Category Archives: corporate volunteering

More questions about the new Starbucks Service Fellows initiative

09 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by in corporate volunteering, Uncategorized

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On the 12th October Rob published an article raising five questions about a new corporate social responsibility (CSR) pilot from Starbucks in the USA. By happy coincidence, this appeared two weeks after Meridian Swift had published another article challenging leaders of volunteers to be aware of and engage with corporate volunteering. Both articles shared common threads so it seemed sensible to work together to develop the thinking further.

Rob and Meridian got their thinking caps on and devised some further questions that they felt needed asking. These relate not just to the Starbucks pilot, but to employee volunteering more broadly as well. What follows is the product of Meridian and Rob’s joint efforts to try and provide some answers.

How will this affect me, in my office, in my town, and what do I do about it?

Meridian: It’s reasonable to think that since there are only 36 employees participating in 13 cities across the United States, it won’t really affect me at all. However, if you live in the areas served by this initiative, it might. The Points of Light (POL) network affiliates involved in this initial pairing are:

HandsOn Atlanta; HandsOn Bay Area; Boston Cares; HandsOn Broward, FL; Chicago Cares; VolunteerNow (Dallas); Volunteer Fairfax; Volunteer Houston; HandsOn Miami; HandsOn Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul); HandsOn Greater Phoenix; Seattle Works; and United Way of Greater St. Louis.

The affiliate organizations listed above act as clearinghouses for local volunteer programs. If your volunteer engagement program has a relationship with one of the above affiliates, it’s conceivable that your organization benefits downstream from this resource.

Starbucks has plans to increase their volunteering commitment next year and if successful, they could extend it into other countries as well. In support of this first pilot cohort, the Starbucks Foundation awarded POL a grant and a portion of that grant provides each of the Fellows with an hourly stipend – much like a national service placement awards their living stipend. These 36 Starbucks partners spend up to 20 hours each week at one of the placement sites listed above.

We must realize this initiative will grow and begin to prepare for future changes in how we cultivate and engage volunteers. We have become accustomed to corporate groups seeking one-time projects for team building and to increase their CSR (corporate social responsibility) visibility, but the Starbucks Service Fellows are a whole new level of corporate participation.

Should we be prepared for more of this? Is this where corporate volunteering is going?

Meridian: Oh, my gosh, yes. Consider this direct quote from Natalye Paquin, President and CEO of Points of Light: “We believe this bold program, designed in partnership with Starbucks, will redefine corporate engagement and the private sector’s ability to support civic engagement.”

Others are already jumping on the bandwagon. A Chick-fil-A restaurant in Indiana recently made news when the owner decided to pay his employees to volunteer while his store was closed for remodeling.

We are in a corporate volunteering pivotal time. No, I take that back. Due to societal shifts and social media, we are about to be hit by a tidal wave of corporate volunteer participation. The private sector is getting deeply involved, as I alluded to in my blog post in September. If volunteer engagement professionals do not get on top of this trend right now, corporations will become frustrated at our lack of preparation and ability to provide the level of engagement they are looking for in a partnership. The sad reality is, they will bypass us completely, and they have the talent and money to do it.

Are there going to be businesses who admire Starbucks and want to be like them, so they will attempt to model this initiative?

Rob: Almost certainly, yes. Here’s another quote from Natalye Paquin, President and CEO of Points of Light:

“Starbucks’ investment in the 13 communities served by this initiative will not only spark positive change through more than 17,000 hours of community service, but it also serves as a model for an employer-led capacity-building program that Starbucks and other corporate partners can scale globally in the future.” 

It’s important to remember that this pilot seems to be driven primarily as a way to attract millennial employees. As the UK’s Guardian newspaper stated in their coverage of this story:

“18-34 years old are quickly becoming the largest group of employees in the workplace. Business owners, both big and small, are trying to come up with innovative benefits to attract the best and the brightest people of this generation to their company as well as keeping existing employees happy and motivated.”

Furthermore:

“According to the 2014 Millennial Impact Report, one-third of Millennials surveyed said that their companies’ volunteer policies affected their decision to apply for a job, 39% said that it influenced their decision to interview, and 55% said that such policies played into their decision to accept an offer.”

Employers of all sizes and all sectors are facing the challenge of providing incentives to hire millennial staff. Baby boomers are ageing into retirement, leaving a shortage of labour thanks to the smaller cohort of Generation X. Competition for millennials will, therefore, increase and we shouldn’t be surprised to see businesses looking to volunteerism related options as a way of winning the recruitment battle.

In fact, the question isn’t really whether we’ll see more of these kinds of initiatives from corporations, but whether the public and non-profit sectors might follow suit as they try to pry some of that millennial talent away from the private sector.

What exactly are these “Service Fellows” doing? A regular volunteer’s job? A regular employee’s job? Or something that can’t replace anyone already there?

Rob: Good question. Right now we don’t really know. However, as our colleague Jerome Tennille pointed out when commenting via social media on Rob’s blog post:

“This model of service is similar to AmeriCorps, and most non-profits are familiar with how to integrate them in. The difference here is that it’s funded by a private entity.”

If Jerome is right then we can expect to see Starbucks Service Fellows stepping into roles similar to those undertaken by AmeriCorps members.

Back in March 2010 our colleague Susan J Ellis wrote an article encouraging managers of volunteers to engage with the then emerging AmeriCorps programme to ensure the roles provided didn’t have negative effects. Chief amongst Susan’s concerns was organisations would hire AmeriCorps members to lead volunteer management, rather than making long-term, strategic investments in this important function.

We would echo Susan’s call today, eight years on. Leaders of volunteers have to engage to make this scheme a success for everyone, not just Starbucks. It is essential that volunteer managers at non-profits are part of the planning as these innovations in corporate giving develop. We need to make sure our voices are heard, influence these schemes for the good of our organisations and clients.

In fact, Susan’s concerns are perhaps more acute for the Starbucks model where placement will only be for six months. Imagine getting a new (and possibly relatively inexperienced) service fellow coming into the organisation twice a year – would your organisation benefit or suffer from that turnover in the leadership and management of volunteers? Please don’t just dismiss these schemes as not volunteering, burying your head in the sand in the hope they will go away. Get involved, speak up or it may be your job that service fellows take

Did they consult a volunteer engagement expert? What arrangements are in place with the POL affiliate nonprofits?

Meridian: I have reached out to Starbucks press and a few of the local affiliate organizations who are recipients of the Starbucks Service Fellows, but haven’t yet had a lot of luck in connecting.

I realize that this is a new program and they may not have enough good information to share at this point but what I have gathered is Starbucks and Points of Light are striving to change the way corporations think about employee engagement and the use of their human capital/resources to support strengthening nonprofits and communities. Since Points of Light is the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service, they are experts in volunteerism, so my guess is there was a good deal of consulting between these two giants in their respective sectors.

Since this is a joint partnership between Starbucks and Points of Light, it naturally follows that Points of Light would choose affiliate partners across the country. There are more than 200 volunteer mobilizing organizations or affiliates, which share a common mission, goals and approach. The affiliates may pair Starbucks Fellows with local non-profit partners, but that is yet unclear.

Is this one of those lofty, not thought out edicts from above that will make a volunteer manager’s life a living hell because no input was asked for?

Rob: As we’ve already noted, Starbucks are doing this because they want an advantage when recruiting millennial employees. Points of Light are doing it because they have affiliates who will “benefit from focused volunteer efforts that align with Starbucks’ global social impact priorities, with a focus on opportunity youth, refugees, veterans and military families, hunger, environment and disaster recovery.” 

Whether we agree with those motivations or not (and who are we to judge?), that’s what we know.

Boards and senior managers will rush to engage with corporations with the volunteer management professionals likely to be the last to know what they’ve been signed up for.

This is especially true with CSR programmes where the impetus comes from fundraising colleagues – in the hope the corporate will make cash donations – or communications colleagues looking for a public relations coup.

For schemes like this to be a success the volunteer manager cannot just be the poor schmuck who gets responsibility for making it work dumped on them. That may not have been the case in the Starbucks example, but we can see it happening in future, to the detriment of all involved. Non-profits need their leader of volunteer engagement involved from the get-go and we need to be making this case now, before it’s too late.

Will volunteering be on-site or is it project based off-site?

Meridian: We have no evidence at this time. Whether the service fellows will follow a prescribed national plan or will be allowed to meet local needs remains unclear. It appears they will volunteer in the areas that align with Starbuck’s philanthropic priorities, which include opportunity youth, refugees, veterans and military families, hunger, environment and disaster recovery.

Hurricane Michael recently devastated the areas around Mexico Beach in Florida and according to the Starbucks press release, a Starbucks shift supervisor from Florida will work on hurricane preparedness and hurricane relief with HandsOn Broward. Their involvement may be according to local needs but we just don’t know yet.

What role should bodies like Points of Light have in future, representing non-profits and Volunteer Managers?

Rob: The role of a broker in corporate volunteering can be a really important one, as Dr. Joanne Cook and Dr. Jon Burchell highlighted in their 2015 paper, “Employee Supported Volunteering: Realising The Potential” (summary article available here):

‘The challenge is finding what people in the business will engage with, and the skills that the charities want, identifying this is the challenge and that’s where the brokerage comes in.’

In the Starbucks initiative, POL played a brokerage role between the company and their own local affiliates, matching needs and priorities between both parties. Yet as schemes like this develop and spread the importance of brokers will grow, with a neutral party necessary to help match corporates and non-profits in a fair manner. Key to this will be supporting non-profits to assert their needs rather than just capitulating to whatever business requests. As in any volunteering relationship, mutual benefit is essential, so brokers will need to ensure a level playing field as both parties negotiate the details of corporate volunteering relationships.

We also think brokers and intermediaries have a responsibility to ensure the volunteer management voice is heard in non-profits. As noted before, all too often the desire to work with business is driven by the lure of a cash donation, marginalizing the input of a volunteer engagement professional in favour of corporate fundraising priorities. This mustn’t happen! If volunteer managers are left out of the planning loop then they will struggle to deliver on what their bosses and corporate partners want and need, weakening the relationship limiting the potential for success.

If we were Volunteer Managers on the receiving end of this, what would we like to know?

Rob: OK, over to you. This is your chance to collaborate with us on this article and move the debate forward. Imagine your organisation is looking to get involved in something like the Starbucks / Points of Light initiative. What questions would you have; for the corporation; for your board and senior managers; for other paid staff colleagues in your organisation (e.g. HR, fundraising); and perhaps for your existing volunteers and those coming from the business?

Leave a comment in the comments section below with the things you’d like to know and add your voice to the debate.

We look forward to reading your thoughts.

Rob and Meridian

Why Should We Pay Attention to Volunteering Trends?

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in corporate volunteering, Uncategorized

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adult autumn beauty blue

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Have you ever stopped dead in your tracks and said, “I can sense it, it’s going to rain?” You felt the slight change in barometric pressure, or you heard the leaves in the trees rustle and you knew. You pulled up your collar or searched for an umbrella in your backpack.

If we could see the coming volunteering trends, we could prepare for them, right? Thirty years ago, were there signs that volunteers wanted more episodic roles? Or did it sneak up on us, causing us to rethink our volunteering strategy? Should we even pay attention to trends? Do we need a volunteer engagement strategy umbrella?

Can we spot trends by asking our volunteers, “Hey, what are you going to be doing differently 2 years from now?” Oftentimes, the beginning of a volunteering trend bubbles up in some pretty unrelated places. Not all trends first appear in volunteer management articles or blog posts. Rather, they evolve in other sectors and if we aren’t aware of them, these trends can rain down on us, catching us unprepared.

One such rapidly expanding trend is corporate volunteering. Consider these recent articles, none of which appeared in volunteer management periodicals:

Starbucks is testing a program that will allow some employees to spend half of their workweek at a local nonprofit

The 50 Best Workplaces for Giving Back

Why Paying Employees to Volunteer is Good For Business

Or this article about a Chick-fil-A store owner who is paying his employees to volunteer while the store is being remodeled:

Chick-fil-A employees in Plainfield to be paid for community service as location is closed for remodeling

Or this article on millennial workers:

Millennials Are Leading a Revolution in Corporate Volunteering Efforts

The growing CSR (corporate social responsibility) trend greatly impacts volunteer managers, as more and more businesses look for avenues into volunteering for a non-profit. Where do they start? At this point in time, businesses are utilizing partnerships with non-profits to accomplish their corporate volunteering goals.

If we wish to stay on top of this trend, it is imperative that volunteer organizations develop a corporate volunteering strategy to engage and partner with businesses who wish to increase their standing in communities. Why, we might ask? Why bother with employees who only give a couple of hours? Why take on another project that seems like babysitting? Why engage with people who are really just helping their company “look good?”

Because, if we turn our self-righteous heads away and refuse to work with corporate volunteers, they will develop their own programs. And they have the money to do it.

I am not suggesting that we drop everything and drool over any and every corporate volunteering request that comes our way. I’m suggesting that we need to develop a strategy that benefits our mission and works for the company we choose to partner with. By this, I mean:

  • choose a company that has shared goals and values and thoroughly understands what the mission is about
  • start with just one company and learn how to develop a solid partnership with that company before taking on another
  • control the participation as in how many volunteers you can take at a time, what they will do, when they will do it, how much onus is on them to bring any supplies they will need, etc.
  •  make impact on mission goals the primary focus, versus forging a partnership so that fund-raising can hit the company up for money
  • set guidelines or ground rules for participation and stick to them
  • follow-up to cement the relationship and plan for the future

If organizers of corporate volunteering programs have poor experiences, or are continually turned away or can’t find anyone to partner with, they will quit trying. But here’s the scary thing. If they are really serious about volunteering in the community, they will just bypass us. They will turn their frustration into forming their own internal programs, leaving us in the dust.

Corporate volunteering may seem like sketchy volunteering to the purist. We can dismiss it as not having pure intent, or not serious enough or existing only for show. But it’s exponentially increasing and we need to stay ahead of the trend and control it. We are the ones to shape it into the meaningful and impactful volunteering purity we wish to see.

Think about this: When your CEO appears at your door and says, “I just got off the phone with the VP over at Expansion Architectural Designs and he said you told him we didn’t have a corporate volunteer program,” are you going to say, “But, but, corporate volunteering is just not real volunteering?”

If we strategically embrace corporate volunteering, devise ways to successfully incorporate it into our hectic workloads and use it to further our goals, we will reap the following benefits:

  • increased organizational awareness through the partner company’s newsletter, employee word of mouth, possible press releases, etc.
  • increased donations from the satisfied partner company in the form of money, grants, in-kind donations or corporate matching (but again, donations are a bonus by-product of truly satisfied companies-we should never expect corporate volunteering to be a channel to money because that’s disingenuous)
  • increased positive word of mouth among area businesses
  • increased respect for volunteers in general due to the higher visibility of these corporate volunteers
  • more leverage when asking for an increase in volunteer budget, or additional resources, help, etc.
  • increased acknowledgement for volunteer manager creativity, skills and organizational worth

We know volunteerism is rapidly evolving. Keeping up with trends can be daunting, so we must craft a strategy to control trend implementation and to work trends to our advantage by formulating a strategy umbrella.

Because, it’s raining out there.

-Meridian

For more in-depth information on corporate volunteering from someone who has been on both sides of the equation and has workable solutions, please see Jerome Tennille’s excellent 2 part post on CSR and volunteering.

 

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It’s That Time Again for New Words Added to the Volunteer Management Dictionary!

25 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in corporate volunteering, messaging, Uncategorized

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This Year's New Words Added to the Volunteer Management Dictionary

Well, it was the yearly meeting time again for the Committee to Define Volunteer Management. This year, the members decided to video conference instead of getting together in person because no one could scrape up the gas money to drive up and back. So, after three hours trying to get the program to work, they all finally called it a night and decided to email each other.

Once again, none of them could really come up with a statement of less than 3,763 words to define volunteer management, so they decided to quit arguing over whether or not attending volunteers’ birthday celebrations constituted volunteer management and instead, they tackled item number 2 on their agenda and added new words to the volunteer management dictionary. Here are the terms added this year in no particular order of relevance: (or sanity)

volsplaining: when someone who knows nothing about volunteer engagement but has a grandmother who has been volunteering for 31 years, explains that you “should go to the senior center and talk to those people. Ha, ha, they have nothing better to do.”

voltriloquist: when a staff member speaks through a volunteer by taking advantage of the volunteer’s kind nature and manipulates the volunteer’s opinions so much that volunteer Betty says to you, “my gosh, have you seen how the records department is so overloaded? I can’t imagine how they get everything done. I try to help these poor, overworked people as much as I can. It’s such a pity they can’t hire more staff. You know, I should get a bunch of volunteers together and march up to the CEO’s office and complain. ”

GVOAT: Greatest volunteer of all times-you know, you have one. And, sigh, you compare every volunteer to the gvoat. (yeah, wish they would all just be polite and earnest and have this twinkle in their eye when they speak…. oops, sorry, just thought about my gvoat for a minute)

bogovol: Buy one, get one vol. Some volunteers travel in pairs; they might join as a pair or they might find each other during orientation. They just like to have a buddy to share in their experiences. The bogovol is great when filling requests for multiple volunteers. Also know as 2fervol.

self-serve volunteering: Volunteering only to enhance a resume, pad a college application, or use the mission to further a goal. You know the ones. Their blinding white smiles and almost superhuman enthusiasm are too good to be true, but hey, you’re not one to judge so you just assume you’ve got a good one, and they arrive the morning of their first assignment, all perfect-looking and they slide a form onto your desk as they plead in their charming way, “can you just fill this out now instead of after I volunteer, it’ll save you time later and well, there’s a deadline to turn this in and I promise I will do everything I said I would do and time got away from me just a bit and besides, I know you don’t want me to miss my deadline, do you?”  Then BAM! No sooner has the ink dried on your signature, they’re out the door before you’ve dropped your promo pen back into your wizard pen holder. Also know as reputation robbers. There’s an old post about this topic here.

volbot: pre-programmed robotic volunteer. Push the microphone icon, tell it what to do and blip, beep, they whir into action. Staff may not say it to your face, but, oh, they all want one. Need I say more?

sVaddling: Babying a volunteer because she is friends with your CEO, or the niece of a board member so you’re stuck and you bend the rules and keep her all wrapped up in layers of protection. You can’t tell other volunteers that the reason you’re insulating her is because she will report you to higher management if her feelings are bruised so you just give her lots of slack. You say things like, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she turns in her paperwork, maybe it’s just hard for her,” and then you call her up and try to make her understand that paperwork is mandatory but she brushes you off and so you fill out the paperwork yourself. When the CEO passes by in the hall and says, “oh, hey my friend Annabelle likes volunteering but wants to know if she can change her day to Saturday, would you be a sport and come in this Saturday, you know, to make her fee welcomed,” you just clench your teeth and nod. Also know as kid glove volunteer.

kudo-slap on the wrist: When wimping out of reprimanding a volunteer by setting a meeting and having all your policies ready and even your documented instances of the volunteer’s infraction of the rules and you’re wearing your best business suit jacket, the one you interviewed for this job in, and then Ba-boom! You’ve got the sandwich principle in your head, the one where you first compliment a person, then talk about their shortcomings, then end on a positive note, but you get started on the compliments and the volunteer is looking at you with those volunteer eyes so you go on about how wonderful they are and how you know their heart is in the right place cause gosh, they said that a new volunteer was dumb but trainable, right? You prattle on for so long while the volunteer’s face glows with the syrup of validation that you can’t bring yourself to actually reprimand them and instead, you hastily type up a commendation certificate which makes you end up in a worse place then when you started. (But the volunteer is happy as heck and proudly shows the certificate to all the other, stunned volunteers)

vacant lot of praise: The throwing out of meaningless phrases like “we love our volunteers” and “we couldn’t operate without our volunteers.” (and when you point out that volunteers would like specific appreciation, you get a vacant stare.)

egocorporate: A group of corporate vols who want to volunteer, but want you to arrange their involvement to benefit only them. Time-frame, task, juicy assignment all need to work for their day of volunteering. And so, you bend and bend and bend and then, on the day of volunteering, the 13 extra volunteers that show up because they were kind of shamed into coming, are standing around, checking social media and Ivan, a client’s family member who agreed to speak to the group about how the mission helped his family, can’t be heard over all the pockets of conversations and there’s not enough shovels to start that “garden of love” and half of the volunteers are in suits and high heels and it’s hot out and there’s not enough water so you run to your office and call a trusted volunteer who agrees to go out and get some water and then the corporate volunteers who are just standing around start leaving because they showed up, right and that’s pretty much all they agreed to and poor Ivan knows that everything he said fell on deaf ears and now you could kick yourself because you just probably lost this awesome speaker for future events and the garden is half dug and you have to clean up and now the water arrived, but everyone is gone, so your trusted volunteer is bummed and you missed your nephew’s birthday for this debacle and your brother is going to be mad, not to mention the “dirt hole of love” needs to be filled in.

Well, there you have it! The committee called and asked me to include a round-up of last year’s words and you can see those words here.

Thank you Committee to Define Volunteer Management. As usual, you did a great job! (wait, that’s a vacant lot of praise, isn’t it? I really should be more specific. Hey, committee, sorry, I meant you clearly have a talent for massacring words.)

-Meridian

Is Volunteer Management a Science?

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by in charities, corporate volunteering, episodic volunteering, group volunteering, NGO, non-profit, organizations, part time volunteer manager, prospective volunteer, sustainable volunteering, Uncategorized, volunteer coordinator, volunteer management, volunteer project, volunteer recruitment, volunteer retention, volunteer statistics

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Is Volunteer Management a Science

In 1959, novelist and scientist, C. P. Snow gave a lecture entitled  The Two Cultures. Essentially Snow argued that the humanities and science were split into opposing cultures, each one not understanding the other.

Most of us would probably categorize volunteer management as a humanity.  In the post  The Volunteer Investor I likened volunteers to humanity investors.  But while humanity is at the heart of volunteering, isn’t the management of volunteers a science? And, by treating it as a science, does that automatically remove the humanity?

Well, what if we look at other science based professions that serve humanity?

  • Does the researcher seeking a cure for cancer not dream about the potential millions of people saved?
  • Does the engineer developing a new prosthetic not imagine the first time an amputee puts on that device and walks?
  • Does a safety engineer never think about the children she may keep safe?

Re-framing volunteer management as a science will not remove the humanity. Instead, it will elevate the skills volunteer managers possess. 

So, then how can we re-frame volunteer management to reflect the science of it? Do we stop talking about the heartfelt work volunteers do? Do we become invested in cold stats? Or, can we do both? Can we still convey the humanity while highlighting the precise steps taken to achieve outcomes?

When we, leaders of volunteers separate the volunteers’ incredible outcomes from the systematic steps needed to achieve those outcomes, then we can begin to identify and speak to the science of volunteer management.

How? Well, we can, as volunteer management professionals begin to:

  • Temper human stories with solution stories and the steps necessary to achieve results
  • Speak in management language when discussing volunteer engagement and challenges
  • Remove emotion when dealing with difficult situations and instead, utilize scientific methods such as observation, gathering of data, testing and logical thinking to solve problems
  • Re-evaluate programs based on priorities, time involved and solutions achieved
  • Re-think in terms of humanely leading volunteers, but managing projects
  • Tout the science of volunteer engagement in terms of strategies, social metrics and road-maps
  • Categorize the skills used to engage volunteers, such as motivating, knowledgeable delegating (not just delegation because anybody can delegate), problem solving, results orienting, relationship building, strategical planning, innovating and big picture thinking
  • Chronicle the methodical steps necessary to engage volunteers
  • Create data that leads to goals, such as maps, diagrams etc
  • Experiment and innovate

The perception that we coordinate volunteers who require nothing more than a phone call negates the methods required to fully engage these investors in our missions.

Do we do ourselves a disservice when we blur the lines between the hearts of our volunteers and the hard work we do? Do we sometimes become so emotionally invested in our volunteers’ humanity that we lose our management voices?

The results of volunteer involvement is humanity’s crowning achievement but the skills, knowledge and sheer hard work is the science of getting to those results.

If we project our profession as a science with a humanity outcome, we can then elevate the precise, nuanced methodology required to achieve our humanitarian goals.

Lab coat anyone?

-Meridian

 

 

 

 

Volunween. What Goes Bump In The Night?

01 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by in charities, corporate volunteering, episodic volunteering, NGO, non-profit, organizations, part time volunteer manager, Uncategorized, volunteer coordinator, volunteer management

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Volunween What Goes Bump In the Night

Laurie sat at her desk, her finger running down the list of volunteers. Her watch read 7:30pm and she wasn’t any closer to filling that last-minute volunteer assignment than she had been six hours earlier when the office was humming. She sighed, thinking about the night before. She’d gone to the midnight showing of Halloween with her friends and giggling, they ate popcorn and jumped when Michael Myers’ got back up again and again.

Yawning, she laid her head on the desk for just a moment. Suddenly, the lights went out. Her computer screen flickered off. It was pitch black. The stillness was unnerving. Laurie looked around, trying to adjust to the dark. As she blinked, the hair on the back of her neck rose. In the corner she could see a shape forming, its wispy outline undulating. Terrified, she watched it drift towards her, a watery face forming in the mist.

Heart thudding, she pushed back away from the ghostly specter, her chair scraping the floor.  Its dead eyes fixated on her. “Why Laurie,” it whispered and the icy voice brushed her hair. “Why did all these volunteers leave?”

One by one, transparent faces materialized, hovering in the dark, surrounding her. She recognized Juan, who never had the time to come to orientation. She saw Millie who couldn’t find a job that suited her. In the corner was Yuki, who quit volunteering to care for her sick mother. The faces bobbed and the specter hissed, “What could you have done to keep them? Now they’re gone.” Slowly, the faces dissolved.

The lights popped back on and the computer rebooted with a whir. Rubbing her eyes, she couldn’t tell if she had been dreaming. She shivered, a cold tingling running down her back. Was there still a mist hovering near the door?

The phone rang and Laurie jumped. It was a volunteer returning her call, telling her that he could do tomorrow’s assignment.

Laurie stuffed the volunteer list back into the top drawer and grabbed her purse. “I’m not afraid anymore!” She said aloud as she got up and headed home.

What is our volunteer manager equivalent of the things that go bump in the night?

  • The Vampire Volunteer who sucks the life out of us?
  • The Frankenstein Assignment where none of the pieces fit?
  • The Freddy Krueger Department who keeps shredding volunteers?
  • The Wolfman Staff who turn on us when volunteers won’t clean closets?
  • The Mummy Marketer who keeps all information under wraps?
  • The Episodic Gremlins, who run all over doing more damage than work?
  • The Corporate Dementor Group who must have contact with clients so they can suck their souls for a feel good experience?
  • The Ghosting Volunteers who just disappear?

Some volunteer management areas can be scary. But when that cold spector breathes its icy voice of doubt into our ears, just remember: The reluctant hero in the monster movie always prevails.

-Meridian

 

 

 

I Speak Volunteer. You?

25 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in charities, corporate volunteering, episodic volunteering, international volunteer manager appreciation day, NGO, non-profit, organizations, part time volunteer manager, Uncategorized, Volunteer, volunteer coordinator, volunteer management

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I Speak Volunteer You

 

Are volunteer managers world travelers? Do we venture into exotic lands where the inhabitants speak a foreign language and do not understand the words we speak?

If you’ve ever stood up in a staff meeting to give a presentation on volunteering and the attendees glazed over while checking their devices, you know what I mean. They don’t understand the odd, volunteer language coming out of our mouths.

For example, what are common volunteer management phrases and typical staff responses:

“Our selfless volunteers who are caring and compassionate.”  HUH? So what? I’m caring and compassionate too, but that doesn’t get the mountains of work done.

“Our volunteers gave 6,000 hours last month making our clients lives better.” WHAT? Who gave $6,000 and why wasn’t I informed? I’m in charge of donations here! The nerve!

“Volunteers give from their heart.” Yeah, that’s nice but I give from my heart too and I give my blood, sweat and tears besides. Who has time for this fluff?

Broad statements and dry statistics are the twins of tune-out. So, do stats and heart-warming stories have any place at all? Yes, of course they do, but what is the impact of these stats and stories, other than the feel-goodery of volunteerspeak?

As you step onto the stage for your moment to talk about volunteer services, think about your elevator pitch. Does my audience speak volunteer? How do I get their attention? And, most importantly, can I speak to them in their own language so that they understand?

Let’s break this down:

In volunteerspeak, we focus on our volunteer’s selflessness as in,  “One of our volunteers, Dave, gave up tickets to a sold out play to spend two extra hours with an upset client. Now that’s above and beyond. ” Nice, but well, this has no bearing on me.

Instead, if we retell this story in a language our target audience speaks, and we focus on impact it becomes, “volunteer Dave stayed two extra hours, allowing our social worker, Alexis, to fully focus on her caregiver assessment while he engaged the upset client. This cut Alexis’ time in that home by half which gave her two more hours to get her work done.” What? Extra time? I’m listening.

Forcing our audiences to understand ‘volunteerspeak‘ is a burden on them. Instead, if we want our voices heard, we need to learn to speak their language.

What questions can help us find the common tongue?

  • What, at this moment is the most pressing challenge facing our organization? Time? Marketing? Money? Lack of market share? Competition? Complaints? Auditing? How can we craft our stories and stats into the ways volunteers help in addressing these specific challenges? For example, instead of talking in general terms of how volunteers support the mission, gather concrete examples of volunteers who donate money, in-kind goods and influence their neighbors to give. 
  • What departments are stretched, overworked and leaned on? In what measurable concrete terms do volunteers alleviate the load on these departments? For example, instead of pointing to volunteer hours given, flip it and speak to the amount of hours saved by staff.
  • What are some of the current organizational goals? Expansion? Partnerships? Social Media presence? National recognition? How are new volunteer programs leading the way in achieving these goals? For example, instead of pointing to a new program that will bring in more volunteers, show how the innovative program will more quickly lead to a specific goal.
  • What methods speak to my organization? Gathering stats? Big picture thinking? Connecting dots? Awards? How can I rework my presentations using these methods to show volunteer impact? For example, instead of equating volunteer hours to dollars saved, speak to examples of volunteers as extensions of departments and the work produced. Impact stats vs. hour stats.

We can continue to praise volunteer goodness until we are hoarse. But if we don’t speak in the terms and language understood by our organizations, CEO’s, department heads and staff, it will fall on deaf ears.

We can’t expect others to translate volunteerspeak. We must adapt the common tongue in order to show true, measurable volunteer impact.

You know, because of volunteer involvement, we frequently travel to all corners of our organizations.  It really helps to speak the language.

-Meridian

 

 

 

Taking Extra Care to Support Volunteers

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in burn out, charities, corporate volunteering, episodic volunteering, group volunteering, NGO, non-profit, organizations, part time volunteer manager, prospective volunteer, sustainable volunteering, Uncategorized, volunteer coordinator, volunteer management, volunteer recruitment, volunteer retention

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Taking Extra Care to Support Volunteers

The recent spate of natural disasters has cast a light on incredible volunteers across the globe helping people in need.

Although not always news worthy, volunteers daily walk towards a crisis instead of running away. In organizations everywhere, volunteers are doing the hard work, the emotional work. Because they feel so deeply, they are affected by the tragedies they witness such as in this story:  Volunteer shares harrowing account of how Hurricane Irma ripped toddler from woman’s arms

In our training programs, we encourage our volunteers to have empathy (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another) so they can better serve our clients. But can empathy take a toll?

I remember a new volunteer, Jenna and the first time she was present with a patient who died. Jenna had hours of volunteer training. She and I had talked at length about her strengths and capabilities. She was prepared… on paper.

Minutes after she left the room, allowing family members to gather, she sought me out. I was in the middle of some urgent matter that I have long forgotten. I looked up and saw Jenna’s face and I knew. You can’t mistake a face that has been profoundly affected by what was just witnessed. It’s there in the tiny muscles that make up the eyes and mouth. It’s there, deep in the irises that reflect a life altering experience. It’s there in the reverent voice asking for “a moment of your time.”

We found a private spot and sat for several long and quiet minutes while Jenna gathered her thoughts. It was difficult for her to put into words how she felt. She only knew that she felt changed, different, profoundly transformed somehow.

And if you think about it, how does each volunteer cope with the things they witness? Does training and on-boarding take care of the emotional investment our volunteers make when accepting roles placing them in life’s most profound situations?

Volunteers have an amazing resilience and ability to cope when faced with deeply personal scenarios. But what if a situation becomes more personal? In what situations can this happen to a volunteer, even if they have received excellent training?

  • a volunteer works with a person who reminds them of a family member (child, partner, parent, sibling)
  • a volunteer witnesses tragedy over and over and it accumulates
  • a volunteer is dealing with a crisis in their own lives
  • a volunteer is in a situation in which they perceive their help makes little difference (in outward appearance)
  • a volunteer gets caught up in the narrative of the situation
  • a volunteer feels the frustration of the client

We can’t prepare our volunteers for every situation, story and person they will encounter. So, how can we provide extra support for volunteers in order to prevent burnout? A few of the things we can do are:

  • ask clinical staff to be on the lookout for signs a volunteer needs support
  • ask clinical staff to be available to speak with volunteers who may be overwhelmed
  • enlist experienced volunteers to routinely call the volunteers who are working with clients. Experienced volunteers are the perfect candidates to do these check-ins because volunteers are comfortable speaking to other volunteers. (This is a great assignment for volunteers who physically can no longer do the job-instead of “retiring” them, elevate them to mentoring status)
  • create a monthly coffee klatch or tea time and encourage volunteers to share tips, stories and feelings
  • use newsletters to offer tips on self care
  • incorporate stories of volunteers who experienced emotional challenges into training and emphasize that this is not a sign of failure
  • designate a portion of each volunteer meeting to discuss “what’s going on with you”
  • intervene when noticing a volunteer experiencing emotional challenges (this can be personal, professional etc.)

If we make it clear that we are serious about supporting our volunteers, we will help them remain emotionally healthy and keep them from burning out.

This is the irony of non-profit work: We want our volunteers to share in our clients’ pain (Empathy) in order to better support the clients. But that empathy can lead to our volunteers experiencing their own emotional pain. Let’s make sure we support them so it doesn’t get out of hand.

-Meridian

 

 

 

 

The Volunteer Periphery

06 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in corporate volunteering, episodic volunteering, group volunteering, NGO, non-profit, organizations, part time volunteer manager, prospective volunteer, sustainable volunteering, Uncategorized, volunteer coordinator, volunteer management, volunteer recruitment, volunteer retention

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The Volunteer Periphery

Sea of peripheral volunteers

I have a friend who never seems to see the people around him. He lets the door swing shut just as an elderly man is about to walk through and he never sees the mom carrying a baby needing to get by as he blocks the aisle in the store. It’s as though he has no peripheral vision. It got me to thinking about managers of volunteers and how we develop our peripheral vision to the point of hyper awareness.

You know what I mean. You’re the kind of person who:

counts the number of people behind you in the buffet line at a friend’s party and then you mentally divide up the pasta portions in the pan to make sure that you don’t take more than your share.

looks around at a concert, sizing up the height of the crowd and then squeezes into a spot that ensures you don’t block the petite woman to your left.

Does this sound like you? I thought so.

We all have peripheral volunteers. These are the volunteers who are episodic, temporarily inactive, retired, yet to be trained, prospective, or absent. And unlike the world of paid staff where rosters consist of those receiving paychecks, our peripheral volunteers remain on our stats and radar.

We don’t have the luxury of ignoring them because they are potentially contributing volunteers. Or they may have given years of service and we owe them our attention. They float around in the periphery, bobbing in and out of view because we have a fluid connection with them. And how about the guilt that comes with not paying proper attention to them. (Yep, just think of how you felt when you forgot that volunteer’s 80th birthday, the one who gave twenty years of service to your organization)

What can we do with these outlying volunteers? How can we keep them in view as we scurry about in our busy day? Where do they fit into statistics?

This is one area in which:

  1. technology serves us well
  2. volunteers can assume pivotal roles
  3. stats reflect the monumental balancing we do
  4. volunteer message sharing can actually help

When lists that capture prospective, episodic, absent, retired, ill and every other category meaning non current pile up, it’s time to create some systems that help.

Create categorized email lists-prospective volunteers, group and corporate volunteers, temporarily inactive volunteers etc. Decide which groups get which messages, e.g., upcoming training sessions, newsletters, notices about volunteer events or vacancies, etc.

Recruit volunteers to oversee the periphery-lists are only helpful if they are accurate. It’s humbling when you take a call telling you that volunteer Dave died a year ago and his family keeps getting mail addressed to him. A volunteer or volunteers in charge of overseeing other volunteers on the periphery can focus on keeping lists up to date. They can also make phone calls, interview, do impromptu surveys, offer new opportunities, gather information and compile statistics. The scope of the potential work can fill a full-time position or several part-time positions.

Report your time spent managing peripheral volunteers-this is an invisible area that requires a lot of time so report it as part of your recruitment, retention, and cultivation. Refer to your efforts to engage “prospects”, retain episodic volunteers, build community awareness, increase visibility, maintain good relationships, cultivate donors, supporters etc. This nuanced area of our work is critical and should be accounted for.

Share messaging with other organizations, but be careful. Bombarding potential volunteers with multiple messages can be off-putting, so don’t overload emails with “spam.” Instead, co-op with other volunteer organizations and include “other good work opportunities” at the end of every other month newsletters (or other scheduling) with contact information. As your volunteer opportunities are added to the internals at other organizations, you’ve just exponentially increased your recruitment efforts.

Volunteer management casts a wide net. Presiding over the sea of active, potential and former volunteers is daunting. Systems in place to oversee peripheral volunteers will help to ease the overwhelming burden and free us up to concentrate on innovation and solutions.

Out nets are huge and always jumping with activity. If our eyes and hands are always on every inch of those nets, then we can’t steer the boat.

-Meridian

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Corporate Volunteers, Where Are You From Again?

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in corporate volunteering, episodic volunteering, group volunteering, NGO, non-profit, organizations, part time volunteer manager, prospective volunteer, Uncategorized, volunteer coordinator, volunteer management, volunteer project, volunteer recruitment, volunteer retention

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“Uh Meridian, you really blew it! You missed a whole point about corporate volunteers,” a friend of mine said on the phone a couple of days ago. “You talked about thanking groups and connecting them to the work, which is great, but you completely forgot a big one and guess what? It just happened to me.”

Ouch. What did I forget? Tell me what happened.

“Well, it was our corporate retreat and twenty of us just completed a one day team building volunteer event at a local organization.”

That’s great. How did it go and what did I miss?

“Well, it was ok for the most part, but honestly we’ve done other projects and had better experiences.”

What went wrong?

“Well, nothing went really wrong, but let me explain. We all drove to an organization that gives cribs to families in need. Our firm had purchased about forty unassembled cribs and we drove to this warehouse to put together the cribs we bought.”

And how did that go?

“Well, we were met by the woman in charge. She kind of acted like we were interrupting her day. She gave us some quick directions and left. She would come and go. But there was something that bothered me a lot. She kept getting the name of our firm wrong. And she kept referring to us as bankers. None of us are bankers. Our company is an accounting firm. Granted, we work in the financial industry, but we are not bankers. It just felt like she didn’t even take the time to learn who we are or what we do. I mean, we reached out to her organization, why didn’t she ask a few questions? I felt, I don’t know… used. Am I being too sensitive and picky?”

No, my friend you are not being too picky. Because if a group walks away from a project feeling like they were just ancillary labor, then the next time they look for a project, they will most likely look elsewhere. Pure and simple. We can argue all we want that a group is too needy, or picky, or they just don’t understand. The feeling they walk away with will determine whether or not they come back.

It all boils down to: Do we want them to come back? Do we want them to spread a good word? Do we want them to become partners or champions or supporters? If not, then we should not waste their time or ours. That’s why limiting episodic volunteer groups to a manageable number versus taking everyone is the better way to go.

And since I did miss that big one when listing things we can do to connect our group volunteers to our projects and missions, let’s list it now.

  • Learn something about the group. At least we can call them by their correct name. We can know a little about their work. (an application process asking pointed questions should help)
  • Be genuinely curious about the people who are helping. Ask questions throughout the duration of the project. Let them tell you who they are, what they value etc. This also helps you to tailor your stories and feedback to fit within their culture.
  • Send a follow up survey and gather feedback on the project. Ask questions to help you hone future group projects.
  • Thank them for their input. So much research has been done on the increased by-in of groups who participate in planning and improving work conditions. Why not apply this to episodic volunteers and encourage them to help you plan new projects by asking for feedback?

Connecting episodic volunteers to our missions ensures they walk away as new supporters.

But, after all, we can take our own advice when engaging episodic volunteers. They’re people, not tools.

-Meridian

Hey Corporate Volunteers: How Great is Weeding?

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in charities, corporate volunteering, episodic volunteering, group volunteering, NGO, non-profit, organizations, part time volunteer manager, prospective volunteer, Uncategorized, Volunteer, volunteer coordinator, volunteer management, volunteer project, volunteer recruitment, volunteer retention

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A recent article from Business News Daily cites a study finding that “89 percent of employees think organizations that sponsor volunteer activities offer a better overall working environment. In addition, 70 percent believe volunteer activities are more likely to boost staff morale than company-sponsored happy hours, with more than three-quarters saying volunteering is essential to employee well-being.”

But here’s the kicker from the article: “Three-quarters of the millennials surveyed said they would volunteer more if they had a better understanding of the impact they were making, compared to 61 percent of those of all ages.”

Huh. So, it isn’t obvious that volunteering for a homeless shelter actually helps homeless people is it? Or wait. Maybe it isn’t obvious that weeding the garden at the homeless shelter actually helps the homeless.

Oh, yeah, now I get it. Maybe for corporate volunteers, the cleanup or painting or weeding the garden doesn’t scream “OMG, this made all the difference in the world to our clients! You have changed lives like no one else ever has in the history of volunteering! Ka-bam!”

We, volunteer managers, can be caught in a nether world of finding projects while assuring these episodic volunteers that we really need them. And once you manufacture a project just to accommodate a group, is that truly meaningful work?

So what can we do since corporate and episodic group volunteering will most certainly grow in the future?

Well, we need to do some serious planning, be methodical about our episodic volunteers and complete the legwork before we take on groups. We can:

  • Create a plan before accepting groups. Decide how many group members can be accommodated at a time, the age range you are comfortable working with, the time frame that works for you, what supplies the group needs to bring, the number of groups per month or year you can accept, etc.
  • Create an application process for group volunteering: Gather information on the group, ask pointed questions on the application that will help you understand their motivation, interests, skills etc. Then decide if and when they will fit into the projects you have or can create.
  • Create an impression that you value quality over quantity and busy work: We don’t have to take everyone. As each group you engage comes away with a positive experience, word will spread that your organization is the one to contact for quality volunteering.
  • Develop a narrative to go along with each project. Prepare impact stories to accompany each project. Highlight the contribution and results of the project.
  • Utilize client testimonials to recruit and thank corporate volunteers. Tie these into the activity. It may take some creative interviewing to elicit these testimonials, but it will be worth it.
  • Follow up with a letter outlining the impact of the completed work. Reiterate the improvements for clients, staff and other volunteers.
  • Send a thank you letter from your CEO to the corporate CEO or group leader. It can be a general thank you created ahead of time and tweaked for each group. But, have the CEO sign it each time and encourage them to write a personal note.
  • Take pictures-make memes, add text boxes, thought clouds etc. Send them to the group, post them on all social media outlets.

No matter what, the connection between the project and the impact on clients is critical. Take weeding the garden at the homeless shelter. We can say to our corporate volunteer group, “Imagine the first night you are homeless. Imagine what that feels like, having nowhere to go, no stability, no safety and you arrive at our shelter and all you see are the weeds in an unkempt garden. It says to you that we don’t care. It reminds you of the tangles that threaten your existence. How would you feel? Remember, every little thing can be the one big thing that makes someone feel safe.” Then read testimonials from clients who felt safe.

A lot has been said over the years about making corporate volunteering fun. While fun is important, it is secondary to meaningful work. Corporate and episodic volunteers deserve to know that even by pulling weeds in the garden, they have created a beautiful safe space for those facing a difficult time in their lives.

We know the impact of each job, no matter how inconsequential it may seem at first. If we are thoughtful about episodic volunteering and prepare well for group volunteers, we can create a win-win for everyone.

-Meridian