Tag Archives: volunteering

Art Institute of Chicago docent program is no more – a painful change, but is it required for better inclusion?

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image of a panel discussion

The entire membership of the Art Institute of Chicago docent program, all volunteers, are being let go by the museum in an effort to entirely revamp how art education for museum visitors is staffed and to make such staffing much more diverse.

It is a move that has hurt long-time volunteers and outraged right-wing media, but many say it’s the only way to dismantle a system that, intentionally or not, is designed to exclude many people from participating.

On Sept. 3, Veronica Stein, the AIC’s executive director of learning and public engagement, emailed 82 active docents, telling them the program’s current iteration would be coming to an end. Stein told the Wall Street Journal that the museum must move “in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of class and income equity, and does not require financial flexibility.” In the letter, Stein said the museum “had a responsibility to rebuild the volunteer educator program in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of equity, and does not require financial flexibility to participate.” The AIC told USA TODAY that the pause is part of a “multi-year transition” to a “hybrid model that incorporates paid and volunteer educators.”

“Rather than refresh our current program, systems, and processes, we feel that now is the time to rebuild our program from the ground up,” Stein said in the letter, noting that current docents would be invited to apply for the paid positions.

While the elimination of docents struck many as sudden, it had actually been in the works for years, according to artnet news: the AIC stopped training new docents in 2012, and has been discussing internally how to restructure the program since 2019.

The institute’s docent council sent a letter Sept. 13 protesting the pause of the program. The letter described the docents’ expertise, noting that volunteers had trained twice a week for 18 months, done five years of research and writing, and participated in monthly and biweekly trainings. “For more than 60 years, volunteer docents enthusiastically have devoted countless hours and personal resources to facilitate audience engagement in knowledgeable, relevant, and sensitive ways,” the letter said.

Gigi Vaffis, president of the AIC’s docent council, told USA TODAY that she and other docents felt blindsided by the decision and weren’t included in the decision-making. Even now, she said there are few details about what the AIC’s multi-year plan will look like.

Docent programs have long been mainstays of major museums. Docents are all volunteers and are beloved by museum visitors. Becoming a docent can be quite competitive: not everyone who applies is accepted, and docents that get into the program stay for years, even decades. And involving volunteers is a sign a nonprofit wants the community to be a part of the organization – not just as donors or clients but also as people delivering services. But docent ranks at museums are often skewed toward a certain demographic: wealthy white women. The intention of the Chicago Institute is to dismantle this traditionally very rigid system that, intentionally or not, is designed to include/favor one, very privileged group and to exclude others.

Museum equity consultants have long advocated for transitioning volunteer positions at museums to paid roles, to encourage more diversity, allowing people who could never afford to give the time current docents give without pay. Monica Williams, executive producer of The Equity Project, a Colorado-based equity, inclusion and diversity consulting firm, who is NOT involved with the Art Institute, said this shift will open the doors for people who cannot afford to work on weekdays or do a significant amount of unpaid work. If docent programs switch to paid positions, she said it will help museums move away from “a particular demographic of mostly white and wealthy.”

Mike Murawski, a museum consultant and author of “Museums as Agents of Change,” said in the USA Today article that there has long been a tension between equity efforts and volunteer programs. When the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum ended its docent program in 2014 in favor of an initiative for younger volunteers who often work for college credit, Murawski said there was an uproar with many saying the museum might as well close. But now, he said. “they’re doing just fine.” Murawski is one of many museum consultants that says the way forward is not about making changes to programs, but to completely dismantle them and start over, and that docent programs often have “long-standing legacies of how things are supposed to be” that can make them difficult to adapt. 

A side note: the Chicago Tribune, a once-great newspaper which was recently bought by Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund that gutted the staff at the newspaper, wrote an outrageous editorial that had this jaw-dropping and completely misleading statement:

Volunteers are out of fashion in progressive circles, where they tend to be dismissed as rich white people with time on their hands, outmoded ways of thinking and walking impediments to equity and inclusion. Meaningful change, it is often said, now demands they be replaced with paid employees.

This is just flatly not true and the Tribune should be ashamed of itself.

As for me and my opinion: I don’t think programs should always be overly-cautious and ever-fearful of upsetting current, long-term volunteers – quite frankly, I think some long-term volunteers can have an entitled attitude that can discourage, even kill, much-needed changes and innovations. But I also feel like there was a better way to handle this transition. Absolutely, there are MANY systems related to nonprofits, including volunteer engagement, that have been exclusionary. But couldn’t current volunteers, who have invested a great deal of time in their roles, have been involved in the decision-making process, and perhaps, even bought into it? Also, will there still be a way for people to volunteer for the Art Institute – will there still be a community engagement component that isn’t donating funds or attending events?

If you have an example of a museum that significantly revamped its volunteering program so that it was vastly more diverse, but without having to fire the entire volunteer corps, please note such in the comments. Also note if it continued to have a volunteer program of some kind.

With all that said – what do you think?

October 17 update: the Art Institute of Chicago is, apparently, STILL not involving volunteers at all. Below is a screen capture from its volunteer page that notes “the volunteer program is temporarily on pause, and we are not accepting applications at this time.”

Also see:

Volunteer Bill of Rights – a commitment by a host organization to volunteers

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

I ask this on the volunteer subreddit and got just one response… maybe I will have better luck on my own blog.

In 2010, Robert Egger, the founder of the nonprofit DC Central Kitchen, proposed a national Volunteer Bill of Rights. In an interview, he said, “If a program can’t tell a volunteer what they accomplished, allow them to talk to any staff member, provide financial data or allow a volunteer to rate their experience or provide feedback—then volunteers should feel free to call them out.”

His Volunteer Bill of Rights, which he implemented at DC Central Kitchen, included the following:

  • The right to work in a safe environment.
  • The right to be treated with respect by all staff members.
  • The right to be engaged in meaningful work and be actively included regardless of any physical limitation.
  • The right to be told what impact your work has had on the community.
  • The right to ask any staff member about the organization’s work.
  • The right to provide feedback about your experience.
  • The right to receive financial information or an annual report.

In 2019, the Association for Women in Communications created its own Volunteer Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. In their document, they said that it is a Volunteer’s Right to:

  1. To be assigned a task that is worthwhile and challenging.
  2. To receive the orientation, training and supervision needed to do the job.
  3. To feel that your efforts have real purpose and contribute to the organization’s mission.
  4. To receive useful feedback and evaluation on the volunteer work that you perform.
  5. To be treated with respect and as an equal partner within the agency.
  6. To be trusted with confidential information necessary to carry out your assignment.
  7. To be kept informed about relevant matters within the organization.
  8. To expect that your time will not be wasted because of poor planning or poor coordination by the organization.
  9. To ask any questions that will clarify a task or assignment.
  10. To give the organization input or advice on how to better accommodate the needs of present and future volunteers.

And they said it is a Volunteer’s Responsibility to

  1. Not to take on more responsibility than you can handle.
  2. Meet time commitments or to provide notice so alternative arrangements can be made.
  3. Perform the tasks assigned to you to the best of your ability.
  4. Provide input on ways your task might be better performed.
  5. Follow organization policies and procedures.
  6. Respect those confidences entrusted to you.
  7. Be open-minded and respectful towards opinions shared with you.
  8. Notify the organization in advance of absences or schedule changes that may affect them.
  9. Accept reasonable tasks without complaints.
  10. Communicate and work with others in the organization if the task calls for it.

I would add that I believe a volunteer has a right to:

  • Ask for a description of a role or task in writing, detailing time commitments, responsibilities, impact of the service to the organization, etc.
  • Ask why a role, or certain roles, are reserved by the organization for volunteers (as opposed to paying people for their time and expertise), and get an answer that is not “because we can’t afford to pay people.”
  • Expect a role to be fun and/or personally fulfilling and/or professionally helpful.
  • Complain and be treated with respect if complaining when an organization has not fulfilled its responsibilities to the volunteer, in terms of providing a safe environment, being treated with respect, addressing harmful and or toxic behavior, provided with appropriate preparation and support for a role or task, information-sharing by staff, what a role is versus how it was described initially to the volunteer, etc.
  • Say no and withdraw from a role without penalties to future volunteering or program participation if a role the volunteer has successfully undertaken changes substantially later in terms of the amount of time required, the responsibilities, the training required, etc.
  • Not face any financial burdens to volunteering in their own communities (where they live geographically) or online, in terms of having to pay a prohibitive fee to the organization in order to volunteer.

What would you add? Or reword? Or do you even think such a Bill of Rights is necessary? And when I say necessary, I mean that nonprofits sign on to it, post it, and voluntarily adhere to it (or try to) – not a legal document, just a promised MO. Please add your ideas in the comments section below.

And what might prevent you, as a volunteer-hosting organization, from implementing such a Bill of Rights for your volunteers? Please comment below!

If you have benefited from this blog 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.

Why aren’t you reaching out to young people via Reddit?

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It’s been a mantra for at least two decades now, probably more, among those who promote volunteer engagement: we must do a better job engaging young people!

And, yet, managers of volunteers, as well as consultants who try to help them, seem to avoid spaces, online or onsite, where they could cultivate these younger volunteers.

Reddit is a good example. As of July 2019, Reddit ranked as the No. 5 most visited web site in the USA and No. 13 in the world. Users tend to be significantly younger than other online communities like Facebook, with less than 1% of Reddit users being 65 or over. Statistics suggest that 74% of Reddit users are male. Most of the niche online communities I’m a part of are overwhelmingly female; that’s why I use Reddit, to provide some gender balance in my online life regarding nonprofits, community development, volunteerism, etc. It also helps me understand what people outside of the nonprofit, volunteerism and humanitarian worlds are saying about nonprofits, volunteering and humanitarian issues.

The community on Reddit for discussions about volunteerism has reached 10,000 members. I did a poll last month, trying to get an idea of member ages. Just 262 responded, not even a 3% return. But I do think it’s a representative sampling, and it clearly shows that almost 60% of the members are 18 to 28, and 36% are either 30 to 49 or under 18.

I regularly ask colleagues to answer a question or offer advice on the community on Reddit for discussions about volunteerism. I regularly ask organizations like VolunteerMatch and the Points of Light Foundation, via Twitter, to post their announcements there. They never do. Here is an audience of young people asking questions about how to volunteer, how to do specific types of volunteering, how to make their volunteering more sustainable or effective, and I can’t get the people claiming to want to reach young people to, well, reach them.

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog 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.

What should my next virtual volunteering video be?

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Since the start of the global pandemic last year, I have been creating and sharing videos to help organizations understand virtual volunteering and to quickly create roles and activities for online volunteers. I share them on my YouTube channel. These videos include:

I’m a professional consultant, and I cannot pay my bills with my goodwill and sharing free videos. However, sacrificing some – indeed, a lot – of my potential income to try to mitigate at least some of the negative impacts of the pandemic on nonprofits has been my way of feeling like I’m doing something worthwhile in this intense, tough time, as a way to feel not quite so helpless.

So, let me continue to try to help in my own small way: what would you like my next free training about virtual volunteering to be? What is a subject I could cover in just 5 to 15 minutes that would help your nonprofit, charity, school, NGO, library or other cause-based program regarding virtual volunteering? Please note the subject you need most in the comments below.

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

While I don’t think these videos nor my blogs are a substitute for reading my book, The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, I do believe that the information can help nonprofits who already have experience involving volunteers in traditional settings – onsite, face-to-face – pivot quickly in creating roles and tasks for online volunteers. But if you want to deeply integrate virtual volunteering into your program and expand your engagement of online volunteers, such as in an online mentoring program or other scheme where online volunteers will interact with clients, you will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers – even after home quarantines are over and volunteers start coming back onsite to your workspace. And purchasing the book is far, far cheaper than hiring me as a consultant or trainer regarding virtual volunteering – though you can still do that!

Also, FYI, please note my videos that aren’t specifically about virtual volunteering, including:

Looking forward to reading your suggestions!

Volunteering is no substitute for government programs

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

The Washington Post published an editorial on Monday by Katherine Turk, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of. The headline and subhead:

Volunteering and generosity are no substitutes for government programs.

Conservatives have weaponized Americans’ desire to help to attack the social safety net.

As the editorial notes:

…as we honor these selfless acts, we should also recall National Volunteering Week’s dark origins story, when president Richard Nixon distorted benevolence to serve the least generous of goals. This history makes it clear that volunteering cannot stand in for government provided support…

…(President) Nixon, a Republican, set out to change the conversation about what the government owed to citizens when he became president in 1969. In particular, he sought to shrink Aid to Families With Dependent Children (often called simply “welfare”), the program that paid modest sums to low-income families. He also wanted to fulfill his campaign promise to be a president of “law and order” by redirecting War on Poverty funds into expanding incarceration and more aggressive policing in urban communities of color.

To lay the groundwork for these changes, Nixon took up his predecessors’ focus on volunteerism, and warped it. Many Americans needed assistance, Nixon claimed, but their generous fellow citizens could meet those needs. Volunteer programs should replace government-funded and run services… Nixon outlined an ambitious vision in which teens tutored youths; business leaders mentored aspiring entrepreneurs; housewives cooked for elderly neighbors, and those elderly served as foster grandparents. Most anyone could be recruited to aid another person free.

This praise for volunteerism helped erode the notion that basic sustenance was a right — something for which Americans shouldn’t have to rely upon the vagaries of charity. 

I strongly encourage you to read the entire editorial. As for me, I love volunteer engagement, I love volunteerism – and I absolutely agree with this editorial.

I won’t repeat myself – I have blogged about this so many times. I’ll let those past blogs speak for me:

Your local adventure – & opportunity to help humanity or the environment – awaits

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Below is a question and answer from an interview with by Paul Salopek on the post-pandemic world, and I think its message is something every person that wants to volunteer abroad, or any person that wants to be a humanitarian worker abroad, needs to reflect on:

How can storytellers, who are often used to traveling and seeking stories out in the field, adapt to the new reality and continue telling the stories while staying at home?

I’ve always suggested to journalism students that it’s easy to jet off to some war and make your name covering such dramatic material. It’s actually the most unimaginative, even lazy, way to success. And I say this as a former war reporter. It’s much harder—but far more impressive, in my opinion—to document the same human drama at home. On your city block. In your house. If you tell me that the spiritual, existential dread of a lonesome woman or man in a middle-class suburb is somehow less interesting or “authentic” than a refugee’s woes, I’ll tell you that you are in danger of producing shallow cartoons, not original, impactful work. Take the lockdown as a challenge. Dig deeper into the warzone of your own heart.

A thousand times this! I feel exactly the same way about people that say they want to volunteer abroad but have not done locally whatever it is they want to do in another country: it’s an unimaginative, lazy way of thinking about helping others and making a difference. It is far, far more impressive to engage in meaningful local volunteering opportunities helping educate people with HIV, helping immigrants and refugees, helping unsheltered people, helping foster kids, helping people access the critical services they need, helping to educate people about their rights, introducing arts or sports or outdoor recreation to people in your own community. If you tell me helping abroad is somehow more “authentic” than helping in your own community – or even another community in your own country – I’ll tell you the same thing: you are in danger of producing shallow cartoons, not original, impactful work. In fact, I’ll tell you you’re in danger of promoting a colonialist, even racist, view of the world.

I’m not at all opposed to wanting to work or volunteer abroad. But I am opposed to looking at it as something primarily to help yourself, to give you some spiritual experience, some experience that is completely different than issues in your own country, and something that is more genuine, more lofty than doing the same work locally.

When I moved back to the USA after living and working abroad for eight years, I decided I was going to try to do locally what I had done abroad. It has not been easy: I am looked at with much more suspicion here in Oregon than in communities in Afghanistan, Egypt or Ukraine. In those places, I had the label as “from the United Nations” and “foreign expert.” Here, I’m an outsider who can’t possibly think of the issues faced in local communities in Oregon as worthwhile or exciting as the other places I’ve been. When I go to local government meetings, volunteer at political candidate forums, apply to join a citizens’ advisory group, apply to volunteer with a nonprofit or even apply for a job, people will ask questions with an incredulous tone, like “But why do you want to be in Oregon instead of one of those really exciting places?” and “Why do you want to work here at this government office instead of abroad for some exciting international agency?” Never mind that the work is almost exactly the same. Yes, really, it’s oh-so-similar: researching local conflicts and grudges, understanding local history, attending local events, being respectful of local culture, being careful with word choices in order to stay neutral, filling out lots of forms, writing lots of reports, producing lots of slides for presentations, finding informal acts and conversation points that can build trust (being aware of weddings, births, graduations and other family events, sharing meals, etc.), knowing my neighbors and their complexities and navigating such as necessary (that house is a place for people who have to stay sober, this man has an extensive gun collection, that woman gets angry about dogs peeing on her lawn, this house gets a lot of visits by the police), and so forth.

There’s a nonprofit in the town where I live now that engages in work with local immigrants that is exactly the same as work an initiative I worked in as part of a government-UN partnership abroad: they train women in creating and managing their own small businesses and micro enterprises, most regarding agriculture. And the executive director of this nonprofit was incredulous when I told her how similar her work was to what I’d been a part of in Afghanistan: the approach, the challenges, the conflicts, and on and on.

And local experiences are SO valuable in work abroad: I watched other foreign co-workers feeling uncomfortable in deeply-religious Islamic communities where there were prayers before government meetings, while I recalled my hometown in Kentucky where prayers are said before just about any gathering or meeting (including a presentation I was doing regarding social media management). And my familiarity with professional wrestling has proven valuable everywhere from work with inner-city kids in Washington, DC to talking to security guards in Egypt.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t want to go abroad. Traveling abroad is an extraordinary experience. Let’s remember that Mr. Salopek is traveling right now, despite the pandemic – he’s not in his home country, telling local stories: he’s been traveling for more than seven years on an unprecedented transcontinental 21,000-mile odyssey along the migration route of early humans. And I am writing as someone that’s been to more than 35 countries and as someone who has worked abroad in humanitarian work, and I cannot deny that it wasn’t an adventure and, at times, as mental and spiritual high. Nor can I deny that I am dreaming of getting a new stamp in my passport.

And like me, Mr. Salopek is a man of privilege – it’s nice to be able to say “Stop over-planning your life so much,” but it also has to be acknowledged that most people in the world don’t have the luxury of living the life that Mr. Salopek does, and that a white man crossing a country’s border gets very different treatment than a black man. A white man working at a foreign itinerant farm laborer is going to be treated differently than a woman of any ethnicity.

But with all that acknowledged, I believe, fervently, that you have to have done locally whatever it is you want to do internationally if you truly want to be “authentic.”

Also see:

Your thoughts? Let’s hear them in the comments below.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

FREE books on management of volunteers

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Wow. The Ellis Archive has released a bunch of volunteer management books for FREE. These are books that Susan Ellis sold for years through her company, Energize, Inc.

If you don’t know: Susan was the world’s expert on the effective management of volunteers, and her company, Energize, was the world’s largest publisher of books on volunteer management. I was her disciple when it came to volunteer management, one of many. And she was the first promoters of virtual volunteering. We wrote The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook together (it’s not free, however).  

If you are a person that works with volunteers, or wants to, all of these books are worth your time to read (don’t just download them!)

Funded by the Susan J. Ellis Foundation, the Ellis Archive primarily consists of digitized documents from Susan J. Ellis‘ personal resource library. The Ellis Archive is searchable by title, source, year, author, and keyword topic. Special tags also exist for Research, Non-US/International, and AVA history items.Items in the archive are organized into 32 keyword topics, with some cross-referencing. These topics also represent a broad range of mission-focused areas, such as the arts, criminal justice, social services, the environment, healthcare, government, education, etc. Most content originates from 1970 through 2004. However, there are seminal works dated as early as 1947, and a few documents as recent as 2010. Also included are numerous items from the private libraries of two pioneer volunteer leaders – Harriet Naylor and Ivan Scheier, prodigious writers and highly respected mentors to Susan. Much of Scheier’s work was originally digitized by Regis University and now continues to be accessible as part of this Archive. In addition, the Minnesota Office of Volunteer Services Resource Library gave a few of its publications to Susan when that office closed in 2002; these publications are now a part of this Archive. The Archive also includes historical items documenting some of the history of the Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA).

National Service Has Presidential Support Again!

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The previous presidential administration tried repeatedly to eliminate national service.

By contrast, the current administration, headed by President Joe Biden, has designated $1 billion in the Fiscal Year 2021 Reconciliation Bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The investment will help to stabilize existing national service programs, increase the benefits for those who serve, and deploy additional full and part-time members to support their communities’ response to COVID-19.

In a statement, AnnMaura Connolly, President of Voices for National Service, said:

Since the coronavirus outbreak, members of AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Seniors have acted quickly and creatively to address gaps in services and persistent inequities that have only been worsened by the pandemic… The additional funding provides a triple bottom line: the opportunity to engage more Americans in pandemic relief efforts, such as helping schools safely reopen and tackling the growing hunger crisis; an important accelerator for increasing equity in national service; and a proven pathway help prepare young people prepare for future jobs, particularly for populations hardest hit by the pandemic.

And I am being contacted by state AmeriCorps programs again, at long last, regarding training in volunteer support and management. In fact, one program bought 26 copies from me of the Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement for each AmeriCorps member of various public health initiatives.

Make no mistake: this funding from Congress, lead by the President is, in part, because of vocal activism by nonprofits and others to their US Representatives and Senators. It’s long overdue for nonprofits to speak out on these and so many other issues. You ARE allowed to do this if you have nonprofit status!

I am a huge fan of AmeriCorps, particularly VISTA and NCCC. I wish more young people knew about these opportunities. I wish these had been options for me when I was in my 20s. And the help from AmeriCorps isn’t just within the bounds of a service site: there are so many fantastic resources out there because of these national service programs, like this Toolkit for Working with Rural Volunteers. I have the honor to work with AmeriCorps members many times, first back in the 1990s, when I helped put together a handbook for AmeriCorpsVISTAs in charge of managing school-based volunteers for Sanchez Elementary School in Austin, Texas, written by various AmeriCorps members over the years in the program. I also have frequently trained AmeriCorps members on volunteer management 101, and I have a page especially for AmeriCorps members that curates the volunteer management resources I reference in my workshops.

FYI, Voices for National Service was founded in 2003 and is a coalition of national service programs, state service commissions and individual champions, who work to ensure Americans of all ages and backgrounds have the opportunity to serve and volunteer in their community.

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog 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. 

Helping online volunteers stay engaged & energized

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In pre-pandemic times, an online meeting felt like a luxury, a welcomed relief from driving to a site or taking mass transit. Now, because of COVID-19. when the only way to safely work together is online or via the phone, we’re all burned out by online meetings, and there’s nothing virtual about our fatigue.

In addition, volunteering onsite is a way to be a different person than we are at our paid work or in a classroom or even with our families. It’s a way to feel like we’re making a difference in the world. It can be a refreshing change from other parts of our life. For people that live alone, volunteering onsite can provide a much needed social life. While I think online volunteering can be wonderfully personal, I also know that virtual meetings, virtually all the time, is not the world most of us want to live in.

Volunteers are exhausted. Many that still have jobs and struggling to do those and assume new family care obligations – children are in virtual school and some older relatives have moved back in with younger family members. Many are having to look over their finances every day. Most everyone is scared of for their own health as well as everyone else in their household. And many people, especially living alone, are oh-so-lonely. Volunteering these days doesn’t offer the time out it did in pre-pandemic times – it can just feel like another online meeting.

But nonprofits still need volunteers, and volunteers still need volunteering. I know so many nonprofits, NGOs, charities and other groups have a huge amount on their plate these days and far more stresses than usual, but we all need to take a deep breath and spare some thoughts for both our current volunteers and those we want to recruit.

How to Recruit & Engage Volunteers in a Time of Virtual Fatigue, an article is by WBT Systems, which produces TopClass LMS, a learning management system for membership-based associations, has great advice for any program involving volunteers. It starts with some basics from quality volunteer engagement we should all know and apply even in non-pandemic times, like creating realistic roles for volunteers and emphasizing why the task matters to the program and the difference it will make. But then it gets into more specific advice that relates to current remote working challenges, which I’ve reframed and expanded below.

For instance, we all need to better commit to SHORT meetings that have a definite purpose and a definite start and end time. Don’t have a general, open group volunteer meeting; have a here’s-what-everyone’s-doing meeting, devoted exclusively to elevator speeches from each volunteer. Or have a celebrate-one-accomplishment meeting, devoted solely to quick updates. Whatever the meeting, be able to answer these questions: what do I want to happen as a result of this meeting? Why does this meeting matter? Why can’t you ask for this info via email?

I like to prepare my meetings as though it’s a stage performance: I like start and end on time and know exactly what I want to say, but also be ready for a spontaneous improv moment! I also am ready to facilitate: to frankly, politely tell a person who is going too long that we are going to have to table that discussion until later, for instance, because we need to hear from everyone.

Also regarding meetings, the article suggests telling volunteers you will open up an online meeting 15 minutes before the start and leave it open 15 minutes after so they have a chance for chatting, if they wish. I have REALLY enjoyed this in meetings and webinars.

I sometimes encourage people I’m meeting with to have the meeting in a different room than they are in usually – and I do the same. The same rules apply: you should be in a well-lit room that does not have lots of distractions, if at all possible (people walking through the space, intrusive sound, etc.). Otherwise, you might be surprised at how refreshing it feels to have a meeting in a different room, or even just in a different place in the usual room.

In addition, I like when I don’t have to have a full meeting to get a question resolved or check-in with everyone – I like having a Slack channel just for volunteers I’m working with, so they can check-in or ask a question of me, any time. It’s a virtual way of dropping by my office. And it keeps messages out of my email in-box.

The WBT Systems article suggests that you “Invite someone to Zoombomb the end of the meeting, perhaps the CEO, board chair or another leader who thanks the volunteers for giving their time and talent.” I LOVE this idea.

I’m somewhat tepid on the idea of things like encouraging everyone to wear a hat, or having everyone bring a toy to a meeting, etc. – the article doesn’t suggest this, but I’ve seen it elsewhere. I’m not big on ice breakers before every onsite meeting – I do not like having my time wasted, especially when I’ve schlepped across town or had to juggle to carve out time for a meeting, and everyone going around the room talking about who their favorite superhero is (Wonder Woman in the DC universe, Jane as Thor in Marvel). Online, I can find meeting games even more annoying. I want to feel like my time is valued and what’s most needed is getting done. In the end, you have to know your audience, you have to experiment and be observant, you have to be open to what is NOT working, and you have to work towards balance.

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

Don’t assume staff working with volunteers, or even volunteers themselves, understand how to lead and manage virtually. Yes, I’m going to yet again recommend The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, which emphasizes support for volunteers more than any other topic. Also, if you have time, look for videos and articles that could help others, and if you don’t have time, recruit a volunteer to curate such for you to review and share.

When Susan Ellis and I wrote The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, we never envisioned a global pandemic creating this massive, sudden shift to virtual volunteering for so many agencies. I’m glad to be able to recommend this detailed resource for ensuring success in virtual volunteering, with far more information than a blog or webinar ever could.

Also see:

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how not to treat volunteers: another saga

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

I get inspiration for a lot of my blogs from stories that my friends tell me about their own volunteering experiences, from comments on my blogs from volunteers, and from my own attempts at volunteering.

Here’s a comment I got recently from a neighbor who is volunteering to send postcards to registered voters regarding the upcoming elections here in the USA. Through an advocacy group, volunteers like her handwrite messages on the postcards encouraging the recipient to vote. It’s very important that the postcards be handwritten and personalized – recipients are more likely to read the postcards because they are handwritten and because they are coming from a volunteer, specifically – not a paid campaign worker. Here’s her message to me about her frustration:

Jayne, here’s a suggestion for a blog post: please do not simply assume your volunteers will do more than they have committed to. I committed to write 30 postcards this week. For me, this was a stretch as far as my time goes. My contact at this organization brought me *60* postcards and a list of where to send them, plus a request for three postcards written in Spanish (but not providing me with a Spanish-language script). She said, “Can you just ask somebody else to write the rest if you don’t want to?” Now that I am actually looking at the instructions for writing this postcard, I see that they asked me to fit far more text into the postcard that is possible to fit. So they didn’t test their idea. Grrrr. This makes me amazingly cranky and demotivates me to write her damn postcards. Also, I am cranky these days anyway.

This person is one of the most dedicated campaign volunteers I have ever seen: I’ve seen her at demonstrations of all kinds, she has a sign in her front yard for a campaign she supports (and offered them to others in the neighborhood), she shares advocacy messages on her Facebook page, and I see her a day or two every week walking down to our nearby post office with a stack of postcards she has personally addressed. She feels a great sense of urgency regarding the upcoming election, just like so many volunteers do about the nonprofit they are supporting. That commitment and that sense of urgency are easy to take advantage of when an organization needs additional help. At first, a volunteer might not say no: they feel needed, they feel valued, and they feel like they are really helping out in a dire time of need. But if this keeps happening, volunteers QUIT. And they send messages to me about how frustrated they are, and I get to write a blog about it!

Don’t put volunteers in an awkward situation when you need more work done than they have agreed to do. Tell them your need for additional hours or for an additional task to be done and say, “if this is too much for you, please say so – we don’t want to overwhelm you, we value your service.” And mean that. If the volunteer says no, respect the no.

What’s your alternative? Surely you have an online community of all of your local volunteers, and you can just post to that community, let people know you have extra work to be done, and ask who could do it – right?

Weeks ago, this particular advocacy group should have made a list of assistive independent living centers, where residents live on their own in their own apartments with minimal assistance – where they still prepare their own food, still live largely independently, still drive, etc. Because of the global pandemic, many of these senior citizens are stuck in their homes without much to do, and they would have LOVED to have volunteered for an initiative like this (and if they are anything like my maternal grandmother, they have BEAUTIFUL cursive, legible handwriting – I always recognized my grandmother’s letters, which she wrote to me until she died at almost 102). Instead, they kept going back to the same well – and the well is running dry.

Other blogs about frustrated volunteers:

If you have benefited from this blog 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.