volunteerplaintalk

Category: strategies and goals

  • Why Have Volunteer Department Goals, Objectives and Actions?

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    Last week, we touched on how setting specific volunteer department goals can help us gain more control of our volunteer programs. The key here is to control the path to achieving the goals.  This path consists of two subsets: Objectives and Volunteer Actions.

    No one knows how to effectively engage volunteers more than the volunteer manager (VM). Every VM knows what motivates their volunteers and understands their volunteers’ capabilities. Volunteer Managers also mentally catalog their volunteers’ diverse skill sets and look for ways to unleash volunteers’ potential. This extensive volunteer knowledge is why a VM is so much more innovative in creating the actions (tasks) that fulfill the objectives that meet program goals (an area we will explore next time under strategy).

    So, let’s imagine a very simplistic scenario. You are the VM at a crisis shelter. One of your volunteer department goals (and unique goals can be set for each area your volunteers are involved in) is to alleviate weekend staff’s workload.

    The first step is to interview weekend staff and ask questions such as:

    • What do you spend most of your time on?
    • What do you wish you could spend less time doing?
    • What do you wish you had more time to do?
    • What duties are you comfortable with turning over to someone else?
    • What qualities would be most helpful for any volunteer who comes in to assist you?
    • What do you believe volunteers are capable of doing well?

    By canvassing the staff that will be working with your volunteers, you not only will discover exactly what it is they need to reduce their workload, you will ensure their buy-in from the start. Because their input is the basis for creating your volunteer objectives, staff will be more receptive to the volunteer actions you initiate.

    So let’s imagine that by canvassing staff, you learn:

    • Staff is continuously interrupted by phone calls and can’t spend quality time addressing shelter residents’ needs.
    • Staff is not comfortable with volunteers who have not had extensive training working with shelter residents, especially the residents who are new to the shelter.
    • Staff is very attached to the residents and, as a result, are reluctant to let outsiders (volunteers) in.

    Now it’s time to set your objective and create actions. And what is the difference between goals, objectives and actions?

    A goal is the destination whereas the objective is the path to get there. Actions are the steps along the path. While goals are broad, objectives are measurable. Actions are the concrete steps to get to the objective.

    So, you have a goal: Decrease weekend staff workload. Now you need a measurable objective.

    Because you have surveyed staff upfront, you take their comments into consideration when determining the objective. Instead of recruiting volunteers in a generic way (to help however staff directs them) you specifically recruit volunteers to man the phones so that staff can spend their time tending to resident needs.

    So, let’s say, your measurable objective becomes: Decrease staff’s time spent answering phones by 20% so they can spend more time with shelter residents.

    So now we have a goal and an objective:

    Goal: Alleviate weekend staff workload.

    Objective: Decrease staff time spent on phones by 20% (which BTW, also increases time spent with residents by 20%).

    Once your objective is set, you create the volunteer actions.

    Actions: Answer phones so staff can spend time tending to shelter resident needs. You now recruit both new and existing volunteers to answer phones at the shelter 20% of weekend time.

    When we enlist volunteers “to help” departments, it is difficult to measure the volunteer impact under broad terms. What does help mean? File? Run errands? Answer phones? Data entry? Cleaning the desk?

    When we break goals down into objectives (outcome by a measurable unit such as percentage) and create specific actions (file, answer phones, sit with clients) then we can quantify impact. A simple example of impact is:

    This month, volunteers spent 20 hours on data entry which allowed staff 20 more hours in analyzing reports. Volunteers increased staff’s ability to analyze reports by 12.5%.

    Quantifying impact is just a mathematical way to show results or outcomes or success. Measurable outcomes create easily understood and digestible visuals. The more we can show impact, the more we can steer our programs.

    This doesn’t mean that every objective and series of volunteer actions don’t take into consideration what volunteers need and want. Instead, it means you are being very strategic in setting an atmosphere to get what you want. And strategy is essential to volunteer program success.

    Next time: Everything is strategic.

    -Meridian

     

     

     

  • Do Volunteer Managers Implement or Manage Volunteer Programs?

    Do Volunteer Managers Manage or Implement Volunteer Programs

    “I am a volunteer program manager,” I’ve said countless times to confused faces at networking events.

    “Oh, that’s nice,” The person who just asked me what I do for a living would mutter and then turn to find someone who has a job that is understandable and doesn’t take a lot of martini sipping time to comprehend.

    What does the job title “volunteer manager” mean, anyway? What do I manage? Is it people as in, you know, get people to do things? Or is it work, like filling the tasks that need to be done? What exactly am I in charge of?

    There is a huge difference between managing a program and implementing a program. This is just semantics, I know, but in semantics we find perception, so please, just stick with me a moment, ok?

    Most volunteer managers implement their volunteer programs. The word implement means “carry out” which implies the volunteer manager fulfills the directives from non-profit boards and senior administration who determine how volunteers can be helpful.

    This creates a contradiction: Although most volunteer managers are encouraged to think in strategic ways, they are primarily expected to fulfill requests from key staff or departments which leaves little time for vision or innovative engagement. And strategic innovation is the basis for leading a program to full potential.

    Let’s examine how volunteer management normally fits under organizational missions. Words such as “enhance,” “expand programs,” “enrich experiences,” and “enable increased staff output” define the volunteers’ participation. But vague idealism is like telling your child to “just go out and be good.” Should they wear clean underwear or be polite to the next door neighbor or stop trading their lunch for six candy bars? What is being good?

    Non-specific phrases are so broad they become meaningless. And meaningless phrases lead to implementing a volunteer program versus managing it.

    Being governed by broad phrases creates this gigantic task soup. Anything and everything can be thrown in, including the kitchen sink (think “hey, we have less staff now, let’s get the volunteers to run errands.”). But does this soup actually taste good? Is it a defined recipe for success or is it a chaotic mess?

    This is why we, volunteer managers need to step in and take some control. We can’t (and hopefully don’t want to) alter the mission, so how can we get away from broad concepts and control implementing managing the volunteer portion? The answer is actually found by breaking the mission down into its subordinate parts: Goals and Objectives. The break down looks something like this:

    Mission statements are lofty and broad. For example, “To eliminate human suffering due to unsanitary conditions.”

    Goals are what we are aiming to achieve. For example, “To reduce the number of people who have no clean water.”

    Objectives are the steps to realizing goals. For example, “To raise funds to purchase 100 installed water filters by end of year.”

    As we break our missions down into tangible goals, we can then begin to craft concrete objectives that we have control over. Setting goals with organizational administration will give you the flexibility to create the objective steps that will fulfill those goals.

    Invite senior administration and/or your board to meet with you in a planning session. Ask for specific volunteer department goals for the year. For example, if, under your mission statement your volunteers “enrich clients’ lives,” ask for a defined goal to achieve that lofty ideal by defining what that will look like.

    Let’s say that by end of planning session, the goal becomes, “by end of year, 20 clients will experience less stress through volunteer involvement.” Bingo! That’s a measurable outcome that you can own and control through your creative objectives.

    And, by owning the objectives, we control the volunteer actions that accomplish the objectives that meet the goals that support the mission.

    Next time: Goals, Objectives, Actions in a yummy whole-grain wrap called Strategies.

    -Meridian