a great idea to seek pro bono help for your nonprofit or NGO! By all means! You can get volunteers who are accountants, experts in public relations, and even lawyers to help your nonprofit organizations. But there is a BIG difference in recruiting a volunteer for his or her expertise, so that he or she will provide your organization that expertise, and recruiting a volunteer to serve on your board.

Board members are there to govern –

to lead and guide the organization towards the community’s highest

aspirations. Board members are not there to do the work that should be done by

staff and/or volunteers.

More at “Finding Pro Bono Help through Board Recruitment.”

Also see:

  • Pro Bono / In-Kind / Donated Services for Mission-Based Organizations:
    When, Why & How?
    There are all sorts of professionals who want to donate their services — web design, graphic design, human resources expertise, legal advice, editing, research, and so forth — to mission-based organizations. And there are all sorts of nonprofits and NGOs who would like to attract such donated services. But often, there’s a disconnect — misunderstandings and miscommunications and unrealistic expectations that lead to missed opportunities and frustrating experiences. This resource, prompted by the topic coming up at the same time on a few online discussion groups I read, is designed to help both those who want to donate professional services and those who want to work with such volunteers. It’s applicable to a variety of situations, not just those involving computer and Internet-related projects.
  • Short-term Assignments for Tech Volunteers
    There are a variety of ways for mission-based organizations to involve volunteers to help with short-term projects relating to computers and the Internet, and short-term assignments are what are sought after most by potential “tech” volunteers. But there is a disconnect: most organizations have trouble identifying such short-term projects. This is a list of short-term projects for “tech” volunteers — assignments that might takes days, weeks or just a couple of months to complete.
  • Recruiting Local Volunteers To Increase Diversity Among the Ranks
    Having plenty of volunteers usually isn’t enough to say a volunteering program is successful. Another indicator of success is if your volunteers represent a variety of ages, education-levels, economic levels and other demographics, or are a reflection of your local community. Most organizations don’t want volunteers to be a homogeneous group; they want to reach a variety of people as volunteers (and donors and other supporters, for that matter). This resource will help you think about how to recruit for diversity, or to reach a specific demographic.
  • Using Third Party Web Sites Like VolunteerMatch to Recruit Volunteers
    There are lots and lots of web sites out there to help your organization recruit volunteers. You don’t have to use them all, but you do need to make sure you use them correctly in order to get the maximum response to your posts.