volunteerplaintalk

Category: staff and volunteer relationships

  • Sloppy Slippery Slope

    slippery-slope1Who doesn’t hate being wrong? I certainly do, because it makes me, well, wrong. I hate being wrong about football picks, hate being wrong about that Sushi restaurant being open on Monday, and I hate being wrong about the dreamy guy that I recommended to fix my friend’s air conditioner. She’s still mad at me for that one. But what I hate most is being wrong about something I’ve done for so long that it should be part of my circulatory system.
    Last week a volunteer manager, Garth, called me to ask for some advice. Garth and I go back a few years to a charity event where we occupied the same table in a frigid tent along with six other frozen event goers. It was cold, damp and thoroughly miserable, but we all exchanged business cards and kept in touch.
    Garth manages a small museum and oversees maybe twenty regular volunteers. His volunteers are long-term, most having been there longer than he has. But occasionally, he will accept a student who needs school credit, especially if that student has an interest in history. So, Garth called and said he wanted to bounce something off someone who would understand.
    Me: “Hi Garth, what’s going on?”
    G: “Hey, good to talk to you, I have a slight problem and I was wondering what you think. I took on a high school student, Lizzie as a volunteer a few weeks back. Lizzie told me she needed to complete about 50 more hours for her scholarship application. She’s been coming in for a couple of weeks but now here’s the problem. Lizzie came in yesterday afternoon with a paper that I needed to sign for her hours. I looked the paper over and while it is a statement of completed hours, it’s not for a scholarship. Seems she got into trouble at their homecoming dance and she has to complete 50 hours for that. Now, there’s no court involved, it’s just the school requiring this.”
    Me: “Hmmm, so she did not tell you this upfront?”
    G: “No, I remember her saying scholarship. This is totally different.”
    Me: “When is it due?”
    G: “That’s the other kicker. It’s due tomorrow and I can’t seem to locate all the sign-in sheets for her, so I don’t think she completed 50 hours, or at least I can’t prove that right now.”

    Now here’s where my brain opens up a whole can of stewed memories of volunteers who just needed a signature for court or school or whatever. We’ve all had them, the student who needs to do community service and sneers at you during training, the adult who openly lies about hours done “off the clock” to clear a charge and the parent whose child just sits there blankly while the parent extolls their offspring’s brilliance and dedication.

    So I said…
    Me: “Ah, that’s a shame, you have to give her credit for being creative.” ( this is where I snorted with lame, unhelpful laughter)
    G: “I might refuse to sign it although I know she’s done hours, maybe not 50, and frankly, at this point, is it worth my time to deal with this anymore? Or I can just sign it, tell her to not darken this museum’s door anymore and be out of it. Lesson learned.”

    Ahh, here we are. This is the vulnerable spot that some creative “volunteers” will poke because our hectic schedules force us to consider just signing off on whatever is required so that we don’t have to spend more of our valuable time fighting something not worth winning. And let’s be honest, sticking to our principles sometimes loses its luster against the magic eraser that will make a problem go away quickly.

    So I said, “Garth, are you comfortable signing something you are unsure of?”
    G: “No, I’m not, so I’m not going to sign the paper. I’m going to write on the paper that I can’t verify 50 hours at this time. That’s what I’ll do.”

    At this point, I have to admit, I jumped to conclusions. Based on Garth’s recollection, I just assumed that Lizzie was trying to put one over on Garth. I had never met Lizzie, I didn’t know the situation and yet I thought I knew exactly what had happened. I realized that when you’ve been burned, you can either choose to heal or choose to look at that spot every time you come near fire. I called Garth the next day.
    Me: “How did it go with Lizzie?”
    G: “Well, funny thing. Not only did she remind me that she did tell me about the school ordered hours, we found the sign in sheets that proved she was here for 45 hours. She promised to do five hours this weekend and I signed the papers. So, when I called you yesterday, I was completely wrong.”

    Just as it may be easier to sign off on undocumented hours than try to prove them, it is sometimes easier to assume that a volunteer is not telling the truth when confronted with conflicting evidence. But in both cases, it’s a slippery slope and we need to take the time to do the right thing, even though we are very busy. Like it or not, we are the examples our volunteers follow and if we expect them to act in a professional manner, then we had better show them the way.
    Besides, being sloppy is worse than being wrong.
    -Meridian

  • My Big Fat New Year’s Resolution

    godzillaSo, 2015 is upon us and it is time to make some volunteer management New Year’s Resolutions. I can imagine what you’re thinking, because you too, have read how we all set ourselves up to fail each time we do this annual reinventing of ourselves in rituals much like throwing salt over your shoulder or knocking on wood.
    Anyway, I’m thinking back to all the New Year’s resolutions I’ve made both personally and professionally and there isn’t one darn one that I’ve kept so maybe I should just laugh it off and resolve not to bother. However, there has to be some merit in all this, right? The new year always comes with a feeling of closure tinged with optimism and unless we live in a perfect world, we want life to improve for us and for our families, friends and the world in general.
    I’m thinking back to the kind of resolutions I have made or witnessed friends make that pertain to volunteer management. There are the usual ones and then there might be some you’ve made that are unique to you.

    1. Recruit more volunteers: In order to fulfill a resolution, we often go to ridiculous lengths to make it happen. By going into recruitment overdrive, you may end up with volunteers who quit after two weeks or you may get too many volunteers to manage well. Sitting at your neighbor’s son’s lemonade stand with brochures or handing out business cards at a funeral might be a tad too ambitious and end up netting more ill will than prospective volunteers.

    2. Thank volunteers more: This one is a no-brainer until you take it to the extreme and thank volunteers constantly, which in turn renders any genuine gratitude meaningless. You might get clever with this one and try to do something outside the box like get a celebrity endorsement but that has only a short-term effect. When I first started working with volunteers, I asked various municipalities to proclaim volunteer day, which was lovely and meant a lot of time spent going to city council meetings and accepting the proclamations, but it really had no lasting effect. How do I know this? The twelfth time I pointed to the proclamations on the wall, volunteer Jorge said, “yes, I’ve seen it, it’s nice, can we move on?” And that was in February.

    3. Engage staff in recognizing volunteers: Normally, you find begging to be unseemly but hey, you’ve made this resolution so you first try reasoning. You have this awesome speech and plan that you just know will sway every staff member to see volunteers in the most positive light. You can envision the wonderful teamwork that follows because you are the one to shatter the “us and them” mentality that permeates your organization. So, at every meeting you attend, you whip out parts of your speech and on the seventh heartfelt opine you see some yawns at the table and poof, your resolve begins to dissolve. Then you wonder if begging is perhaps a misunderstood concept.

    4. Get more organized: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ha. Ok, this just makes me laugh.

    5. Make better use of the available tools: You have to love tracking software, it sounds so exotic, like a survivalist following a macaque to water until one day you have to track volunteer Paul, who left training midway through the session, is on vacation for several weeks and turned off his phone. Add to that mix volunteer Giselle who promises to bring in her initial paperwork, then after a couple of weeks, drops it off, but it is incomplete, meanwhile she has her background check finished and is in the process of moving, but signs in while you are out at a recruitment fair (see resolution #1) and leaves you a voicemail stating that you forgot to be there for her initial assignment. Then add in volunteer Peter, a senior manager’s son who needs community service hours and is volunteering in his mother’s office while not following any volunteer protocol ever set down in the history of volunteering.

    6. Not let volunteer Mira push my buttons: This one’s mine from ten years ago and for some reason, Mira just rankled the heck out of me. The first Monday of January of 2005, Mira came in for her scheduled shift. I smiled brightly while repeating a mantra in my head, “she deserves the same treatment as other volunteers, she deserves the same treatment as other volunteers.” Mira looked at me and I swear said, “well, I see you haven’t gotten the cleaning people to put better toilet paper in the bathrooms.” BOOM! BUTTON PUSHED!!!!! RESOLUTION VAPORIZED!!!!

    7. Dress for success: Yeah, I know, dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Ok, so wearing a big cowboy hat to work might not really get me on a horse in Montana, but hey, I tried wearing suits all the time, but the sweat from outdoor fairs in summer and from pitching in on the physical work volunteers do stopped that pretty quickly. Besides, I saw senior managers wearing all kinds of inappropriate and casual attire to work. One day, no lie, a senior manager came to work on casual Friday dressed in a t-shirt, grey rumpled baggy knit shorts and white knee socks-the kind with the green stripe at the top. Two weeks later casual Fridays were declared “unfit for this organization.”

    So, my big fat New Year’s resolution is to put on warm socks: Bear with me on this, ok? One day, while getting dressed for work, and the temperature was below freezing, and I had a cold, I just wanted my feet to stay warm, so I put on my warmest, although bright red, socks, under my black dress pants. Immediately I felt good, enveloped in a warmth that spread throughout my core. At work, folks commented on my socks and I was kept warm all day, even though my cold tried to make me shiver.

    The good work that our volunteers do daily is like a pair of warm red socks. The enrichment they provide is the bright red color that attracts attention and begs taking notice so that is when we can effectively comment on the worth of our volunteers. “Look at them, see how they stand out, how valuable they are, how wonderful they make us feel, how much they enhance the lives of our clients.” We can make sure we wear our bright red socks to every meeting and make sure that the red color catches staff’s attention by flashing our ankles and heck, sometimes putting our feet up on the table.
    And sometimes even more importantly, the cuddliness of our volunteers’ good works can keep us volunteer managers warmed to the core while fending off the cold of feeling alone and misunderstood.

    You know, it’s fairly cold out again today. I think I’m going to put on my red socks.
    Happy New Year to all and keep warm!
    -Meridian.

  • The Back of the Restaurant

    kitchen inspection
    Sadly last week, Martha, a volunteer with a project management background not only just quit her volunteer assignment, she quit the organization she’s been volunteering with for the past five years. It wasn’t a decision she came to lightly. It wasn’t something she decided one night because things did not go her way. She quit because, well, let me tell you a story first.

    When I was in college, my roommates and I would finish up our classes and head for the local hangouts. In order to get from our off campus housing to the bus stop, we had to walk down a gangway by our apartment, then across a road where we had to navigate around the back of several small mom and pop businesses until we hit a cross street where we could walk to the front of the small businesses and catch the bus. You would think that having to walk around a few pesky buildings didn’t matter, but for some reason it did to us so one of my more daring friends decided to walk through the back door of a mom and pop restaurant and out the front, thereby shaving off a good 5 or six minutes. We all stood in the back of the building, stunned, but when we didn’t hear any shouting, we followed her lead. That day became known as the day our shortcut to the bus stop was born.
    The kitchen help never said anything to us, although I’ll bet money that they hated us walking through their kitchen. Today, of course, it would never be tolerated, but back then, things were, should I say much more loose. As other friends heard, they started using the restaurant as their walkway. We would nod to the staff as we breezed through their kitchen (swell of us, huh?) and wiggled around the meatloaf. Now here’s the point. Did we ever eat there, I mean, at least as a thank you for not calling the authorities on us? No, we did not. Why? Because we saw what went on in the kitchen, in the back of the restaurant.

    But back to Martha. She began as any volunteer, enthused, and eager to find meaningful work. She started off small by volunteering one afternoon a week and when she retired from her career, she devoted two, then three days to her volunteering. As she increased not only her hours, she increased her involvement with programs and eventually took the lead on a project. She became as the organizational staff joked, “the unpaid employee.” Martha was fine with the joking as she loved being a part of the inner circle and after a short time, the staff began to let their guard down and speak in front of her as though she were a paid employee. Slowly, Martha started to take trips into the back of the restaurant.
    One day, Martha was sitting at the reception desk when a donor came in to inquire about a rather large donation he had made several months before. He had not gotten any acknowledgement of the plaque he was promised on the donor wall and so he had come in to find out when that plaque might be hung. Martha called the financial department secretary who basically said that orders were running behind and to tell the man that he would be notified when it was up on the wall. “I thought that the secretary could have spoken to him personally. I mean, I felt good at first that she thought I could take care of it, but in thinking about it later, I saw how discouraged that man was. This was customer service gone wrong. We should have been much more personal with him.”

    Although Martha knew intellectually that her organization was run by people who could have bad days, exhausted moments, lapses of judgement, Martha started to see a pattern forming. It was like the commercial kitchen that goes lax and greedy. Oh. just use that food one more day, it won’t matter. Just leave that grill dirty, we don’t have time to clean it right now. Just skimp on those meals, we need to turn a profit. Martha saw corners cut on clients, and promises left unfulfilled. She gently asked questions on matters that seemed right to her and received little satisfaction. She would talk to staff members and some shrugged and said that it was the “new order” while others bristled at her questions. Martha wondered, “who’s inspecting this place and why did I not see all of this before?”

    Volunteers are unique because not only do they serve, they are also actually clients of our organizations that are allowed to go into the back of the restaurant. If our organizations are sound, we can advertize that long-term volunteers mean our non profits have passed the transparency scrutiny. But when there’s high volunteer turnover, it may mean that the volunteers are noticing the dirty food prep area, the food left out of the refrigerator, and the glove-less hands.
    And we, volunteer managers can try our best to keep volunteers out in the pristine dining area, but eventually, they get a peek in the back.
    So let us volunteer managers continue to remind our respective administrations that official inspectors aren’t the only ones paying attention.
    -Meridian

  • A Professional Rejection is Still a Rejection

    charlie brownJeremy has been managing volunteers for several years at an organization that helps disabled veterans. A social worker, Jeremy spends about 10 hours a week working with volunteers who help veterans find housing and medical care. They also do fundraising activities and office work. “I laughingly call the volunteer management aspect of my work, my part-time job. I can’t give the volunteers as much time as I’d like, but for the most part, they are fortunately pretty self-starting and able to monitor themselves.”
    Jeremy continued, “We were in the process of ramping up our volunteer program to take on some new initiatives and I was asked to try to find someone to help recruit more volunteers. Luckily, one of our volunteers, June had a friend, Trisha, who, before retiring was a marketing rep at a large textile firm. June said that her friend might be interested in helping us, so I called Trisha and she agreed to come in and talk.
    Trisha came in and met with me and my supervisor, Eileen. Eileen is the one who originally requested more volunteers for our new initiative. Both Eileen and I were incredibly impressed with Trisha’s qualifications. She had gone through extensive marketing seminars at her textile firm and she was extremely knowledgeable on targeted recruitment. She said that she believed in our mission, and that she would be happy to spearhead a campaign to recruit more volunteers. My supervisor, Eileen was thrilled and excitedly gave Trisha pretty much the go ahead to use her vast knowledge and experience. Eileen gave her a “carte blanche” mandate to get this done so we went over Trisha’s plans and agreed to meet in two weeks.”
    Jeremy then said, “a week later, Trisha sent me an email saying that she thought long and hard about the opportunity and decided to decline helping us with recruitment. I was shocked, just shocked, given the positive meeting we had the week before. I couldn’t imagine why she had changed her mind, I mean I didn’t even speak to her but I know that she had emailed Eileen several times. I saw that Eileen was also notified and I tried to reach her, but the entire management team was at a retreat so I couldn’t find out what might have happened.”
    Jeremy continued, “I was just so thrown by this change of heart and so the next day when I saw June, I asked her if Trisha had spoken to June and sure enough she had spoken with her friend several times. I asked June to tell me the reason Trisha decided to quit after our first very positive meeting. I said, ‘June, we really hit it off and if I did something or wasn’t clear, I need to know that so I can explain or apologize if I need to.’
    At first June was hesitant to say anything and then finally, she opened up.”
    Jeremy took a breath, “June told me that Trisha was at first very excited about connecting with our organization and was making some real plans. But then, as she emailed Eileen for some specifics like demographics, targeted populations etc, the tone of Eileen’s emails changed. Eileen told Trisha that all her recruitment plans needed to go through a committee for approval. She also wanted Trisha to meet with the marketing department so that they could tell her which clubs and organizations to steer clear of because marketing wanted to target them first. Evidently the marketing department wanted to provide her with all the proper wording for her recruitment and they wanted final approval on her messaging. Marketing also said that they were very busy and could fit Trisha in for a short meeting in a couple of weeks.”
    Jeremy sighed. “June said that Trisha, while at first excited about the assignment, soon became leery of all the layers of bureaucracy being heaped on her. She told June that it felt like being back at work, and just having retired, she did not wish to return to a job, especially one that didn’t pay. Now, I honestly don’t know whether to approach her on a softer project or to just let her go.”

    Asking volunteers who are professionals to head up or direct projects can be a real elevation of volunteers within our organizations. But if our organizations wish to utilize a volunteer’s professional skills, then that volunteer will have expectations that their professional skills be respected.
    Eileen’s colossal mistake was giving the signal for Trisha to “head up” a project and then killing the momentum by subjecting Trisha’s plans to layers of rules and regulations. It is the old bait and switch. Come to our organization and utilize your talents and skills but now that you’re here, we want you in this box.

    Had Eileen asked for Trisha to become a “volunteer consultant” on a recruitment plan, the whole interaction may have gone better. Not only did they lose a valuable resource in Trisha, they created a negative advertiser as well, and Trisha, being a professional probably has a circle of professional friends who will hear from her that volunteering for Jeremy’s organization is well, disappointing.

    We, volunteer managers are always looking to elevate our volunteers. Every day we encounter amazing individuals who can better our organizations with their skills, wisdom and experience. We have to keep advocating for volunteers like Trisha to be treated with clear messaging and courtesy.

    If our organizations really want professional volunteers, then we’d better elevate the role of the volunteer manager, who has the skills to recruit and retain those very desirable folks.
    -Meridian

  • Where the Heck is My Paper Shredding Volunteer?

    Paradigm-ShiftArrrrrrggggggggghhhhhh.

    So, we all know there is a paradigm shift happening in volunteer management. As the WWII generation sadly leaves us, we are looking to the baby boomer generation and on to fill their prodigious shoes. When I first started working with volunteers, the greatest generation was busily humming along, doing every and anything necessary to fill needs. Nothing was beneath them and honestly, I didn’t manage any of them, I basically stood back in awe and occasionally ran for some refreshments. They taught me humility for it was in their essence to be humble, hardworking, non-complaining, authority respecting and generous.

    As I watch their faces grow more lined, their limbs more trembling, their gait unsteady, I can only stand by helplessly, offering a hand to their elbow as they decline. Their eyes, though, clear as an autumn sky, still hold the hardships they endured as they endure one more.
    As these volunteers age and retire, we, volunteer managers know that the next generation of volunteers will be different, will be their own people with a new skill set needed to recruit, engage and cultivate them. So, as I read the research and advice on how to find and keep great baby boomer volunteers, I make note of not only the advice that’s out there, but the experiences I’m having as well. I’m seeing that boomers are different; they are not as inclined to want repetitious jobs or confining schedules. They want more perceived meaning in their lives and they balk at boring assignments and rigid requirements. A lot of them look at volunteering through a spiritual or universal prism and speak freely about their journey to find meaning. There are those who were very active in the 60’s revolutions and after working corporate jobs for years, want to return to their activism roots.
    But back to the WWII generation. I remember Dora, a volunteer who came in to shred papers. Her husband was a big band trumpet player and she accompanied him on USO tours during the war. She would sit for hours in front of the shredder, pulling staples and paper clips, shredding no more than three pages at a time. Dora was possessive of the shredder and when another greatest generation gentleman, Bob came to shred papers, she sniped about how he didn’t do it right. Bob, a man who was orphaned during the Great Depression, was a bombardier who flew missions over Germany. Those two volunteers knew that we needed the sensitive material shredded and they dutifully spent their time helping us see that job done right. For them, there was no answering of phones, no fund-raising, no strategic planning, nothing except paper shredding with no complaints.
    Both Dora and Bob died some time ago. I tried to replace them and could do it piecemeal for a while by asking office volunteers if they would “just do it for an hour” while they were at work. An easy job became harder and harder to fill as Bob’s and Dora’s generation started to slip away.
    As we grew used to the dwindling of the generation that included widows who never worked and needed more training and help with office duties and war heroes who never spoke about their experiences, we embraced the boomers who work hard, have boundless skills and opinions and challenge us to dig deep for a more involved volunteerism.

    So, what’s the challenge? It lies in being able to integrate the paradigm shift into the fabric of our organizations. Newer organizations or those run by young people already have a deep understanding of millennial and generation X and boomers. It’s the organizations that are older, run by long-term administration who looks at volunteer services as “it’s always been thus.” Convincing them that no one wants to shred paper anymore after it’s been shredded for years by willing volunteers is tricky.
    I loaned a volunteer out to another department who needed one time help putting together last-minute binders for a presentation. Jill, a fabulous boomer who normally works on statistics and research agreed to lend a hand for a day. She came back and pleaded, “don’t ever ask me to do that again because I will quit first. They had me copy a 100 page binder thirty times. Do you know how many people came up to me and complained that they couldn’t get copies made while I was there? And the machine ran out of toner, then it jammed, I think it probably overheated too. I had to just stand there and watch as the copier ran. It was excruciating!”
    Thankfully, Jill happily returned to her more meaningful tasks and we laugh about her foray into “copier purgatory.”

    As we have adjusted our thinking regarding volunteers and their changing involvement, our organizations need to rethink their view of volunteers as well.
    Old thinking: Volunteers will do any job regardless of how tedious.
    New thinking: Volunteers need meaningful experiences.
    Old thinking: Jobs that have always been done by volunteers will happily continue to be done by volunteers.
    New thinking: Maybe we should invest in a paper shredding service and use volunteers for more important jobs.
    Old thinking: Volunteers are all the same, they come to be helpful, we tell them how to be helpful, they do the job and go home happy.
    New thinking: Volunteers have so much wisdom, experience and passion to offer, let’s find ways to tap into that.

    Bringing research and evidence that volunteering is changing and that we must adapt is no small mission. Telling management that old thinking is well, old thinking and that it is nearly impossible to find volunteers to do menial tasks without sounding negative takes finesse. Being proactive and showing what the new volunteer paradigm can do goes a long way to ease the pain of losing shredding volunteers.
    Let’s see, volunteers who shred papers vs. volunteers who design websites or consult or have management experience? Hopefully, organizations choose a new wave of professional skill sets over mundane tasks.

    Old thinking: All a volunteer coordinator has to do is ask and a volunteer will magically appear to shred.
    New thinking: It takes multiple complex skills on the part of our volunteer coordinator to engage the new volunteer. Let’s listen to him or her about volunteerism and accept that he or she has done the research and has knowledge on the subject.
    Added bonus or really new thinking: Let’s give him/her some much-needed recognition next Wednesday during International Volunteer Managers Day.
    -Meridian

  • Nepotism Volunteer Style

    cat my spaceFrom the “Common Sense Observation Dictionary”: Nepotism=Hiring really obnoxious, unqualified people who are related to someone in power and cannot be fired so get used to it.
    Is nepotism really that bad and does it exist in the volunteer world?

    Well, you might have noticed that when the economy slows and there are very few jobs out there, it becomes all about who you know or who your Mom works for. Organizations are really not immune from nepotism. A job in finance opens up and before you can recommend a really awesome volunteer who ran a CPA firm for years, boom, a senior manager’s son who just graduated with a degree in ancient religions is sitting at the new desk. Now the finance department has to teach him everything from the ground up, while he continues to spend his lengthy lunch hour looking for a position in a museum.
    There’s the out of work husband, the newly graduated son, the recently laid off daughter. Family ties are never so strong as when the relative of a favored senior manager needs a job. At times you watch, feeling the helplessness, as the supervisor of this new employee has a hard time reprimanding him because he doesn’t follow rules or he just doesn’t do the work. And you muse, “what have we become? I thought we were an organization based on ideals.”

    Nepotism extends to volunteering as well, so henceforth, I will refer to them as “nepoteers.” Cindy, a volunteer coordinator said, “One of my senior managers has a daughter who needs hours for scholarships. Now, I am happy to take this student, but the senior manager waited so long that her daughter can’t come to orientation and can’t really follow the path I have set out for students. Now, I have to fast track the daughter to help out the senior manager. It’s really not that big of a deal, but it’s irksome that because it’s a senior manager, I have to bend the rules.”

    Does a nepoteer need court ordered community service hours and it’s against your policy to accept them, but you come to find out that a manager really needs a favor from you and so you accept their relative? Do you have strict rules regarding volunteer training or age limits and you end up bending rules to help out a favored employee? Do staff members say, “But, even though she’s 12, she’s incredibly smart and mature, and oh, by the way, she needs to be here all day, every day during summer and really needs to be busy.”
    I am recalling the time a friend of mine, Megan, who was a volunteer coordinator for a very short time, accepted a nepoteer who was 15 and the daughter of her organization”s CEO. Megan remembered, “Evie, the 15-year-old, would show up for her shift and then sneak out the back door and meet her boyfriend. I chased after her twice and then got up the nerve to report her to her mother. Do you know what her mother’s response was? She said, ‘yes, I knew she would try to sneak out, that’s why I brought her here. I can’t leave her alone. So, whatever you do with her, don’t let her sneak away.’”

    Just as staff sometimes has to adapt to a nepotism employee, we sometimes have to adapt to a nepotism volunteer. The challenge for us is twofold. We dream at night that the nepoteer rats on us and tells the high-ranking manager that we are incompetent. On the other hand, we realize that if this nepoteer is ambivalent about having to volunteer, but for some reason has to, then what can we get from them to help our clients?

    I remember reading a blog a few years back in which a young man talked about having to do community service. He spoke of his experience at a volunteer site and at first made fun of the volunteer coordinator and her “niceness.” Oh did that make me mad, but as he wrote further, he came to begrudgingly appreciate the mission of the organization. Wow, I thought, kudos to that volunteer coordinator.
    That day, I realized that I was being horribly judgmental when faced with nepoteers. I was dismissing them because I thought the reason they came was not a good enough one. I was building a barrier because I figured they couldn’t possibly do good work as their motivation was not pure. But heck, I realized that all the other volunteers come with so many different motivations and I didn’t prejudge them, so prejudging the nepoteer was hypocritical and unfair.
    So the next time I was handed a nepoteer, a 14 year old male who needed to complete service hours, I made myself welcome him. Daniel shook my hand, scanned everything on my desk, from the disarray of papers to the pink glass elephants and worry doll (given to me by volunteers traveling to exotic lands-please take me next time) and said, “my Mom told me you were a busy lady.” I smiled. He turned out to be one of the most engaging young students I have ever met. He was able to chat with anyone, regardless of age, culture and prejudices. He would bounce in and tell me physics jokes and we had a good friendly sports rivalry. He gave me numerous computer tips, and baked cookies in his young Renaissance man style.
    Was Daniel a coincidence or was Daniel dropped in my lap for a universal lesson? Had I treated him with disdain, would he have been a different nepoteer?
    What I learned was that volunteer motivation applies to nepoteers as well. Their motivation may be to complete an assignment, check off hours or fill time. We see these reasons to volunteer all the time in other volunteers.

    And maybe not all nepoteers will be a Daniel. Maybe not all nepoteers will suddenly become so engaged that they win a volunteer award.

    But maybe, if our treatment of nepoteers is no different than our treatment of volunteers, they may do some good work and leave a friend to the mission.
    -Meridian

  • Confessions and Connections

    tinkertoySometimes our view of the volunteer world can be shaken. We read that a volunteer harmed a vulnerable person. We find that a volunteer was hiding a checkered past or we observe a volunteer behaving in an unseemly manner.
    We send a volunteer out to do a good job and when we hear nothing to the contrary, we assume that everything is rolling along smoothly, because everyone realizes the worth of a volunteer and will welcome that volunteer, right? At least we hope it happens that way until we hear a confession sometime later…
    Kaya, a hospice volunteer coordinator was speaking to a former volunteer, Jayne. Jayne has been battling a chronic illness that prevents her from volunteering but, when healthy, was one of the most called upon and successful patient volunteers.
    In between all the catching up, Kaya and Jayne chatted about a few of Jayne’s favorite assignments and most interesting patients and families. She provided respite care to families in homes and brought companionship to nursing home residents.
    Kaya said, “Jayne played by the rules, turned in paperwork on time and always was cognizant of her representation of the mission. But at one point Jayne asked me if I remembered assigning her to see patients in the Golden Oaks nursing home.”
    Kaya hesitated. “Yes, I said, I remember that, but I also remember that you couldn’t go back because of the cleaning fluid they used. It gave you respiratory problems. But then Jayne told me that wasn’t true at all, that she lied to me and asked me if I wanted to hear the real story. I, of course said yes and she told me this story.”
    Kaya shook her head, but she continued, “Jayne said that she went to visit a patient at Golden Oaks, a 90 some year old lady who had end stage Parkinson’s disease. She said she was in the room with the patient when a staff member came in with a lunch tray and told Jayne to feed the patient. Jayne said she told the staff member that she was not allowed to feed patients and the staff member got mad and demanded to know why she was there in the first place if she couldn’t really be any help. Jayne said she kept her cool but another staff member, who appeared to be a supervisor came into the room and basically said the same thing.” Kaya stopped for a second. “I can’t tell you how shocked I was to hear that. First of all, how dare someone treat a volunteer that way and second of all, I thought of all the good these volunteers do for patients and how Jayne could have just as easily up and quit after that. I wanted to ask why Jayne didn’t tell me when it happened, but I reconsidered. I didn’t want to make her feel like she had let us down, not after all the good work she has done. But it makes me wonder what other situations occur that volunteers are unwilling to tell me.”

    tinkertoymazeVolunteer managers construct intricate helping structures. While we may be the hub or first connector for our volunteer helping structure, we must rely on other connectors (other people) to extend out further. The further you build out, the more fragile the structure becomes. Any volunteer that reports directly to the volunteer coordinator is being engaged by someone who knows how to cultivate volunteers. The further out on the structure the volunteer goes, the more the volunteer manager must rely on the soundness of new connectors (other people) interacting with the volunteer. Do these new connectors understand the volunteer’s role? Does a new connector know how to engage a volunteer? Is the new connector aggravated at having to monitor a volunteer on top of other duties or perceive a volunteer as a nuisance?
    While we understand that we cannot control every situation and every person a volunteer interacts with, we understandably can worry about our volunteers when they are being engaged by other people unknown to us. And, after spending a great deal of up front time mentoring a volunteer, it is disheartening to think that a callous comment or flippant attitude can quickly ruin that.
    When I started accompanying volunteers on their first assignment and introduced them to the key stakeholders, I found that some of these problems were minimized. One of our roles as volunteer managers is to educate other people on how to work with volunteers. The skills needed to retain volunteers are second nature to us, but aren’t all that obvious to everyone else who may have stressful jobs and responsibilities that prevent them from seeing the volunteer picture.
    This approach takes more work on our parts, but it’s necessary, both for the mission and for the volunteer. As we extend our helping structure out, we need to personally check on the connectors being used, to ensure soundness and strength.
    After all, the delicate structure we create is a thing of beauty and support for our clients. We don’t want it to fall.
    -Meridian

  • The Incredible Shrinking Volunteer

    incredible-shrinking-manLately I’ve been reading stats about volunteering. Ok, they’re not in the “To Kill a Mockingbird” league, but they do tell a story and they have a lovely way of lulling me to sleep. Some surveys say volunteering is up, others say volunteering is down. Demographics are tricky and of course, one has to define “volunteering”, which is like defining spirituality or “that color the coffee turns when I put the right amount of french vanilla creamer in there…. wait, no, stop, that’s it!”
    But, it seems as though when stats tell us that volunteering is down, there are the broad reasons given to explain this: Not enough skills based volunteering opportunities; not enough volunteer jobs to offer and not enough flexibility. Hmmmmm, good reasons, ones which seem to blame the volunteer manager for not providing the best experience. The conclusions of these surveys oftentimes dust off their hands with some quick advice about creating a better volunteer atmosphere. It seems so simple, but I think there’s a few more reasons to throw in based on conversations I’ve had with prospective volunteers and folks who recoil like they’re touching a third rail when they walk by my booth at a fair.

    Martha sat, tears in her eyes, as I had to tell her that we could not accept her as a volunteer. “But, she said, “I’ve turned my life around, you can see that, because I’ve been out of trouble for the past six years.” I could see that, it was plain from looking at her background check. I could feel it too, she wasn’t just saying some lines she memorized. She had some really serious issues six and seven years before, but had stayed completely out of trouble recently. I lobbied to take her, keep her away from clients, but higher decision makers than I said no. Martha looked at me, and asked me, her eyes fixed on my face as I now represented all the employers and volunteer organizations that had rejected her. “How am I supposed to get a fresh start when nobody will take a chance on me?”
    I still have an emotional scar from that encounter and every time I have to dismiss a volunteer due to a background check, that scar aches. I don’t know if our volunteers realize how much we care about them and about their well-being, even if we cannot accept them. Martha, I want you to know that.

    Then there’s Thad, who represents so many of the prospective volunteers. “I can’t go into someone’s home,” he says in horror. “What if they accuse me of stealing something?” Or Kelly who says, “I’m not too eager to work with people I don’t know.” Or Joyce who says, “I won’t go into neighborhoods I’m not familiar with.” For these volunteers, the comfort of an office job close to the volunteer manager or organization staff keeps them coming back, but leaves vital volunteer jobs unfilled.
    When folks come to us to volunteer and they do not wish to fill the slots that are critical, we have a choice: Turn them away or somehow fit them into the spot they prefer. Then, when organizational staff complain to us that we say we have volunteers, but none for the clients, we try to explain that not every volunteer is willing to do every job. Staff then shakes their heads and wonders “why can’t you just recruit some?.”
    Volunteers watch the news, read and engage in social media, and speak to family, friends and neighbors. They form opinions about what they are willing to do. We can encourage them, cultivate them, go with them to a client’s home, but ultimately, they know they can reject a job. Sometimes volunteers will grow into positions and these volunteers are usually fantastic in their new roles.
    Prospective volunteers tell me, “I’ve had to go back to work,” “my family needs help right now,” “I need to move closer to a daughter who lost her job,” “my wife is sick,” “I’m having health issues,” “I’m just not emotionally ready yet,” etc. etc.
    Because we, unlike our human resources counterparts, cannot just “hire” a volunteer for a job, we have to creatively fill each position while juggling the creation of new positions for volunteers who decide they’d rather not do the work we may need the most.
    I remember Bill who wanted so badly to fill the toughest of needs, but ended up opting for the cocoon of the home office. Was Bill’s volunteering any less because of that? No, of course not. All volunteer roles are vital.
    However, behind the scenes, we, volunteer managers struggle with filling important positions for any number of reasons. I’ve tried so many ways to entice volunteers to fill certain needs. I’ve guilted, humored, begged, rearranged, incentivized, romanticized, promised temporary status and so on. Many times it works, but not always. I know that finding the right volunteer for the right job is critical, so I slog it out, recruiting from within and without.

    And I would say to all those reports that conclude with suggestions that if we, volunteer managers just offer more leadership roles, create more meaningful positions and bend our flexibility just a bit more, volunteers will come rolling in: Come down and do this job for awhile and you will see that it is much more complex than that.
    And to Martha: I know in my heart that you would have gone into a client’s home and would have done a fantastic job. Somewhere, there’s a client waiting for a volunteer like you, and somewhere you are waiting for a chance to prove yourself.
    -Meridian

  • Little Gray Lies

    you cant handle the truth“Ok, lying is bad, we need to be upfront, honest, transparent, blah. blah, blah,” said Jeff as he exhaled. “But sometimes, you just have to bend the truth to protect the volunteer. I found myself having to tell a little white lie not too long ago to a volunteer who did nothing wrong. You see, this volunteer, Hal, is a real stand up type guy. He’s honest, hardworking, well, you know the type, a guy you’d want for a next door neighbor.”
    Jeff is a manager of volunteers who deliver meals to home bound seniors in a small rural enclave. “So, this particular client of ours, a lady who is getting other services besides meals delivered, called her social worker and accused Hal of stealing a statue from her hall table. Before I had the chance to question Hal, the social worker went to her house and found the statue, which had somehow found its way to another table. It was case closed. But she didn’t want Hal to come back and honestly, I wasn’t going to let him go back there anyway. So basically, I told Hal that the lady was moving and we had to take her off the route.”
    Jeff paused. “I don’t like lying in any form, but why would I tell Hal the truth? For what, it was a mistake, so what could be gained by telling him? Would he not then be leery of all his clients? Would he wonder what accusation could come next? Would his whole experience be tainted?”

    The other night, I watched a 1960s comedy in which the main character overheard his doctor on the phone speaking about another patient who was just diagnosed with a terminal illness and of course the main character thought it was him. Part of the misunderstanding came when he overheard his doctor say, “tell him? No, he doesn’t need to know, it will just upset him.” This reminded me of Dr. Eric Cassell, the author of “The Nature of Suffering” who candidly spoke about the days when he was a young doctor and did not tell patients they had cancer. “We didn’t do it because we were liars,” he said. Instead he asserts that they told little white lies to protect the patient from the truth, because the patient would ask what can be done and doctors had nothing to offer.

    Noble little white lies: I have told them to volunteers too. Occasionally a family will not want a volunteer to come back. “She talks too much,” or “we just don’t get along,” or “he isn’t the type to enjoy my Dad’s jokes,” are just a few of the really benign reasons a family may not want the volunteer to come back. Did I pass that along to the volunteer? Nope, I like Jeff, shielded the volunteer from the non pleasantries of being dismissed due to a perceived character flaw. One volunteer innocently shared a personal story with a family and they were insulted. Their social worker told me that this family was highly sensitive and assured me that the volunteer did nothing wrong. I told the volunteer that the family found help elsewhere and that we would reassign him to a new family that needed his considerable talents more.

    Kind, noble little white lies: In the old days, I, like Dr. Cassell, decided to use a white lie to protect volunteers from anything less than my idea of volunteering, which was unicorns and puppies. There were volunteers who, in my humble opinion, were not right for assignments, like speaking to a group, or representing us at a ceremony. I told myself that by noble lying I was sparring them from the knowledge that I didn’t think they were good enough for the job. But, as these falsehoods started to feel like an oil slick on my tongue, it began to dawn on me. What, really was I doing by telling these kind, noble white lies?

    Self-serving, kind, noble white lies: One day, I had to counsel a volunteer on her behavior. This was a volunteer who worked on Sunday in a hospice house. As we all know, weekends are harder to fill than weekdays, so really, weekend volunteers pretty much have to set fire to the joint to get fired. This was not the first time I had heard a complaint about this volunteer’s behavior. I had spoken with her before, using my kind, noble white lie to shield the volunteer from the unpleasant accusations. After all, this volunteer didn’t deserve that, or did she? Ahh, the little annoying voice in my head wanted to know if I was being noble or (horrors) being selfish. Who, me, kind, noble volunteer manager, selfish? Was it really about protecting the volunteer’s feelings or was it more about having to replace this volunteer, a task that would take a lot of hard work? Was my lie so noble, so kind, so pure? (I hate you, little annoying voice.)

    Having to do the right thing is never easy. I reached back and straightened my spine and spoke frankly to the volunteer and to my surprise she did not quit. She took the criticisms seriously and promised to curb her brusque nature. But, did she actually change? Yes, not completely and not right away, but the complaints stopped. As I checked in with weekend staff on her progress, I found that she was honestly trying. I added a call to commend her for her efforts and after a time, she and the staff forged their own relationship. It took extra work, but it was the right thing to do, not only for our patients, but for staff and the volunteer as well.

    Gray Lies: Do we tell lies to protect the volunteer or to protect us? I think in most cases, it is both. We may have a noble reason to shield volunteers from negativity, but aren’t we also shielding ourselves from the presumptive fallout? Honestly, we are. Are we bad people for doing that? No, we are just human. So why even bother to explore our reasons for these gray lies? Because if we value honesty, then we first and foremost have to be honest with ourselves. Why am I using noble lies? Am I relying on them to minimize conflict so that everything runs smoothly? Is that really my end game or am I just afraid to deal with confrontation and too weary to help fix it?

    No Lies: Hmmmm. Will we ever get to this point? We can, if we have the best interests of our clients at heart, and if we truly view our volunteers as adults who can handle the truth. If we want our volunteers to succeed, we have to help them find success by working with them, not around, in back or detached from them. So, the next time I want to shield a volunteer from the truth, I’m going to have to examine if I’m really shielding myself.
    -Meridian

  • Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma!

    mustangThe open door policy, oh boy. If you oversee two or more volunteers, you know what I mean. Volunteer managers pretty much are required to have an open door policy, which is great for keeping informed but is also a killer of productivity. So says Celeste, a volunteer manager who manages more than one hundred diverse volunteers working in a thrift store. Her store is large and is open six days a week. Donations flow through the store all day long, and in between customer service, cashiering, straightening, receiving goods, sorting and pricing, her volunteers are bustling from the moment they arrive to the time they leave.
    “No one can ever question the dedication or work ethic of our volunteers,” Celeste says. “They come in when they have relatives visit them, when they have a slight cold, when they get done with doctors’ appointments. They’re amazing. See, we foster a real sense of team here, and part of that is my open door policy. Believe me, the volunteers are so dedicated, they stop in to check and see if we’ve sold a big-ticket item, or if we’ve got the manpower to sort through that large donation quickly to make sure the good stuff gets to the floor. They even keep lists of customers to call when certain types of items come in, like a particular brand or type of cookware.”
    While it sounds like Celeste has it made, behind the scenes it took a great deal of work to create such a well oiled team of volunteers. And with that team comes the challenges she faces maintaining that team. It’s not like Celeste can go into her tiny back of the store office and watch “Days of Our Lives” while eating power bars and drinking green tea. She, and her volunteers have created a system that works like a fine automobile with Celeste’s availability, encouragement and direction much like the wheels that carry the car.

    With her open door policy though, comes a tiny percentage of volunteers who need more time and space than the others. “I’ve got these two volunteers, Irma and Jean,” Celeste says with a laugh. “They really take the open door policy to a whole new level. It doesn’t matter that I might have someone else in my office, or that I am on the phone, or that I’m really, really busy with bookkeeping, they come in and interrupt me ten times a shift. I think they just have no idea that I don’t have the time for questions like, ‘what happened to that green blouse with the stripes,’ or ‘did you know there’s two identical blue McCoy pottery pieces, how odd is that?’ I suppose it’s a compliment that they feel comfortable with me, but sometimes I feel like the mom who answers her phone and the kids immediately all need attention and start yelling Ma! Ma! Ma!”
    Celeste went on to say, “I’ve heard all the advice from so many people. Close your door, ignore Irma and Jean, leave the office when they are working, interrupt them and politely say that you have work to do, and ask them to please stay out of the office, but it’s easier said than done. Besides, Irma and Jean are great with the customers, and are always willing to work an extra shift when someone calls out. They’re indispensible really, so why shouldn’t I put up with a bit of inconvenience? Heck, I’ve got Joe, who is hard of hearing and makes the customers shout, and Marge, who puts women’s clothes in the men’s section, and Philomena who over prices knick knacks. Oh, and there’s George, who can never seem to remember to turn off the lights and Babe, who can’t see the rips and stains on clothes and puts them out. Am I supposed to nitpick all the volunteers? I can’t do that. We make it through each day with humor and positive thinking, and I appreciate each one of them. And to all those who think that I can make these volunteers eliminate their quirky habits, I say, you have never worked with volunteers. ”
    Ahh ha, how smart Celeste is. If we were to judge our volunteers on their shortcomings we’d have no volunteers. And all that well-meaning advice by those who don’t work with volunteers just does not make sense to us, because we know that perfection does not come without piecing together imperfection. Our volunteer teams are made up of real human beings with gifts and shortcomings. The well oiled machine we produce is vintage. It doesn’t have all the fancy new techie stuff and it may creak here and there and it may take a few minutes to warm up and the windows may hand-roll slowly, but it works. It moves down the street with the air of the artisans who created it. No, our machine was not mass-produced by robots, it was put together with the sweat of the volunteer manager who polished every piece. And in those moments when the throaty sound of that engine revs up, we know that our machine is unique and perfect.

    Let’s face it. A great deal of what we do is a trade-off, and a part of our volunteer’s “pay” is our overlooking of inconvenient things, like the volunteer who interrupts us, the volunteer who needs more of our time, and the volunteer who needs reminding over and over. Should those inconveniences that may look to an outsider like we don’t know how to “control” our volunteers, cause us to lose productive volunteers? I, for one, would rather not lose great volunteers just because they require a little extra of my time.
    Our volunteer teams are created by vision, artisan spirit and a heck of a lot of our time and effort. That well oiled machine is made up of restored parts, and we may have to work harder on some of those parts than others to keep them running properly, but they’re necessary parts.
    I’m off to work now, to drive in my lovingly restored well oiled and polished machine. I may have to do some maintenance and occasionally change out parts or stop for gas, but driving down the street, it is a thing of beauty.
    -Meridian