volunteerplaintalk

Tag: volunteer manager

  • Until the Family Member Said, “No.”

    My organization developed a solid volunteer strategy. One volunteer even referred to it as a rescue team of angels who would swoop in and take care of all the patient and family members’ needs. Wow, how can you say no to that?

    As a new believer, I trained volunteers to operate in the tried and true methods my organization had set. Our leadership had learned so much and were the experts, after all.

    What we offer might not be what someone wants

    That is, until the day a family member pushed back. One of our experienced volunteers, a volunteer who helped train new volunteers had arrived at the patient’s home. “I’m here to sit while you go shopping,” Essie told the patient’s husband.

    “I don’t want to leave her.” He was holding his wife’s hand. “Thank you, though. I’ll make do.”

    “It’s ok,” Essie assured him. “I’ll take good care of her and you’ll be back soon. You need to get supplies and may not get a chance until I return.” She then added, because the experts always said this, “you can get out for a bit, come back refreshed, be a better caregiver.”

    His eyes were on his wife’s face. “No,” he said, “I’m not leaving her, but thank you.”

    And so, Essie used her intuition, thought about what he needed versus what she was trained to offer and asked for the shopping list. She went to the store for him, apologizing if she got the wrong brands or the wrong size. He didn’t care. He was where he needed to be. Essie didn’t care either and we worked out a way for her to be reimbursed. She said as she left for the store, she watched him tenderly stroke his wife’s face and knew that her instincts, not official training nor volunteer job description told her she was doing the right thing.

    Roles may be the problem

    See, our training didn’t include “sit down with the people adapting to your presence and work out with them what they need.” No, our training relied on the volunteer roles pre-determined to be the best option for the people served.

    The point is, our volunteers understand that programs are only effective if the participants/recipients are part of the process. They’re only effective if the participant is in control and not made to feel that “this is what you need.” Volunteer after volunteer operated outside the norm because they listened to and respected what people wanted from them. I changed training after accompanying volunteers to homes where I learned what collaborative volunteering looked like.

    As we experience upheaval in the volunteer world due to circumstances we could not control, we can view this as an opportunity to change everything for the better. We can introduce collaborative volunteering and show how volunteers can work with, not for a recipient of our services.

    We could ditch titles that speak to roles, such as “visiting volunteer,” or “companion volunteer” and instead, offer collaborative volunteering by letting volunteers forge a partnership with the folks we serve.

    For more information, check out this study, “Putting Participants at the Center of Managing and Leading Nonprofits” here

    Collaborative volunteering: It’s time.

    -Meridian

  • When a Volunteer Has Your Back

    Photo by Kelly Lacy on Pexels.com

    Nineteen year-old Dominick worked at the pizza joint a block away from the thrift store I was managing and needed court ordered community service .

    Dom was angry, impatient, and didn’t really care about our cause, but he needed his job, so he sucked it up and came to my door.

    I was des-per-ate for any able-bodied human to help me on the box truck I would borrow to pick up donated furniture, our highest ticketed items in the store. (I had a non-existent budget, but you knew that already, didn’t you?)

    Dom agreed to spend a day or two on a ride along and help me haul the furniture. I always made a route to save gas and the day Dom went with me, we talked, or really, he talked and I listened. He told me about growing up in the area, his brothers, some in trouble, his sisters, his mom, his deceased father, his struggles in school. He told me about making pizzas, how he wanted to own a business and gave me some tips on fishing in local retention ponds.

    One of our stops was at a woman’s home. She had donated a few knick-knacks before, and called me to say she had some nice furniture to donate. (I only picked up furniture; I asked that all other donations be dropped off)

    We arrived at her upscale house and she handed me a plastic bag containing some clothes. “I don’t have furniture for you, but,” she said, “I bought a new mattress set and I’m giving my old one to a friend who lives down the street. Would you mind taking it there?”

    I held my tongue, rolled my eyes, said, “fine,” and Dom and I put the pristine mattress and box springs into the truck and headed down the road. When back in the cab, the door shut, I let loose, fuming, literally running at the mouth at the arrogance of this woman who was using a charity to deliver her goods.

    Dom just sat there, watching me, my hands flying off the wheel as I vented my anger. He said nothing.

    The friend was waiting for us, all smiles, and I kept my mouth shut, gritting my teeth against the hail of words that threatened to burst forth. We retrieved the box spring and she directed us to a bedroom where we deposited it on the empty bedframe.

    We went back for the mattress. I could feel Dom’s eyes watching my clenched jaw as we picked it up and brought it inside, laying it atop the box spring, the friend gazing contentedly at her new treasure.

    I stepped away, muttered “we’ll be off now,” to the woman and turned to see Dom walk over the mattress, his dirty boot leaving the most perfect outline on the white cover. The woman’s eyes went wide and I pretended I didn’t see it, while scurrying away. (kinda like when I’d notice the marketing director coming down the hall.) Dom, chin high, sauntered along, without a care in the world.

    We got back in the cab and I started the engine. Dom stared straight ahead, an imperceptible smile flickering over his lips. I drove in silence for a few streets, processing in my head what to say to him and then I bust out laughing.

    Although I sweated for days, expecting a call from the CEO, none came. The lady never donated again. Dom finished his community service and I signed off on it.

    But I did start ordering pizza from Dom’s pizza shop.

    -Meridian

  • How about these Recent Volunteering Headlines?

    While binge researching, I thought I’d share a few recent volunteering headlines I found with you. They were deep in my feed…really deep, like buried deep.

    Disclaimer: These “headlines” are made up.

    In blatant effort to increase respect for volunteers, volunteer manger renames them “Fluffy Donors” and requires each Fluffy Donor to pledge $1 to the general fund for “you know, the fluffy work we do.” In other news, charity heralds “new era of respect for donors.”

    In bid to save money, nonprofit CEO cuts volunteer department budget by 50% before being told there is no volunteer department budget and laments, “What, now I have to cut the senior retreat?”

    In a shocking nonprofit study, organizations learn that 78% of mistreated volunteers quit. “The remaining 22% will get a nice thank you luncheon,” says one CEO.

    Upon hearing there is an uptick in people wanting to volunteer, nonprofit consulting agency unveils “Fees to Volunteer” as next big source of revenue for struggling organizations, using “They should pay for the privilege of volunteering” as their tagline.

    .

    After learning the 850 packets they assembled for the annual walk/run were thrown away because of typos, volunteers stage walkout the same day the marketing manager is promoted.

    After reading study that shows volunteering is good for health and well-being, nonprofit ED scraps wellness plan, asks staff to volunteer and replace “those pesky unpaid people.”

    It’s nice to know volunteering makes the news. 🙂

    -Meridian

  • Collaborative Volunteering or Why I Started Enjoying the Kids

    Be honest. If a group of 10 year olds wanted to volunteer, would you:

    • scurry to find some crayons?
    • make sure it was on a Saturday when the office was empty cause you don’t want the tykes to bother the staff? (although in reality, you’d love to dump a couple of sticky-handed kids on Gwen in marketing)
    • make up some labor law that prevents children under 26 from entering your organization due to the excessive use of whiteout?
    • fake an allergy to glitter?

    Yeah, I used to do all four, and even “touched up” some messy artwork so that when it was tacked up, Malcolm in IT wouldn’t sniff, “what a waste of time.” (it’s a sickness, right?)

    In the last VPT podcast, Summer Neiss, coordinator for a K Kids program in Oregon, told us what we already know and tend to just sweep under the rug: There are countless people, including kids, who want to help, but have little luck in finding a place to volunteer.

    Collaborative vs. Set Roles

    How is this still a thing? I believe it’s because we don’t collaborate with volunteers.

    Nope, we dictate to them, we mold them, we fit them into boxes, we cling to a “standard” (what the Holy H is a standard, anyway?) and yet, when no volunteers want what we are offering, we keep searching for more bodies. (and I’m talking about organizations, not volunteer managers. Volunteer managers get it) Hmm, not so efficient, is it?

    So, what does collaborative volunteering look like?

    Ok, sorry, but I gotta tell you a story.

    I was asked to “get volunteers” to restock an activity cart at a nursing home in which there were hospice patients on our program. Problem was, our volunteers weren’t that interested in stocking a cart; silly volunteers wanted to interact with human beings, go figure.

    Anyway, I stewed about it, muttering to myself, “why can’t anyone see what absolute garbage (might have used other words) this request is,” and then I stopped my little temper tantrum and decided to go talk to the nursing home myself.

    Together, with the activities director, who BTW didn’t want volunteers stocking carts, but asked for real, meaningful help, we collaborated on several programs. The activities director took me on a tour of the nursing home. This was a facility where 98% of the residents were under 60 years old. By no means was this a wealthy place. That tour alone, made me want to work with that director.

    Together, with our volunteers’ input, we created several programs, including recording life stories. And oh, the stories those residents had to tell.

    But here’s the point. Collaborative volunteering takes away the sizing up of a potential volunteer to see if they would fit into our little mold.

    Collaboration is a path to engagement on all sides

    Collaborative volunteering is a three way venture. Volunteer, organization and recipient of volunteer time. There’s the sweet spot-> where the three intersect:

    Collaboration increases engagement, solves actual challenges in more efficient ways, and moves us forward.

    In this time of chaos and change, we can make volunteering better. Like kids volunteering? Why not? Once I quit looking at volunteers fitting into slots, I found myself at a kindergarten, standing there, those 5 and 6 year-old eyes on me, waiting. (Soooooo, I found myself thinking, maybe my speech about terminal illness and dying, the one that gets right to the heartstrings isn’t the right approach here. Huh.) And boom, I had to wiggle out of my box and see things differently.

    When we work with, not at volunteers and recipients of volunteer involvement, we create something organic that is structured to work for everyone. And honestly, when collaboration is encouraged, the burden on our overworked brains eases because we don’t have to think of everything. (you can put that super human cloak aside)

    Change is upon us right now and it’s challenging, but it can open up a whole new way of seeing things.

    Collaborative volunteering can ease us into a new age where, because everyone participates in the system, the system doesn’t become the dictator.

    -Meridian

  • Volunteer Resilience

    In the last VPT podcast, Laura Rundell wisely chats about resilience, a subject we have been forced to examine in the past year. Laura asks: What is resilience? What masquerades as resilience? How do our volunteers show resilience?

    What can we learn from this year?

    We were unprepared for the magnitude of the pandemic and how it disrupted volunteerism. But, you know what? We, LoVols, deal with disruption all the time. Changes in volunteer assignments, policy tweaks, staff shuffling, new projects implemented, tasks taking precedent over other tasks, organizational restructuring, and then there’s the personal changes in volunteers’ lives that create disruption. We live in the Upheaval Hotel. (Too many volunteers answering that old add you forgot to remove in your room? I’ve got one on the 10th floor with explaining the new policy changes you might like better)

    Because volunteer resilience is key to not only surviving major disruptions, but key to surviving and thriving during more minor disruptions, we are knee-deep in encouraging resilience. Nurturing volunteer resilience is necessary, regardless of a pandemic or a change in policy. So, going forward, what can we learn from this experience?

    I recall a few years back, we had a near volunteer mutiny when a beloved staff member left in a hasty manner. It was not pretty. I was unprepared for the upheaval that followed. But through a series of dialogues, adjustments and extensive follow-ups that centered on resilience, the volunteers stayed. It proved to me that resilience is a mind-set we can help foster.

    How can we help volunteers be resilient?

    • Make change normal: Use change language and lay a foundation that says change is natural and an evolving strategy to move forward. Make the distinction from the need to adapt and pivot (change) on operational issues from the solid core values of your mission that remain foundational and say, for example, “we are adapting and learning to navigate the changes we must make to grow, but we never lose sight of our mission which is the foundation on which we operate.” Make sure volunteers know that the mission is their anchor.
    • Present change as an opportunity: Present change in a positive light by encouraging volunteers to think about opportunities such as, “now that we have to re-think our in-person services, let’s look at the opportunities to utilize different skills, find new talents.” Get volunteers to brainstorm, be part of the process. Change is received more readily when volunteers are part of the change process.
    • Connect to purpose: Offer stories of how the volunteers’ can-do attitude helps those being served. Tell volunteers how they inspire staff and clients to keep going. Use humor and inspiration as stress relief.
    • Debrief and reflect: Always elicit feedback. In change management, feedback is key to navigating change. Not once, but repeatedly, so when you hear the volunteers say, “We get it, you’re always asking how are we doing with these changes,” you’re on the right track. Reflection is a way to embrace the difficulties, to acknowledge the loss of status quo. Reflection is nonjudgmental and healing and allows for the volunteers to express their frustrations and loss. When I experienced the volunteer near mutiny, reflection gave the volunteers a space to grieve over losses without feeling judged. I learned so much by just listening to them.
    • Survivor attitude: Make surviving a badge of honor. We tell volunteers how special they are, so add surviving into that mix.
    • Introduce scenarios into training: I love scenarios because they apply knowledge to real situations. Adding a change scenario is a great way for volunteers to think about how they might act when change is inevitable and a great way to encourage resilience.
    • Admit the struggle: As a volunteer manager, you are good at being honest. Admit the “work in progress” because it’s easier to be resilient when you know everyone else is struggling to be resilient too. It’s the team mentality. We will get through this together.

    Resilience is not…

    Resilience is not forcing volunteers to accept the unreasonable without question. That’s being a door-mat. And it’s good to let volunteers know that you understand the difference between resilience and being taken advantage of and will work to make sure they are treated with respect. That way, when proper changes occur, they will likely be more resilient.

    Oh, and what about you? How’s your resilience holding up? Do you, as Laura says in the podcast, practice self-care and find joy in our profession? Do you seek out other volunteer professionals to vent to? Laura and I chat often, and I have to say, I get so much out of our chats. We’re not alone. We are strong and resilient. Finding another volunteer engagement professional to chat with, laugh with, cry with, or vent with is one of the greatest ways to steady a wobbling boat, to adjust your sails and take a moment to enjoy the journey.

    And feed your resilience.

    -Meridian

  • Never Forget, You Have a Hand in This

    Photo by Jacob Kelvin.J on Pexels.com

    Do you matter? Does the work you do matter? Are you feeling (mainly because there’s this pandemic going on) like “what difference does all this make?” Sometimes there are days like that, even weeks. That’s why I have stories that I clutch to my heart for times like these. Here’s one of mine in brief:

    There was something so familiar about her. Her eyes crinkled as she spoke. I’d seen that chin before, but it was her mannerisms that gave me deja vu. She was like reuniting with a good friend after a long absence.
    “I’m Bree,” she said, holding out her hand and we shook, a familiar warmth cursing through my arm. We walked back to my office and she sat down, her eyes taking in everything as though she had seen it before in another life.

    “My name is Bree Phillips and I want to volunteer here.” I didn’t recognize her name, but she continued. “I just moved here to be near my mother. Mom is getting older, and I need to take care of her. But I have some free time to give, and really, I’m here because of my father. He volunteered here many years ago.”
    “No kidding,” I said, still puzzled over the name Phillips, “who is your father?”
    “George Keenon,” she said.
    My mouth dropped open. “Your dad is George Keenon?”
    “Yes,” she answered, “do you remember him?”

    I knew him so well

    It suddenly dawned on me, those eyes, her chin, the mannerisms, I was looking at a clone of George. In that instant, I felt like I was sitting with him again, enjoying his stories of growing up on a farm, his love for family and helping others. George roamed the halls of the hospice care center, complementing the nurses and stopping to acknowledge a broken heart. I remember one day, when a patient asked to see Frank Sinatra, George agreed to “be Frank” and when he entered the room, she looked at him with a smirk and said, “whoa, you really let yourself go!” After that, our little inside joke was, “whoa, you let yourself go.” George was light and air and life itself all in one.


    Bree told me that before her father died, he told her to go volunteer at a hospice. “He was always talking about his experiences here,” she said. ” I swear, he had this long, great career in business, but he spoke more fondly about his connections to the patients.” Bree’s eyes brimmed with so much emotion. “I want to honor my father by following in his footsteps. I want to do something that lights me up the way it lit up my dad.”

    Do we ever really know?

    We, Leaders of Volunteers, operate in the intangible world: Goodness, Hope, Love, Charity, Personal Growth, Awareness, Connection, Discovery. Trying to measure these intangibles is like explaining why your dog loves you. He just does.

    We invest in people. But we don’t often measure our investment’s growth. We’re too overwhelmed with daily work to stop and take stock of our positive influence on volunteers and our missions. So, when these incidents like the Bree story occur, we stop spinning and realize that all of our work has far-reaching effects.

    You will never hear all the positive influence you’ve had. You’ll hear about some, but not all. That’s why I cling to my stories and quotes and even the look a volunteer gives me when they know, I mean really know that they have touched another person’s heart. I cling to the tears, the restarts, and the joyous celebrations. I fiercely hold the deep ache of volunteers’ souls when they share why they volunteer or their fears of inadequacy, or a pain from their youth.

    What we do know

    Maybe filling out a report doesn’t change the world. So, ok, making a quick phone call doesn’t alter the history of mankind. And sure, conducting a zoom meeting doesn’t solve societal ills. But look at all the good you produce. Look at your sphere and see what you radiate: Kindness, understanding, encouragement, belief in the goodness of others, acceptance, hope, inspiration, a willingness to listen and learn.

    You matter. Big time. And, do me a favor, ok? Forget for a moment the idea that you have to have earth-shattering successes to matter. Instead, feel contentment at how much you matter to so many people who may not say so. Feel satisfied that so much of your life is spent doing something meaningful. Feel fulfillment in how you engage and encourage people to be better. Embrace the satisfaction of knowing you’ve changed lives for the better. Feel privileged to have found something that fills your soul with meaning. Feel gratified that you are strong enough to go on.

    You matter to all of us

    We, volunteer managers are fighting for professional recognition, for more meaningful volunteer involvement, for seats at the planning table, and for volunteerism to be recognized as a society-changing force for good.

    Yes, we fight. But even the fighter has a moment alone, when the enormity of the fight presses down on wearied shoulders. Contentment comes, not from being complacent, but from understanding you matter.

    Let your “Bree” stories fill your heart to fight another day.

    -Meridian

  • Volunteer Programs: Incubators or Coops?

    Carla answered my volunteers wanted ad and arrived for our interview early, her potential shining like the buttons on her business suit. She was one of those “oh my gosh, how did I get so lucky” volunteers. Sadly, my organization wasn’t ready for her extensive management skills, but I happily slotted her at the front desk. Bingo, the front desk had a professional-looking person representing us and, gotta be honest, she made me look good for “finding” her.

    Meanwhile, one of the volunteer managers in my peer group was recruiting volunteers for a start-up. He needed a volunteer who could help manage fledgling projects. I immediately thought of Carla. Did I offer to ask her if she would be interested in helping him? Nope, I kept her to myself. After all, I found her,(yeah, ok, she found us, but hey, I wrote that clever attention grabbing ad) trained her, supported her, right? After all that work? She was mine. And if I sent her away, then, whoa I’d have to put a less polished volunteer on the front desk and suffer the ire of my superiors, so I held on to her like a half-eaten surfboard in a sea of sharks.

    Hatch and keep, right?

    A few years later, when outstanding patient volunteer Yosef started to pass on assignments, I knew he was reaching his shelf life with us. I carried guilt from the whole Carla thing (yeah, I know, guilt is bad, blah, blah, bur we, volunteer managers do feel guilty over stuff at times, and that time I was truly guilty of hoarding) and so Yosef and I started looking for an even more challenging volunteer position (yep, offered him all sorts of leadership roles, but none excited him in the way patient volunteering had). He ended up jumping to child advocacy and thrived. And guess what, I felt great about it because he incubated his volunteering with us (just wished I had put that into my reports).

    Brittany McGarry, who recently shared her wisdoms on the VPT podcast, (you can listen here) does this incredible mapping a volunteer’s journey. We want our volunteers to aspire to do more, to be more and we have to be comfortable with letting them sprout wings in order for them to succeed. We should be proud of them when they leave us because they have become so good at volunteering, they move up, whether that occurs within our organizations, or they join a new mission.

    When a volunteer moves up in our organization, we are understandably proud of our hand in incubating them, but when they move to another nonprofit, we may feel like we’ve failed to retain (I hate the word retention, BTW) them. We can’t record their hours. We can’t rely on them to drop everything and come in when we’re desperate. We feel we’ve lost, because our jobs are to get and keep volunteers, right?

    Volunteers are always temporary

    We have to stop the misconception that volunteers are possessions, and until we throw them out, they will keep coming back up to the moment they wear out or die. Instead, let’s speak of volunteers as temporary from the start. They are with us for the time that benefits us and them, not forever or until we dump them. Let’s speak about the privilege to have them for one event, one week, one season or one year. Never forever.

    Fleeting is more always precious

    If volunteers are viewed as permanent fixtures, why bother working hard to keep them? But if we know they are fleeting, it makes sense to work hard to engage them. Their worth increases because they will leave. We must change the lexicon and use “volunteers are temporary” verbiage to change the perception. Simple shifts in language, such as:

    • “while they are with us, our volunteers will…”
    • “as long as they are engaged, they can…”
    • “we are privileged they are sharing their time with us for now, but it won’t be forever.”
    • “for the time they were here, they did xyz”
    • “they moved to a better fit for them and we had a hand in developing their love for volunteering. What a win for everyone!”
    • “yes, they moved on, but they remain advocates for our mission because we made sure their needs were met on an even par with our needs.”
    • “they haven’t closed the door on us because, as advocates, they will continue to us in other ways.”
    • “we are investing in each volunteer so our community benefits. That makes us leaders in sustainable volunteering.”
    • “volunteers don’t leave us, they just change the way they support us.”
    • “volunteering is only one way someone advocates for our mission.”

    Volunteering teaches volunteers about… volunteering

    Each time a person volunteers, they learn something about volunteering. What might they learn in a coop?

    • They expect me to treat this like a job.
    • I have to wait until they find a fit for me.
    • It’s about their needs, not mine.
    • Supporting the mission means doing the grunt work.
    • There is no upward movement.
    • They like me, but don’t include me in things that matter.
    • I’m not in control of my volunteering.
    • I have to be flexible, but they don’t.
    • Sometimes I’m not important.
    • They talk team, but I’m not included, not really.
    • I’m a commodity.

    Volunteers don’t stop helping because they leave us

    Volunteering is more fluid than in years past. Citizen helpers (think the people who rush to help neighbors during a crisis) thrive because they learn that volunteering means immediate action and immediate results. Then, when they sign up to formally volunteer, they discover that volunteering is cumbersome, drawn out, rigid, and limited. And when a volunteer leaves our organization for those reasons, they don’t stop helping, they just stop formally helping our organization.

    I realize we can’t just scrap all our systems in place. But what we can do, is chip away at archaic conceptions of volunteering. We can point out that fluid volunteers move between informal and formal, between organizations, between activity and inactivity. We can ditch terms such as retention (Bleeeech), permanent (that’s a hoot, right?), even long-term volunteers and move towards fluid terms such as active and inactive, advocate vs. former volunteer (see reject a volunteer, gain an advocate).

    Incubate vs. coop

    We, volunteer managers are good at helping one another. We support each other in peer groups, in forums, in phone calls and zoom meetings. We believe that by helping one another, we help ourselves too.

    Photo by Maria Orlova on Pexels.com

    Our community pool of volunteers is there for us to nurture, engage and incubate. By ending the ancient “My volunteers” sentiment, we let go of the struggle to retain a volunteer at all cost. We put the volunteers’ needs on an even par with organizational needs which creates a symbiotic system that not only sustains volunteers, but creates a replenished garden. (more in my book, The Disruptive Volunteer Manager). And it strengthens our partnerships with our fellow volunteer managers, because we are helping one another regrow our volunteer common. (see Innovation and Sustainable Volunteering).

    We are in an unprecedented change era, so let’s make changes that work for us and our volunteers, are forward thinking and position our profession to lead. It’s time for us to be leaders of a sustainable volunteer movement.

    We’ll thank ourselves later.

    -Meridian

  • #LoVols, You Are Growing Branches

    I’m guessing you don’t own the 32,000 page book, “Everything You Must Know About Engaging Volunteers, Part 1.” I have a copy, but I’m only on Chapter 73, “Volunteers who ask questions that are not really questions and how to address the criticisms hidden within.”

    (for my take on this thorny issue, see when a question is not a question)

    How do you describe our jobs? Engaging volunteers is in many ways like a growing tree. At first we struggle to understand the job. We’re green and new and easily blown by the wind. But then we grow, fed by the profound differences we see volunteers make, the sunlight of possibilities and the nutrient rich experiences our volunteers bring, not only to the work, but to us personally.

    When one has taken root, one puts out branches

    Jules Verne

    We grow, stronger in our conviction, taller in reaching for the sky, broader in understanding. And then, we develop branches that reach in all directions, adding to the living ecosystem that supports a thriving community.

    What a teddy bear taught me

    I think about volunteer Cara, who sewed memory bears for grieving survivors (memory bears are made from a garment the survivor provides that belonged to the loved one who died). A young man had died while serving in the military, and his family requested a bear be made from his Marine Corps dress blues. I immediately thought of Cara because she was an expert seamstress and her work was impeccable. She accepted, but a few days later, Cara called me with a concern. I assumed her concern had to do with the difficulty in working with the dress blues’ fabric.

    Cara came to see me and sat, tears welling in her eyes and told me that when she picked up the scissors and made the first cut into the uniform, she broke down and couldn’t go on. Her father was a Marine. So was her brother. She deeply understood what the uniform represented and cutting into it brought home the devastation the young man’s family was feeling. It was personal for her.

    From experience, comes growth

    In that moment, I realized that the volunteers who made memory bears didn’t just sew a bear. Through sewing, they entered a person’s life and pain when they cut into the cherished garment. They held a person’s grief in their hands, and stitched a lifetime of memories together in a teddy bear shape that could be hugged and talked to through tears. Those selfless volunteers experienced the aching loss a survivor felt for their loved one. And yet, they continued to sew.

    After that day with Cara, I asked a grief counselor to attend our memory bear volunteer meetings. Not only did the grief counselor share the recipients reactions to receiving the bears, she was able to help the volunteers process their feelings. Had Cara not been brutally honest with me, I might never have thought beyond the volunteers’ ability to sew a stitch. Thanks to her, I began to look at not only the memory bear volunteers and their well-being, but it opened me to look for other ways to support volunteers. I sprouted a branch.

    Hands-on learning grows branches

    Experiential learning teaches us to apply knowledge from doing. It forces us to experiment until we get things right. It propels us to take initiative to solve challenges. It makes leaders of volunteers think like visionaries. It gives us branches that reach high.

    Embrace your experiences. It feels like 2020 has given us way more experiences than we can handle, but it has also caused us to:

    • ask the hard questions
    • rethink systems and procedures and reimagine them in strategic ways
    • take initiatives to keep what is working and redesign what is not
    • be curious
    • look beyond the status quo to find better solutions
    • connect in new ways with peers, with staff, with the community
    • expand possibilities
    • examine our pre-conceived notions about the way things have always been done
    • evaluate our role in leading volunteers

    As I thumb through “Everything You Must Know About Engaging Volunteers, Part 1,” I notice there’s no chapter on “World-wide pandemics and the disruption of volunteering.”

    Maybe that will be addressed in Part 2.

    -Meridian

    P.S. I will be posting twice a month instead of weekly starting January 2021. Happy New Year all. I hope this year brings new joy, new experiences and new hope for our wonderful, complex and growing profession.

  • Dealing with Regrets: Should We Let Go or Is There Another Way?

    Photo by Kamaji Ogino on Pexels.com

    Regrets. We all have them. I have some real doozies in my volunteer engagement career, and I’ve read plenty of advice about how to deal with regrets, including the advice to “let go.”

    I don’t know about you, but letting go is not that simple. I still am disappointed at some of my bone-headed mistakes, especially the ones I made, knowing that I shouldn’t have. Those are the tough ones to swallow. (cause, shhhhh, we’re not perfect)

    I’m thinking of the time I no-showed a volunteer’s funeral, the volunteer who always came in when I asked and oh, btw, gave a very thoughtful present to one of my children for graduation. I knew I would regret not going, but hey, I told myself I was too busy. Or tired. Lazy, maybe? Doesn’t matter; that one stings.

    Or when I knew sending an often unreliable volunteer to that home would result in a disaster. Sure, I had no one else. Sure, it was a tough case. Sure, I wanted to complete the assignment cause I was egotistical about filling assignments. But, I knew it was a mistake and yet, I did it anyway.

    Or when I was too busy to double-check on that assignment, cause my gut told me that times and location had changed, but I let it go, until volunteers frantically called me because they were in the wrong place. Yep.

    What was I thinking?

    Fortunately, I don’t dwell on these lapses in common sense. But I also can’t wipe them from memory like they never happened. Not entirely. So, is feeling guilty the answer? Can I do anything to make amends and wipe the deed from the universe’s memory?

    Constructive vs unproductive

    When you make a mistake you regret, look for the lesson. Two weeks ago I wrote about volunteers who teach us to be vigilant. The mistakes we personally make teach us not only are we human and fallible, but we are also adaptive and teachable. The beauty of being human is our ability to grow and learn.

    Harness mistakes as a blueprint for improving

    There are some ways to keep regrets from eating away at you. Being constructive and choosing to use the mistake as a springboard to improving puts you in control. Harnessing mistakes means:

    • first and foremost, get rid of unrealistic expectations-you know what I mean, the “I have to be perfect, because, (insert every disastrous outcome here, like volunteers will not like me) and set expectations that allow for a few mistakes to occur.
    • give yourself attainable goals and parameters-stop the “I must NEVER again do anything wrong” baloney and ease up. Try, “I’m working towards a reasonable goal in steps that are not perfect.”
    • forgive yourself, but remember the lesson and use it to motivate, not berate yourself.
    • record all the examples of you doing something amazing and compare to the one or two missteps-you’ll find that you are actually, pretty amazing.
    • dialogue the lessons: Journal the conscious steps you are taking from lessons learned.
    • remind yourself that volunteers and your organization are better served by someone who learns from mistakes and grows than someone who lives in paralyzing guilt and stays stuck in guilty-mode.
    • name regrets out loud(this is a tough one)-don’t fear admitting blunders, to volunteers, to staff, to administration. But always add, “and because I assigned a volunteer who I knew wouldn’t follow through, I have learned that it is more important to give our clients reliable volunteer help than just filling an assignment to fill it. And here are the steps I’m taking to make sure we always give our clients our best.” Besides, if you own your mistakes, guess what? You get to define them and stop any inaccuracies from becoming organizational lore, such as “oh, the volunteer department never sends reliable volunteers.” Own the narrative.

    Forgive without forgetting

    Let those tucked away regrets motivate you to be constructive so they don’t turn into full-on guilt. Regrets can either keep us paralyzed by guilt or they can motivate us to grow by making us constructive.

    And hey, think about this. Which would your volunteers prefer? A paralyzed by guilt leader or one beautifully human, who embraces constructive changes and is visibly growing in leadership skills?

    Not a tough choice.

    -Meridian

    If you are having overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame or hopelessness, please reach out to a trusted family member, friend or colleague. These days, additional stressors can exacerbate our feelings of guilt, hopelessness and anxiety. We all experience tough times and knowing when to ask for help is courageous and necessary. Be important to yourself. We need you.

  • Thanks to the volunteers who lied, stole and created havoc

    Photo by Samuel Wu00f6lfl on Pexels.com

    Do you ever gush, “Thank you to of all the wonderful volunteers who have inspired me, enriched my soul and taught me compassion?” Yeah, that’s my go-to line because I mean it and I bet you do, too. Besides, isn’t thanking what we volunteer managers do best? (well maybe next to being annoyingly humble)

    Volunteers shape us and teach us how to be better leaders. So, maybe we should also thank the volunteers who taught us the lessons that strengthen our characters. You know the ones. Their memories are seared into your psyche like the time you dropped your phone when you learned a trusted volunteer called a client “idiot.”  You slunk back to your office when the CEO told you a volunteer tried to sell his daughter’s beat up Chevy to a client’s son. You found a seat way in back and kept your mouth closed in meetings after a volunteer wrote that oddly kind, but wildly misguided letter to the editor, calling your staff “an army of swat unicorns who invade with guns shooting helping dust.”

    Mop-up lessons are hard when they occur

    You never intended a volunteer to try and convert a client’s family to their religious or political beliefs. These are the mop-up lessons. You mop up the mess, apologizing profusely, hoping no one thinks that all volunteers act this way, while explaining that you never gave volunteers permission to move in with a client or take out an ad in the local paper and alter the logo to make it look like it was smiling.

    But, honest mistakes aside, think about all the clients saved from unscrupulous volunteers because you learned a hard lesson. Think about all the necessary precautions you take because you were put through the wringer. Think about the watchful eye you developed because you were caught unaware.

    Mopping up after mistakes equips us with vigilance.

    Many years ago, volunteer Jacob lied to my face. Again and again. I believed him, not because he was charming and convincing, but because I wanted to believe him. I believed in the romantic notion that all people would set aside their personal agendas for the greater good. I lived in a faerie world in which all volunteers understood the mission and eagerly awaited my instructions so they could change the world.

    Jacob showed me that I had to be realistic if I truly wanted to do right by our clients. He showed me that healthy watchfulness did not diminish my job, but rather elevated it to a higher level of purposefulness.

    Matching volunteers to vulnerable clients takes more than kindness

    You’ve been through this. We struggle to explain all the carefully measured thought and actions required to match volunteers to clients and programs.  Faeries are lovely, but we live in the real world. In the real world, placing volunteers with vulnerable clients takes discerning judgement, careful pairing and keen watchfulness. 

    I’ve had volunteers who stole, volunteers who pushed an agenda, volunteers who wanted to take over and volunteers who were just mean. I’m still surprised by volunteers who talk a good game and then cause real harm. I’ve also had volunteers who messed up royally because they did something nice, but so misplaced that it caused real harm.

    So, I thank Jacob and the others for giving me a discerning nature, for strengthening my resolve to do right and for teaching me that compassion takes the courage to be a sentry.

    The volunteers who cause harm never intend to teach us anything. Their intent lies deep within their own needs.

    But every one of these volunteers teach us lessons that mold us into a better leader of volunteers. They teach us to trust, yet verify and to protect the vulnerable people we serve. A successful leader of volunteers must be strong. Conviction means doing what is right, even when it is hard. It means saying no with kindness.

    So, let’s silently thank them for those often painful lessons that shape us into stronger leaders.

    They never intended to teach us something valuable, but they did, so thanks, you guys.

    -Meridian

    This is updated from a 2017 post.