Tag Archives: volunteering

volunteer managers: you are NOT psychic!

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A colleague recently posted that this was one of the things that makes a great volunteer manager: going with your gut feeling.

UGH! Dislike!

In my trainings, I say just the opposite: do NOT assume your gut is telling you the truth.  

NEVER let your gut be your guide to decision-making.

I’ve had volunteer managers tell me that their gut reaciton to applicants to volunteer is their primary guide to keeping “bad” people out of their program. And, so, I remind them of all of the many people who had no negative gut feeling about clergy, coaches or youth group leaders before or while those people abused children. And of all many people who did not have a negative gut feeling about that boyfriend, spouse, family member or friend who, after years of knowing each other, turned out to be a liar, a cheat – even a killer.

Everyone in the Penn State/Second Mile scandal went with their gut instead of following good policy and procedures. Look where it got them!

Linda Graff once told me that one of the most chilling things you will ever do is sit in a courtroom and watch all of the many people ready to testify on behalf of their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, neighbors, co-workers, etc. – oh, no, that person could NOT do the things you have accused him/her of. It’s impossible. I KNOW this person. I don’t care what your evidence says – I know in my soul he/she is a good person. Those people’s guts told them one thing – and despite the facts, they prefer to listen to their gut.

I have almost let my gut feeling turn volunteers applicant away — and those people have turned out to be some of my best volunteers. What I was actually doing was hearing my prejudices: about age, about culture, or about education (or lack their of). And I was honest enough to explore that and admit to it.

I have had people tell me, after working together for a couple of months, “You know, my first impression of you was insert-negative-comment-here. You have turned out not at all to be that way.” And I thank them for NOT going with their gut!

I’ve had endless numbers of volunteer managers tell me that their gut reaction to virtual volunteering is NO WAY IS THAT SOMETHING MY ORGANIZATION SHOULD DO.

In the course of my job, I never let my gut make decisions for me. Ever. Yes, my gut reaction might lead me in a direction, but if my gut is telling me something in the work place, such as don’t accept that person as a volunteer or that new idea just isn’t worth trying, I don’t make a decision based on that – I do more investigating and questioning. When it comes to effectively supporting and engaging volunteers, I need facts. Why am I having that feeling that such-and-such isn’t a good volunteer? Is it that he is being evasive in his answers? Is it that she seems too good to be true? Is it that he looks like an ex-boyfriend? When I start answering those questions honestly for myself, I either come to the concrete, fact-based reason I don’t want the person as a volunteer or I have to accept that my reluctance is more about prejudice than reality.

Volunteer managers: you are not psychic. There are no such things as psychics. Listen to your gut, but do NOT let it make your decisions, and if you haven’t said in the last three months, “Wow, my gut was wrong about that!” then you are NOT being honest with yourself!

Also see:

Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us by retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole (with co-author Alisa Bowman)

Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton

Beyond Police Checks: The Definitive Volunteer & Employee Screening Guidebook by Linda L. Graff

 

Learning, learning everywhere

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I find ideas about marketing to specific groups, and regarding community / volunteer engagement, everywhere. I can’t stop looking. It’s like an obsession.

  • While riding through Kabul and seeing so many young men wearing t-shirts featuring stars of World Wrestling Entertainment, all I could think was, why doesn’t USAID get these people to make public service announcements on the Internet and TV, targeted at Afghans, about immunizations, HIV prevention, girls education, alternatives to poppy growing – really, whatever!
  • At a dirt track race in Indiana: I looked around at the audience and thought, wow, this would be a great demographic to recruit for volunteering. I’d put my information booth right over there…
  • At the senior apartments where my grandmothers live and where I’m staying this week to care for them: every day I’ve come up with new ways volunteers could be helping here (all of which I’m adding to this resource as they come to me).
  • At a Triumph motorcycle riding day: this corporate event involved volunteers NOT to save money, but because volunteers were the BEST people for the jobs.
  • While driving on any highway, I glance up at billboards and say, in my head, “Win” or “Fail” based on whether or not I know what the billboard is saying at a glance. If it is packed with text, or what text it has (like the web address), is too small, FAIL.

It’s sad, I know… but it’s cheaper than going to conferences or paying for access to academic studies!

And now you know where I get so many of my ideas… be kind…

 

A missed opportunity with volunteers

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A colleague recently told me that she and a group of co-workers arranged to go to a nonprofit thrift store for one day and help the organization sort through computer donations. She and her colleagues had a great time:

“It was super fun!”, she said. “I got to sort through equipment, to tear apart computers, to take a hammer to outdated computers. We had a great time!” But she added, “No one ever asked me for my name. They didn’t have a sign in sheet. They didn’t capture any of my information. And I have no idea what all this work that I did means to them.”

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Again.

These volunteers merely got work done. This nonprofit merely got free labor. Nothing more.

Here was a great opportunity for this nonprofit organization to make connections that could lead to more volunteering, more volunteers, more awareness of its work and new financial donations! Here was an opportunity for these volunteers to learn about all that this nonprofit does, that it’s not just a thrift store but, in fact, a job training organization. A rich, longer-term, meaningful relationship could have been created.

Instead, the nonprofit just got some work done, and the volunteers had fun for a day. There is more to volunteer engagement than that – even for onsite episodic or microvolunteering volunteering like this, with just a few hours of work no requirement for future commitment.

I have no idea what all this work that I did means to them.

That comment in particular is the one that hurts me to the core as a volunteer management advocate.

Here’s what should have happened:

  • There should have been a sign in sheet for the volunteers. The names, postal mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of every participant should have been captured. This isn’t just to create a way to followup with volunteers later for further volunteering or fundraising; it’s to mitigate risk, to have a recourse in case volunteers damage property, hurt someone, or engage in inappropriate activity. It also says to volunteers, “You are more than just bodies doing work to us. You are people. We recognize that.”
  • Someone from the organization should have taken photos of volunteers in action, and asked for a group photo as well. The photos should have been posted to Flickr with recognition of the volunteers, either by their names or by the company they were representing. Some of the photos should have ended up on the organization’s web site as well. Photos could have been tweeted during the work as it was happening. Posting photos is a great, easy, cheap way to thank volunteers, to entice others to volunteer, and to say to everyone, “We are a nonprofit that is doing things!.”
  • Someone from the organization should have emailed each of the volunteers the day after the event, thanking each person for his or her service, noting why the service was of value to the organization, and telling the person how he or she could volunteer again in the future. The email should also have invited each person to subscribe to an email newsletter or follow the organization on Twitter or “like” the organization on Facebook – something that would allow the person to stay connected to the organization, know about new volunteering opportunities, etc. The email should have also invited each volunteer to opt-in to receiving postal mail from the organization.
  • Local TV stations should have gotten an email or fax from the nonprofit an hour before volunteers arrived, saying, “Hey, here’s a great video opportunity for you…” TV stations are often scrambling for video the the evening news cast. Someone taking a hammer to a computer would have ended up on a local news station for sure!

That’s volunteer engagement / community engagement 101. That’s not extra work – that’s what any organization should already be doing with volunteers that are going to show up for just an hour, or just half a day, or just one day. If an organization can’t do that, should they be involving volunteers at all? I don’t think so.

Also see

How to Get Rid of Volunteers – My own volunteering horror story. One of the most popular blogs I’ve ever published.

Creating One-Time, Short-Term Group Volunteering Activities
Details on not just what groups of volunteers can do in a two-hour, half-day or all-day event, but also just how much an organization or program will need to do to prepare a site for group volunteering.

Keeping Volunteer Information Up-to-Date
Suggestions on how to keep volunteer information up-to-date, with the goal of getting the information your organization needs with minimal effort on your part.

Required Volunteer Information on Your Web Site
If your organization or department involves volunteers, or wants to, there are certain things your organization or department must have on its web site – no excuses! To not have this information says that your organization or department takes volunteers for granted, does not value volunteers beyond money saved in salaries, or is not really ready to involve volunteers.

Mission statements for your volunteer engagement
(Saying WHY your organization or department involves volunteers!)
In addition to carefully crafting the way you talk about the value of volunteers, your organization should also consider creating a mission statement for your organization’s volunteer engagement, to guide employees in how they think about volunteers, to guide current volunteers in thinking about their role and value at the organization, and to show potential volunteers the kind of culture they can expect at your organization regarding volunteers.

 

Your questions/comments re volunteers & technology

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There are several topics on TechSoup right now that would be great places for those of you that work at nonprofits, NGOs, schools, government agencies – as employees or as volunteers – to share some of your knowledge, your questions, your confusions, etc., regarding using computer, handheld and Internet tech. Jump in!:

Just click on any link and join in the discussion with your comments or questions. Brag about what you or your volunteers are doing. Whine about what you can’t figure out. Ask a question and get help!

Registration required, but it’s easy and so worth it.

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)

Requiring jobless to volunteer – reality check

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John Albers, a state lawmaker from the USA State of Georgia, wants people receiving government jobless benefits to have to put in 24 hours of community service a week (read more about the story here).

Did he talk to nonprofits and government programs that involve volunteers and ask if they could involve an influx of new volunteers, putting at least one person to work for 24 hours a week?

No.

Does he know how much staff time and resources are required for a program or agency to involve volunteers, that volunteers are never free – and, therefore, will the government be providing funding to nonprofits and other organizations in order to fund the staff time and resources to involve volunteers in such large blocks of time each week?

No.

Did he do any research on how difficult it is for people who want to volunteer to find opportunities, that people report applying for multiple assignments on web sites like VolunteerMatch, over a period of weeks , sometimes over a period of months, before they ever actually end up volunteering?

No.

I’m all for people who are unemployed looking into volunteering as a way to build their skills for employment, as a way to make contacts that might lead to employment, as a way to get some accomplishments under their belt that would look great on their résumé, and as a way to counter the negative emotional pressures of unemployment.

But finding volunteering activities is hard. VERY hard. Much of my web site has been primarily focused on the organizations that involve volunteers, but I had to create pages focused on people who want to volunteer because of the OVERWHELMING number of people that post again and again to places like YahooAnswers, people who are trying to find volunteering activities and cannot find such.

Why do I get hired again and again to do training on how to involve volunteers? Why does Susan Ellis keep writing and selling so many books on volunteer engagement? Because thousands and thousands of nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), schools, government programs and many others do not know how to involve volunteers.

So, reality check, Mr. Albers. If you want organizations to involve more volunteers – and to involve volunteers in such huge chunks of time (24 hours a week – three full work days a week!), then start looking for money to give to these organizations – they will need it to fund the time (and perhaps even the training) of a full-time manager of volunteers who will screen, train, support and supervise all these thousands of volunteers you want to send their way.

Dec. 5: International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development

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December 5 is International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly per its resolution 40/212 in 1985.

This is not a day to honor only international volunteers; the international in the title describes the day, not the volunteer. It’s a day to honor, specifically, those volunteers who contribute to economic and social development. Such volunteers deserve their own day. Such volunteers are part of the reason I bristle at all the warm and fuzzy language used about volunteers.

What does it mean – volunteers contributing to economic and social development? It means volunteers who help create and support activities that help:

  • poor or economically at-risk people access microfinance programs or get out of debt or better manage their money
  • poor or economically at-risk people become successful farmers
  • people use sustainable animal husbandry practices
  • women learn to read and learn skills
  • people understand how to protect their local environment while still making a living for themselves
  • create understanding, acceptance and support of people with disabilities in all aspects of society, including paid work
  • develop environmentally-appropriate and historically-respectful tourism that helps local economies
  • train local restauranteurs in developing countries to become more sustainable and more attractive to a wider clientele
  • create and support schools
  • celebrate the arts and bring access to theater, dance, song, paintings, sculpture or other arts to any group or community
  • use the arts to educate about any economic or social issue
  • contribute in some way to any of the Millennium Development Goals
  • give children and teens alternatives to negative/destructive activities

and on and on.

Cultural organizations, vocational programs, education programs, girls-empowerment programs, anti-violence programs, agricultural programs, schools – all of these and more contribute to economic and social development, even if they don’t say so in their mission statements. And if these organizations involve volunteers, then their volunteers also contribute to economic and social development.

How are you going to leverage the International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development?

  • Will you blog about what your volunteers are doing to help your local communities economic health or social cohesion/inter-cultural understanding or community health, showing that your volunteers aren’t just nice and good-hearted, but filling essential roles and being the best for those roles?
  • Will you create a message on YouTube or Vimeo addressing your volunteers specifically, but sharing it with everyone, talking about how volunteers contribute to economic and social development?
  • Will you write a letter to your local newspaper to be published on December 5 and talking about how volunteers contribute to economic and social development in your community?

Don’t make this hug-a-volunteer-day. Don’t turn the day into just another day to celebrate volunteering in general — there are plenty of days and weeks to honor all volunteers and encourage more volunteering; keep December 5 specifically for volunteers who contribute to economic and social development, per its original intention, and, therefore, keep it unique and interesting and something worth paying attention to!

And just to be clear: by volunteer, I mean someone who is not paid for his or her service, or, if he or she has a “stipend”, it covers only very essential expenses so the volunteer can give up employment entirely during his or her stint as a volunteer, rather than the stipend being as much, if not more, than some mid and high-level government workers of a country are making. Yes, that’s a dig at a certain organization.

Here’s how I volunteer – and economic and social development is actually a primary motivation!

LinkedIn for Nonprofits? The Good & Bad

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I love LinkedIn. It’s how I stay connected with so many of the colleagues I’ve worked with or presented with over the years, or people whose work I am intensely familiar with (and who know a great deal about my work as well).

What’s kept LinkedIn so valuable for me is that I don’t connect to just anyone on LinkedIn; I reserve my connections there for real colleagues – employees or volunteers, doesn’t matter – and treat their contact information there as oh-so-precious. It’s my online address book for current and former co-workers. If it went away, I’d be lost, as it’s my professional address book and my way to know who is where.

I appreciate all my LinkedIn colleagues who gateway their Twitter feeds to their LinkedIn status – that way, I can more easily catch up with what they are up to without having to subscribe to their Twitter feeds.

I tolerate LinkedIn groups. They are clunky: hard to navigate, bury discussions, make it hard to see who else is a member, and are severely limited (you are limited in how many discussions you can actually join). But worst of all, the content seems to be mostly pleas for employment, rather than substantive discussions/debates. YahooGroups is a MUCH better platform for discussion – easier to use, more features, allows much more control by individual members in terms of how they receive messages, and many of the groups are rich in content.

I would love it if more organizations would put their events in the LinkedIn event feature. Then everyone who is attending – including those who are presenting – could show via LinkedIn that they are attending, which is then seen by everyone they follow, and which then might lead to even greater attendance.

I appreciate that LinkedIn has a section for users to input their volunteer experience. But I don’t use it. Why? Because whether or not I was paid to head a project, manage other people, facilitate an online event or represent an organization shouldn’t matter in terms of my profile; the nature of that work, that accomplishment, that leadership should be what’s most important. Why should some of the best work I’ve done be segregated elsewhere on my profile merely because I wasn’t paid to do it?

Is LinkedIn of use for nonprofits and NGOs? Of course! In addition to what I’ve said above, it’s also a great way to review new people you are connecting with elsewhere – on Facebook, that you meet at this or that reception or read about in a newspaper article and think, hey, that might be a a great candidate for our marketing position (paid or volunteer – doesn’t matter!), or as a possible board member.  

But a word of advice: never email someone you have never met with an invitation to be a board member at your organization, no matter how great their profile is on LinkedIn. You need to make sure this person is going to be a good match at your organization before you offer him or her a leadership role, and that takes interviews and reference checks.

Should you use LinkedIn as I do? Maybe. Maybe not. My point with all of the above isn’t so much to say, use it like me, but to say: think strategically about how you use it, at least review all of the various features, and test many of them for yourself as well, to see if they are worthwhile for YOU, specifically.

Also see:

Pro Bono / In-Kind / Donated Services for Mission-Based Organizations:
When, Why & How?

Short-term assignments for tech volunteers

Courts being fooled by online community service scams

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July 6, 2016 update: the web site of the company Community Service Help went away sometime in January 2016, and all posts to its Facebook page are now GONE. More info at this July 2016 blog: Selling community service leads to arrest, conviction

Also note that The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook offers detailed advice that would help any court understand how to evaluate the legitimacy of an online volunteering program. It’s geared towards nonprofits who want to involve volunteers, but any court or probation officer would find it helpful, as more and more people assigned community service need legitimate, credible online volunteering options.

— Original blog from 2011 below —

As I’ve blogged about before, there is a for-profit company based in Florida, Community Service Help, Inc., that claims it can match people have been assigned court-ordered community service “with a charity that is currently accepting online volunteers” – for a fee, payable by the person in need of community service. But the community service is watching videos. Yes, you read that right: you pay to get access to videos, which you may or may not watch, and this company then gives you a letter for your probation officer or court representative saying you did community service – which, of course, you didn’t. – you watched videos.

Another of these companies is Community Service 101, which charges a monthly fee for users to track and report their hours – something they could do for free on a shared GoogleDoc spreadsheet. There’s also this nonprofit, Facing the Future With Hope, which also offers to find online community service, for a fee. And there’s fastcommunityservice.com, which claims that you can work off your court-ordered community service hours by taking an online “Caffeine Awareness Course.” It’s a $30 fee to take this “course” and get their letter saying you have done community service – which you have NOT, because taking an online course is NOT COMMUNITY SERVICE. And, not to be outdone is completecommunityservice.com, which follows the same model: pay a fee, get a letter that says you did community service.

At least one of these companies is affiliated with Terra Research Foundation; it didn’t have a web site when I first started blogging about this back in January, but it does now, and it’s now listed on Guidestar as “Terra Foundation”, however, the web site has no listing of staff or their qualifications, no listing of these offices they say they have all over the USA, no listing of board members, no listing of current projects, no testimonials from those benefiting from their projects, no listing of specific nonprofit organizations they have collaborated with/assisted, no annual report, no budget information, and on and on.

If it’s a for-profit company saying they can help you with community service for the court, you should be able to find on their web site:

  • A list of courts, by name, city and state, that have accepted community service arranged through this company (not just “courts in Florida”, but “the circuit court of Harpo County, Florida)
  • An official statement from a court – ANY court – saying, “We endorse such-and-such company for getting your court-ordered community service done”
  • A list of “charity partners” or nonprofit partners or government agency partners that use this service
  • The names of staff at the company and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • A list of all fees – specific dollar amounts – on the home page (not buried on the web site)
  • A scan of a letter they have provided to a court, a probation officer, a school, a university, etc. (with the contact name for the person blocked out, ofcourse), so you know exactly what the organization says to confirm community service.
  • A list of every court, school and university that has accepted the community service hours this company has ever arranged for anyone.

Good luck finding this information on the web sites I’ve mentioned in this blog. The information is NOT there.

If it’s a non-profit company, you should be able to find on their web site:

  • Their most recent annual report that notes their income and expenditures for their last fiscal year
  • The names of the board of directors
  • The names of staff and their credentials to show their experience regarding online volunteering or community service.
  • A list of courts, by name, city and state, that have accepted community service arranged through this company (not just “courts in Florida”, but “the circuit court of Harpo County, Florida”)
  • An official statement from a court – ANY court – saying, “We endorse such-and-such company for getting your court-ordered community service done”
  • A list about specific activities that people do as volunteers through the nonprofit organization
  • A list of “charity partners” or nonprofit partners or government agency partners that use this service
  • A list of all fees – specific dollar amounts
  • A scan of a letter they have provided to a court, a probation officer, a school, a university, etc. (with the contact name for the person blocked out, ofcourse), so you know exactly what the organization says to confirm community service.
  • A list of every court, school and university that has accepted the community service hours this company has ever arranged for anyone.

Again, this information is NOT THERE on the web sites I’ve already mentioned.

While I have no issue with a nonprofit organization, or even a government agency, charging a volunteer to cover expenses (materials, training, staff time to supervise and support the volunteer, criminal background check, etc.), I have a real problem with companies charging people for freely-available information.

I also have a big problem with judges and probation officers accepting online community service that consists of a person watching videos. Watching a video is NOT community service. Listening to a lecture is NOT community service. Watching an autopsy is NOT community service. Courts can – and do – sentence offenders to watch videos or listen to a lecture or watch an autopsy, and that’s fine, but these activities are NOT COMMUNITY SERVICE.

Sadly, courts are sometimes not catching the scam until it’s too late: I’ve been contacted by representatives of two different court systems, both in California, who had approved court-ordered community service by people who used one of these companies, not realizing that the people had just paid a fee for a letter and had not done any community service at all (and both representatives said watching a video or taking a course is NOT community service in the eyes of the court!).

You can read about what happened when I started investigating Community Service Help, Inc. in January and reported them to the proper authorities, and what the company’s reaction was (not good!). And you can read the nasty comments that are showing up on that original blog – the people who are running these unscrupulous companies are definitely feeling the heat!

I wish I could spend time reporting each of these companies to the State Attorneys General for each state where they reside, but I just do not have the time; it’s a lot of forms to fill out.

In that original blog, I asked if organizations that claim to represent the community service sector such as the Corporation for National Service or AL!VE would investigate and take a stand regarding these companies – to date, they have done nothing.

I’ve contacted the following organizations today about these unscrupulous companies, urging them to investigate. Let’s hope those who can really do something about these companies will do so!

American Probation and Parole Association

U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services System

Federal Probation and Pretrial Officers Association (FPPOA)

National Association of Probation Executives

American Correctional Association

And one final note: I’ve been lucky enough to have involved some court-ordered folks as online volunteers – I say “lucky enough” because they have all of them have ended up volunteering for more hours than they were required to do, and been really great volunteers. And, no, I did not charge them!

Also, here’s free information on Finding Online Volunteering / Virtual Volunteering & Home-Based Volunteering with legitimate organizations.

November 6, 2012 update: I just got got email from a TV reporter in Atlanta, Georgia who used my blogs about this scam to create this excellent video about this scam and the people behind it. Thanks Atlanta Fox 5!

February 2013 update: Here’s the latest on what’s going on with this company.

July 6, 2016 update: the web site of the company Community Service Help went away sometime in January 2016, and all posts to its Facebook page are now GONE. More info at this July 2016 blog: Selling community service leads to arrest, conviction

My voluntourism-related & ethics-related blogs (and how I define scam)

The blog you just read is the most popular blog I have ever published. Please note that I have no funding to do this research that I do on unethical community service, and some of these people that run these programs get incredibly angry at me for bringing them to the attention of law enforcement – one even threatened legal action against me, complete with letters to my employers, texts to my family and some very nasty social media posts. I do this research and these awareness activities entirely on my own, with no financial support for such. If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos 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.

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?