Tag Archives: volunteers

Australian volunteers growing preference for online volunteering

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ProBono Australia reports that a new study finds Australian volunteers have a growing preference for online volunteering, more young people want to get involved, and there is an increasing interest in short term or project based volunteering. The study, commissioned as part of the country’s National Volunteering Strategy Consultation, polled more than 800 volunteering groups and found that traditional forms of volunteering remain popular, but new forms of participation are emerging and needed to be accommodated.

Hmmmm…. this sounds like what myself and some other volunteer management consultants have been saying since, oh, 1996?! These trends have been happing for a while now, in several countries. But we can never have enough reports like this, as so many people – and funders – seem to remain unconvinced.

Among the things I was very happy to see from the report:

  • one of the many things needed to help embrace these emerging trends is addressing the various costs associated with volunteering, both for volunteers and volunteer-involving organisations, which can be significant barriers to participation. Yes, that’s right: volunteering is STILL not free!
  • the affirmation that effective volunteer management helps improve the efficiency of organisations and increases their capacity to comply with and implement risk management strategies needed for successful volunteer engagement.
  • the affirmation that information technology, especially the internet, can be better harnessed by volunteer-involving organisations to make participation in volunteering more accessible.

Organizations that involve volunteers need to accommodate and encourage these emerging trends while continuing to cater for traditional forms of volunteer participation. It’s my long-held contention that embracing these trends will vastly improve the experience for traditional volunteers (people who volunteer long-term). They will also, ultimately, help managers of volunteers be better supporters of volunteers. Everybody wins!

I presented on these trends last year during three weeks of intensive workshops with volunteer managers in Australia (thanks again, Martin Cowling of People First – Total Solutions and Andy Cowling of OzVPM and both of Australia, for all you did to make that happen). Given the responses in this report, I suspect some of the workshop attendees, as well as those who were a part of the Australasian Retreat for Advanced Volunteer Management that year, were contributors. That’s not me trying to take credit for what’s in the report; that’s me lauding Australian volunteer managers for being so aware of what’s happening in their sector.

ProBono Australia provides an excellent summary of the report. The report will inform the National Volunteering Strategy, which the Government plans to release later in 2011. The strategy is expected to outline the Government’s vision for volunteering over the next 10 years and will provide a framework which encourages volunteering. You can download the full report as well.

Donated service or donated cash?

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersThe discussion group for volunteer managers in Ireland and the United Kingdom, UKVPMs, brought to my attention a question from Directory of Social Change:

Which would most benefit your organisation, a £10,000 cash donation or an equivalent value in volunteers (or volunteer hours)?

My answer was this:

But what is “equivalent value in volunteers”? How many volunteers do I get for £10,000? Is it one pro bono obstetrician, working for a month in my free health care clinic? Is it three Java programmers for my online mentoring program interactive platform? Is it 300 volunteers that show up every weekend for a month to fix up the trails and visitor areas of a large park?

I would most definitely take the cash – because I could use it to fund the training, management and support needed to involve more volunteers, involve volunteers in new areas, etc.

What I wish I had said additionally: if you took £10,000 worth of volunteers (which, as I’ve pointed out, can mean oh-so-many things), how much extra is it going to cost to involve those additional volunteers? Volunteers are never free!

So, yes, I would take the cash – and put it toward volunteer engagement!

Also see

Volunteers – still not free! Even at Wikipedia!

Government support re: volunteerism increasing worldwide (but not their financial support)

Microvolunteering is virtual volunteering

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Imagine if I announced that a one-day beach clean up, or a one-day walk-a-thon, that brought hundreds or thousands of people together for one-off service in support of a nonprofit organization or cause, wasn’t really volunteering. Imagine if I said it isn’t volunteering because most of the participants who are donating their time and service aren’t screened, aren’t interviewed, aren’t background-checked, and aren’t trained beyond maybe a 10 minute speech about things to keep in mind during the experience. Imagine if I also said it was because most participants may never volunteer again with that organization or for the cause.

Imagine if I claimed that people who sewed or knitted items from their home, in their spare time, for some nonprofit group helping kids in hospitals or people suffering from a particular disease, weren’t really volunteers. They also aren’t screened the way most other volunteers are, aren’t background-checked, and usually have no deadline for their work – they get it done when they get it done, if at all.

I would look ridiculous to make such claims. The volunteer management community would laugh me out of the workshop or conference (or the conference hotel bar, as the case may be). Or off the Intertubes.

Of course all of these activities are volunteering. In fact, they are all MICROvolunteering, without a computer! (most volunteer managers call such episodic volunteering, but the new name is much snazzier)

The folks behind the microvolunteering movement The Extraordinaries (though their web site is now called Sparked.com) continue to try to say microvolunteering isn’t virtual volunteering. Which is as preposterous as me claiming those other one-off volunteering gigs like one-day beach clean ups aren’t really volunteering. Of course microvolunteering is virtual volunteering: it’s unpaid, donated service in support of nonprofit organizations, provided via a computer or handheld device. How much time it may or may not take, and how volunteers are or aren’t screened or supported, is immaterial.

I’ve had an ongoing battle with the people behind the Extraordinaires for a while now. They burst online a few years ago, claiming that there was no need for traditional volunteering, or traditional volunteer management, because everything nonprofits need by online volunteers can be done through what they were calling microvolunteering: people who volunteered for just a few minutes at a time whenever they might get an inclination to help, from wherever they were. Web sites would be built. Topics would be researched. Logos would be designed. Marketing plans would be written. Children would be mentored. All by people waiting for a plane or during time outs at sporting events. No need to make time to volunteer — just volunteer whenever you have some spare time, even if that’s just for a minute or two.

I challenged them on various blogs and the ARNOVA discussion group, pointing out that, indeed, microvolunteering can work for some tasks – and I had been saying so since the late 1990s, when I called the practice byte-sized volunteering – but most certainly not for mentoring a child (online or face-to-face, mentoring is effective only if its a long-term, ongoing commitment that builds trust – something I learned when working with the National Mentoring Partnership in launching their standards for online mentoring) and many other activities undertaken by community-serving organizations. I pointed out that microvolunteering most definitely can work for something like logo design — which, in fact, I wrote about back in 2006, per the first NetSquared conference that highlighted several examples of such. But I also pointed out that successful volunteer engagement isn’t about just getting work done; it is, in fact, about relationship-building — recruiting people who could turn into donors, for instance, or raising awareness and changing behaviors — and it’s also about reserving certain tasks for volunteers specifically, because some tasks are actually best done by volunteers.

This recent blog shows that some of those arguments are starting to seep into their thinking – Hurrah! – but they still need to evolve their concept. They are right to point out that microvolunteering doesn’t employ some volunteer management techniques in the same way as other volunteering, but they just can’t get their mind around the fact that LOTS of volunteering doesn’t, like a one-day beach clean up doesn’t. But that doesn’t somehow negate microvolunteering as volunteering, or as virtual volunteering.

Volunteer management and support must be adjusted for a wide variety of volunteering scenarios, online and off; while there are certain fundamentals of volunteer management that are always the same for all volunteering, online or offline, microvolunteering or longer-term, such as capturing volunteer contact info, ensuring volunteers are invited to future opportunities, thanking volunteers for their contributions and showing volunteers how their service has been of value, other aspects of volunteer management have to be tailored to the unique situation, and that does, indeed, mean not recruiting micro-volunteers the same way as long-term volunteers, on or offline. 

In addition to their continued refusal to accept that, indeed, microvolunteering is virtual volunteering, they also continue to make some other misguided statements, such as:

With microvolunteering, ‘You hire EVERY volunteer.’ The end result gets better as more people work on and peer-review your project. You turn no-one away.

You do NOT hire every volunteer in a microvolunteering or crowd-sourcing project. In fact, you reject MOST of them — for a logo design, for instance, most people’s ideas are rejected – most ideas are not used. For open source software design that allows anyone to contribute to the code, not every submission gets included in the released version. It doesn’t mean those volunteering efforts aren’t appreciated and that you shouldn’t thank them and celebrate such, but the reality is that you are not going to use most of the work submitted for such a crowd-sourcing endeavor.

And as for their comment that The end result gets better as more people work on and peer-review your project, I could point to dozens of pages on Wikipedia that have gotten worse as more people have worked on them. The idea that more volunteers automatically means better is something that only someone who does not work with volunteers regularly — particularly online volunteers — would say.

If they want to claim that microvolunteering is the coolest form of virtual volunteering, or even the coolest form of volunteering, I wouldn’t be quite so passionate in my arguments – what’s coolest is, ofcourse, entirely subjective. Of course, I’d still argue that it wasn’t — I’d be speaking as a person who has been both a long-term online volunteer and a micro-volunteer, and has recruited and managed both kinds of online volunteers. To me, mircrovolunteering is like a one-night stand: interesting/fun in the moment, but then quickly forgotten. Um, not that I know what a one-night stand is… Such might lead to something more substantial, but usually, it won’t – and that means it’s not for everyone.

But this fact Ben and Jacob will have to eventually accept: microvolunteering, online, is virtual volunteering. And it’s been going on long before the Extraordinaires showed up. Proposing that it isn’t creates only confusion, segregates them from terrific conversations and resources and networks, and holds them back from the full success they could have with their efforts; accepting that they are part of virtual volunteering would open many more opportunities for their endeavor and ensure their long-term success.

Also see:

Micro-Volunteering and Crowd-Sourcing: Not-So-New Trends in Virtual Volunteering/Online Volunteering

But virtual volunteering means it takes no time, right?

What online community service is – and is not

Are You a Member of the Cyber Sweatshop?

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One of the most contentious discussions ever on OzVPM, an online discussion group for volunteer managers in Australia and New Zealand, was whether or not it was appropriate for people to volunteer for for-profit companies. The discussion started with a question on April 7, 2010, and it exploded with 221 messages for the month, on a group that averages about 35 messages in a month. Boundaries were pushed. Tempers flared. Teeth were gnashed. No conclusion was every reached.

Of course I was in the middle of it all. I said that, indeed, volunteers already DO contribute to for-profit organizations. I talked about volunteers in for-profit hospitals and for-profit hospices. I talked about volunteers at a recent Triumph motorcycle event I had attended. I talked about how these companies didn’t involve volunteers to save money; they involved volunteers because volunteers were the best people for the jobs. I also brought up that at least 90% of the content on Facebook was generated for free by users, meaning that we were all volunteering online for a for-profit company.

A year after I was bringing this up in workshops and online, The New York Times has thought of it as well, publishing a commentary, At Media Companies, a Nation of Serfs, which laments:

the growing perception that content is a commodity, and one that can be had for the price of zero… Old-line media companies that are not only forced to compete with the currency and sexiness of social media, but also burdened by a cost structure for professionally produced content, are left at a profound disadvantage.

Journalists aren’t happy. “The technology of a lot of these sites is very seductive, and it lulls you into contributing,” said Anthony De Rosa, a product manager at Reuters, in the article. “We are being played for suckers to feed the beast, to create content that ends up creating value for others.”

This isn’t the first time this concern has been vented, and that a backlash has been built against an online media company by users providing its content — remember America Online? Several of its users sued over ownership of the content they had created for AOL, content they weren’t paid for. Note this from the Wired.com article Disgruntled users called it a Cyber Sweat Shop from a few years ago:

Call them volunteers, remote staff, or community leaders – they are the human face of AOL. They host chats, clean scatological posts off the message boards, and bust jerks for terms-of-service violations. Fourteen thousand volunteer CLs not only play hall monitor to AOL’s vaunted “community,” they are that community. Their hours? Flexible: Some work as few as four per week, others put in as many as 60… Six months ago seven former AOL community leaders asked the Department of Labor to investigate whether AOL owes them back wages.

A disgruntled AOL community leader started making noise about his unfair treatment as far back as 1995. Here we are, 16 years later, having a very similar conversation about the Internet. Is there another backlash coming?

Volunteers don’t necessarily save money, even online volunteers: Wikimedia’s content is created and managed primarily by volunteers, yet Wikimedia still needs to fundraise every year to cover the many costs that come with involving several thousand online volunteers. And look at the quality of Wikimedia content – if I can’t find a fact in an academic article or newspaper article, I won’t quote it in something I’m working on, and many people feel similarly; without professional editors, the information there cannot be fully trusted.

I certainly have my own limits regarding when I think it’s appropriate to ask someone to work for free, and when I think such goes too far. I am on numerous online discussion groups, and I freely share a lot of resources – and it takes several hours of my time to do so. I admit I’m not doing it just to be nice; I’m also hoping that it could lead to paid work. I’m happy to share my time for free only up to a point, however: at least once a week, I have to turn down at least one request asking me to review a business plan, offer advice on a web site, etc. – for free. Unfortunately, the utilities company, DirectTV, my car insurance company, grocery stores, gas stations, my Internet Service Provider, and others that charge me for products and services do not accept volunteer time helping nonprofit organizations or aspiring entrepreneurs as payment.

I used to freely provide answers on the community service section of YahooAnswers, where the same questions about volunteering, community service and fund raising events get asked over and over again. At first it was to learn more about teen perceptions about volunteering, but it dawned on me finally that I was adding tremendous value to this Yahoo service, without being paid for it. So I created a series of web pages on my own site to answer these frequently-asked questions, and started pointing questioners to these pages; if visitors click on the GoogleAds on the page, I get a few pennies. In less than a year, I’ve raised enough money to pay for my web site hosting and my domain name ownership. Without this financial incentive, I’m not sure I would continue answering questions on YahooAnswers.

I also have seen a different trend emerging: more and more sites that pay people for their time to contribute to projects, instead of asking them to volunteer it: CrowdSpring, Yahoo’s Associated Content service, Freelancer.com, Elance.com, Guru.com and similar sites pay people for the content they create. If the companies using these services could get the quality content they need for free, they would NOT be paying for it. Will other sites now getting their content for free, like YahooAnswers, eventually have to follow suit in order to get the quality content more and more users are demanding?

I’ll end with this: the hilarious Should I Work For Free chart that was brought to my attention during my presentation in Hungary last month.

Volunteer centers need to re-assert themselves

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersIn 1995, I started volunteering with a new nonprofit organization called Impact Online, which later became VolunteerMatch. Impact Online created one of the first web sites that allowed nonprofit organizations to recruit volunteers. Many organizations faxed their volunteering assignments in to us, because they didn’t have Internet access; I was one of the people who helped type those assignments into the online database (if an organization didn’t have email, potential volunteers called the organization with volunteering opportunities they were interested in). At that time, Impact Online was also trying to promote the very new idea of virtual volunteering; the organization was already involving online volunteers itself, and knew of at least a dozen organizations who were engaged in the practice; it wanted to try to get other organizations to do the same. Two years later, I was working for Impact Online, directing the Virtual Volunteering Project.

Back then, I talked to a lot of volunteer centers about ImpactOnline/VolunteerMatch, trying to encourage them to, in turn, encourage the organizations they worked with to use the web site to recruit volunteers. And most of the replies were along the lines of:

But if organizations use that web site to recruit volunteers, no one will call our volunteer center any more! There will be no need for our volunteer center!

Which, of course, wasn’t true, and I did my best to debunk that fear-based myth. I heard it again from volunteer centers in Germany 10 years later, and I heard it from volunteer centers in Australia just last year! In fact, I still sometimes hear it even here in the USA. Yet, I haven’t heard of any volunteer centers closing because of the many volunteer recruitment web sites out there.

One of the biggest reasons traditional volunteer centers are still needed: many organizations that need volunteers, and potential volunteers themselves, don’t know how to use volunteer recruitment web sites properly. Organizations post poorly-written assignments, or post one mega/general announcement instead of listing individual volunteering opportunities separately (which means potential volunteers cannot find the service opportunities they are looking for). Or the organizations don’t know how to identify volunteering assignments to post to such a site. Organizations don’t understand that they have to reply to people quickly, or the volunteer management protocals they must have in place before they post any assignments. Potential volunteers sign up for opportunities before thinking about what their availability is for volunteering, or need advice on which opportunities would be right for them (if you doubt me, just have a look at YahooAnswers Community Service). Volunteer centers are needed to address all of these issues.

In addition, traditional volunteer centers are needed to

  • provide expertise to corporations about employee volunteering,
  • help coordinate group volunteering efforts,
  • help communities prepare for disaster response with volunteer,
  • help people who want to serve on a board of directors at a nonprofit,
  • offer courses in the effective engagement of volunteers,
  • educate the public – and public officials and even the press – about the importance of volunteerism, to counter myths about volunteer engagement (It’s a great way to save money! Fire your staff and replace them with volunteers!),

and on and on.

So, volunteer centers: quit resisting third party volunteer recruitment web sites. Encourage their use among your clientele, and focus your energies on all of the many areas related to effective volunteer engagement where your expertise is needed!

UK Volunteering Tsar Doesn’t Have Time to Volunteer

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Lord Nat Wei, the British official charged with kick-starting volunteering in the U.K. and encouraging citizens to take over the delivery of a variety of community services, has found that volunteering to run this initiative three days a week is incompatible with “having a life”.

Like the USA federal and state governments, the U.K. government is hoping that its citizens will step up and volunteer their time in order to provide local services that local and federal governments no longer want to fund. Prime Minister David Cameron calls it the big society drive, and he wants volunteers to take over the staffing of post offices, libraries, transport services. He says that staffing these organizations with volunteers will empower individuals and give them a greater voice in their communities.

Cameron is right that involving volunteers in public sector organizations gives the community a greater voice in how those services are run – and that reason is why I encourage public sector organizations, not just nonprofits/NGOs, to involve volunteers. But as this case of the U.K. volunteering tsar illustrates, there are not large numbers of people who have the time to staff a public service on top of holding down a job and spending time with their families.

In addition, volunteers are not free: someone has to pay for their screening, training and ongoing support. There are organizations that are staffed primarily by volunteers, such as the American Red Cross and the Girl Scouts of the USA, but the required infrastructure to effectively support these volunteers is enormous – these volunteers don’t just magically show up and get the work done, without a tremendous amount of money and paid staff to support them. Even Wikimedia online volunteers aren’t free!

The Guardian story about the UK volunteering tsar has been flying around among my fellow volunteer management consultants with much commentary – we’ve had a tremendous good laugh over it. The irony of the situation has been delightful. We are all skeptical about government-promoted volunteering plans, in the U.K. or otherwise, having seen oh-so-many come and go, making missteps we try to warn them about. This is just the latest. Yes, we’re being smug. Don’t miss the comments on the story as well.

Also see:

 

 

 

Update: Martin Cowling has also blogged about this delicious story.

Peace Corps must better address assaults and murders of members

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With the passing of Sargent Shriver, and the anniversary of the John F. Kennedy presidency, a lot of organizations and media have been celebrating the Peace Corps. And that’s terrific, because I think the Peace Corps is an incredible agency, one that’s done amazing work and that I hope will be around for many, many more years.

But now is a time when the Peace Corps also needs to take a hard look at itself with regard to how it deals with the safety of its members in the field, particularly its female members, and particularly with regard to sexual assault, including rape.

Bad things happen to aid workers, even in the Peace Corps. I saw some disturbing things when I worked abroad, and dealt with some very disturbing things first hand. Aid workers — especially women — are in very vulnerable situations when they are abroad, no matter their ages, no matter how they dress, etc. — and sadly, there are many people who will take advantage of that vulnerability.

I’m a fan of the Peace Corps, though I’ve never served in such. I’ve met up with many Peace Corps members in the course of my work and travels abroad, and they have been consistently wonderful people. I love trading stories with them. I love reading their blogs. I love the projects they undertake. I’m a believer.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m not extremely bothered by mistakes by the Peace Corps with regard to the sexual assault and murder of some of their members, particularly over the last 10 years. And these gross mistakes need to be talked about in the open, in a very public way.

In the last decade, there have been 1000 sexual sexual assaults and rapes of PeaceCorps volunteers, and the vast majority of the victims have been women. This month, the USA television network 20/20 has put together a piece about women Peace Corps members who were sexually-assaulted while serving abroad, and how these women’s needs both before and after these crimes were not addressed by the Peace Corps. You can view the interviews with some of these former Peace Corps members here.

20/20 also did a profile of a slain Peace Corps volunteer, Kate Puzey, who was murdered after the Peace Corps leaked her name to a suspect she had accused of sexually abusing children. You can view part of the story here.

There is more at the 20/20 web site, but the specific videos related to the Peace Corps are hard to find there, so expect to look around quite a bit.

My heart breaks for these women who were ready to give up two years of their life working abroad, living in conditions that most Americans could not tolerate, far from their friends, families and homes, all to make a small corner of the world a bit better and to help people understand that, at our best, Americans can be good, caring, supportive people. And my heart breaks because I’m watching an important institution stumble — even fail — in a very public way.

When you have messed up as an institution, it’s not time to circle the wagons and chant “no comment” over and over again. It’s not time to roll out meaningless statistics like “98% of our members say they felt safe while serving” or to say that “the investigations are ongoing.” It’s time to do everything possible to sit down face-to-face with *every* aggrieved person and say, “Please tell me what happened,” followed by, “What did our organization do/not do for you.” You don’t have to admit guilt at that time, but you DO have to listen, to take notes, and to show that you care. And it’s time to say, in a very public way, “We are talking to every person, face-to-face, who has said this happened to them, and we are going to help connect them with the information and resources they need. Because we deeply care about what has happened.” The perception of transparency, honesty and accountability are absolutely vital for any institution to be trusted and supported by the public. And even if litigation is pending, it IS possible to address those perceptions both for those who have been harmed and for the public who are watching events unfold.

AND IT’S NOT THAT HARD.

Institutions are made up of people, and people make mistakes, so not only is no institution going to be perfect, there are sometimes going to be some really awful things done by humans representing those institutions. But this isn’t random misteps at the Peace Corps; the 20/20 story shows that there is a systematic problem:

  • the organization does not know how to consistently address accusations of sexual assault or criminal activity that are observed by its members,
  • its staff members do not know how to consistently address fears of sexual assault addressed by their members,
  • its staff members do not know how to consistently address the needs of Peace Corps members who are the victims of sexual assault, and
  • staff do not know how to appropriately address this kind of negative, truthful media report.

Make it right, Peace Corps. You can correct this. Starting now. There are plenty of things you can do that won’t jeopardize any legal proceedings currently under way or in the works. Think about what the right thing is to do — every staff person knows what that is — and then do it. And I will blog about how wonderful it is that you have turned things around.

Peace Corps Online, an independent news source regarding the PCs, has covered ABC’s investigation of the murder of Benin PCV Kate Puzey. Its own original coverage of the crime, comments on Peace Corps actions, the email Puzey sent her country director about sexual incidents with Puzey’s students and with another PCV, the back story on how RPCVs helped the Puzey family, and Peace Corps’ official statement. There is also this PCOL Editorial: One major shortcoming that the Puzey murder highlights is that Peace Corps does not have a good procedure in place for death notifications.

Volunteer manager Fight Club

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While I don’t believe managers of volunteers are the same as human resources managers, these two professions do have a LOT in common. That’s why I subscribe to the newsletter from workforce.com: they bring such fantastic articles and blogs to my attention that can relate to volunteer engagement.

One of the recent things they brought to my attention is an entry on Fistful of Talent, a blog for “recruiters, HR, consultants and corporate types on all things talent.” It’s by Dawn Hrdlica of DAXKO. She made a list of things HR managers should fight for – or, as she put it, 5 Things to Create a HR Fight Club Over. She says, “you gotta fight openly for these gems.”

I loved the list, and have adapted it for those in charge of volunteer engagement at their organizations. When I’m quoting directly from Ms. Hrdlica, I put the text in colored italics. And I’m encouraging those who manage or coordinate an organization’s volunteer engagement to fight for six things:

    1. Fight for your volunteers: They aren’t yours in the sense that you own them, but they ARE yours in the sense that you are responsible for them, and they are counting on you to have their best interest at heart and to make sure the organization does too! Damn it… fight for them when they aren’t being recognized or listened to. Get their contributions in the annual report and on the web site, and NOT just as “wage replacement” or “money saved.” Bring up their contributions and challenges in staff meetings. Make sure the organization celebrates them just as much as it celebrates financial donors.
  • Fight for your team: Volunteers aren’t free, and it takes a huge amount of time and resources to ensure their work is meaningful for both your organization and for them. They are doing a whole lot of work behind the scenes that others may not see. It’s up to YOU to make sure that work gets seen by everyone at your organization, especially senior management!
     
  • Fight for your time: We are all busy. But if you don’t put the ki-bosh on all the unnecessary noise… you… will… drown. Many of us say, “But to be a good customer service agent I have to, always be available”. You also have to be PRESENT. If you are overwhelmed, interrupted or constantly jump when others say jump… you will not be present. Fight for you-time ’cause no one else will.
     
  • Fight for your budget. What gets cut first when things go bad? Volunteer management budgets. Because volunteers are free, right? Your budget must be detailed to show exactly how much time and effort it takes to engage all of the volunteers you have, and you must be able to say what the consequences of cutting your budget will be (less volunteers, and those that are left providing left sources, and numbers to back that up), in terms of real numbers. At least fight for the budget to stay in tact. You may not get it – but at least you can sleep at night knowing you’re not a coward.
     
  • Fight for your resources. You need volunteer management software, not just a few lines of data entry on the donor management software. You need interactive features on the volunteer-related pages of your organizations web site. You need to keep your training up-to-date and, therefore, need to go to a conference or workshop that will upgrade your skills. You may need a paid part-time or full-time assistant, or more than one, to be able to involve and support more volunteers at your organization. Don’t let some lame brain tell senior management that the donor software will meet all of your needs, that you can’t have the interactive features on the volunteer-related pages that other departments have with clients and donors because it’s too expensive or not possible (because it’s NOT), and that volunteers are free. And if you need more help, prove why and fight for it. Last but not least:
     
  • Fight for your salary. Fundraising managers, donor relations managers and even the HR manager are all making more than you. Why? Those people constantly show how all the things they do are critical to the organization. The organization believes that under-funding or cutting those positions who be disastrous to the organization. In addition, those other staff people are asking for more money and getting it. They are ASKING FOR IT. Pay peanuts… get monkeys. Don’t be a monkey.

 

Managers of volunteers have reputations of being nice. It’s time to start working towards a reputation of being absolutey necessary. It’s time to join the volunteer management Fight Club!

It’s not the first time I’ve tried to get you all to fight…

Government support re: volunteerism increasing worldwide

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A recent edition of Global Trends in NGO Law, “a quarterly review of NGO legal trends around the world”, published by The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, examines the major international trends in the development of supportive volunteerism policies and legislation over the past decade. In anticipation of the 10 year anniversary of the International Year of Volunteers (IYV+10), the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) program commissioned the report by the ICNL and the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL).

The report finds that since IYV 2001, more than 70 laws and policies on volunteers and volunteering have been adopted in countries around the world. These laws cannot be absolutely attributed to the events surrounding IYV 2001, but it can be said that a growing number of countries are becoming aware of volunteerism in their countries — not just informal activities of neighbors helping neighbors, but volunteers self-organizing or being organized through a non-governmental organization (NGO) to provide certain services, to engage in activities that promote change by government or corporate sectors, etc.

Organized volunteerism isn’t just people being nice and helpful, and efforts to introduce, expand or support volunteerism nationally should keep that in mind. There are some not-so-nice volunteers out there — and while I think they are wonderful, many governments are going to balk when they show up.

In addition, as governments expand their support of volunteerism in their countries, they are going to learn very quickly that volunteers are not all selfless! Volunteers are neither saints nor teddy bears, and fuzzy language about them and their contributions needs to be replaced by more modern and more appropriate language that recognizes their importance, like “powerful” and “intrepid” and “audacious” and “determined.”

And do they understand that volunteers are never free, that successful volunteer engagement requires volunteer management and support – and that such support and management costs money?

It’s also important to take extra care in talking to impoverished people about donating their time for free – there can be a very ugly backlash with the wrong approach. But asking impoverished people to donate their time to free can work!

In short – there are LOTS to consider about expanded promotions of volunteering in countries globally! Let’s hope governments are getting that message as well.

Also see Germany needs 90 thousand volunteers immediately.

 

Aid in Haiti is failing

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A few weeks ago, the radio show This American Life did an great show focused on aid in Haiti. If you want to understand the roadblocks to improving things in Haiti, it’s worth your time to listen to this show. Notice how some of the blocks are because of policies donors have implemented to try to prevent corruption.

It can be hard to get your mind around, but aid actually sometimes harms people, rather than helping, even in Haiti. There are stories of rice farmers in rural parts of Haiti not being able to sell their crops because, with all the rice donations from other countries, there is no market for products. Would-be Haitian contractors are also missing out on jobs because foreign contractors are being chosen by aid agencies instead. Sometimes cheaper, or even most modern, doesn’t mean better, in the long-term, for local people needing the aid.

Time has a story Haiti’s Failed Recovery: Who’s to Blame? that presents the two camps regarding why recovery in Haiti is failing:

For the anti-NGO camp, Haiti is a case study in the hypocrisy of the global relief bandwagon that descends on poor countries victimized by wars, famine and natural disasters. A growing chorus of critics accuses humanitarian-aid groups of using misery to validate their existence, spending funds inefficiently and creating a culture of dependence among the people they are supposed to help… If you belong to the “blame Haiti” camp, you’re less likely to ascribe the post earthquake mess to outsiders than to the country’s defective political culture. In recent years, development economists have sought to explain why some countries lift themselves out of poverty while others chronically underachieve. Stable, transparent institutions – like police, courts and banks – are critical to the success of poor nations. But Haiti’s long history of disarray has left it with few institutions worthy of trust. For those who emphasize such internal factors, Haiti wouldn’t be saved even if every dollar of aid money were spent and every NGO disappeared tomorrow. Until the country’s political class proves it can govern, Haiti’s people will continue to suffer.

I certainly offer no solution — it’s a systemic problem across sectors that defies a simplistic solution. I will say that aid agencies need to be reading these stories and looking at their messages to the public and to donors. They need to be showing how many local staff they are hiring versus how many foreign staff they are bringing in, and highlighting what steps they are taking so that Haitians are not just contributing to their own relief, they are leading it, and will eventually take over from the aid agency completely. They also have to be open about corruption – don’t shy away from talking about problems with transparency, even if it’s just in internal reports or reports to donors.

It’s not time to give up. But it is time to pay greater attention.

ADDITION ON JAN. 12:

John Mitchell, Director of ALNAP (Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action) has posted a blog about how the media is portraying what is happening in Haiti. It’s very much worth your time to read.