volunteerplaintalk

Tag: volunteer retention

Flirting With Disaster

Christian was hired as the volunteer manager for a small hospital. After spending ten years as a human resources generalist, he wanted to utilize his skills while working with folks who wanted to give back.

“I replaced the former volunteer coordinator, Janice, who was moving out of the area. She had been in charge of the volunteers for five years and we spent about two weeks together before she left. The volunteers on the whole were very sorry that she was leaving. They were really attached to her.”

Every volunteer manager has their own unique style of managing volunteers. Some are gentle and kind and encourage volunteers with praise and genuine caring. Some are a combination of inspiration and a perceived expectation of excellence. Some are masterful negotiators and visionaries. Some are light-hearted and fun, others are serious and meaningful. Most are combinations of all of the above. Few of us can be authoritarians or dictators, at least not for long.

“What I discovered a few weeks after Janice left was just how much the volunteers were attached to her. I can’t tell you how many times I heard a volunteer say, ‘Janice didn’t do it that way’ or ‘Janice would never have asked that.’ At first I kind of expected it, but as the weeks wore on, it became more of an us against him situation.”

What Christian was experiencing is the unraveling of the management style instituted by his predecessor. He stepped into a role that was not his style and so the volunteers, used to Janice’s management, were chafing at her absence. It wasn’t so much a rebuff of the new leadership as it was missing the old leadership.

“The more I spent time with the volunteers, the more I realized how intertwined they were with Janice. She knew so much about each one. She socialized with many of them, went to their family functions, had lunch with them, and stayed with them in the hospital. They had her personal cell number. One lady, Bea told me that Janice helped her buy a car. Another volunteer, Simone said that Janice found bargains for her online. It was all so overwhelming, I mean, I was hired to do a job, but I never expected that my job was a 24/7 immersion into the volunteers’ personal affairs. When I was in human resources, I never walked the dog for an employee or planned a birthday party for a grandchild. I simply did my job.”

Christian’s experience went beyond taking over a job from a popular coordinator. He was unknowingly walking into more than a job, he was walking into a cult of personality.

“I started asking the other staff about Janice and the volunteers. I learned that Janice was extremely social and gregarious and that she had a positive attitude and sense of humor. I already knew that from spending time with her before she left. But what I heard from many of the staff is that Janice often seemed frazzled and complained about stress. I also heard that she was somewhat flirtatious, which, on the surface doesn’t seem too harmful, but I now feel a real sense of indifference from the men who volunteer. It’s as if I’m personally responsible for Janice’s leaving.”

Managing volunteers is challenging enough without having to replace someone who has created a cult of personality and Christian, no matter what he did to win the volunteers over, was just not Janice.

“The volunteers would do anything for Janice, and she was very successful in filling all the jobs. But I got to tell you, the first few days, I just thought that the volunteers were really wonderful people who truly wanted to help others. Now I’m finding that yes, the volunteers are wonderful people, but I’m not so sure if they want to help others or if they just wanted to please Janice. I ask them in the nicest way to take on a an assignment and I try to ask them questions about their families, but they are somewhat cold towards me. I haven’t lost any of them yet, but I expect that to occur any day, because although they have direction from me, they seem lost without her.”

Stepping into anyone’s role is hard but stepping into a status quo that you cannot duplicate is incredibly challenging. As volunteer managers, we walk a fine line between being professional and being involved. We sometimes utilize whatever skill works to fill volunteer requests. We often become very comfortable with our volunteers and develop strong relationships with them.
But, every now and then, we have to do a mental check on our own style of volunteer management to ensure that we have created a professional atmosphere and that our volunteers are loyal to the clients we serve and not us. The mental check goes something like this:
If I leave tomorrow, will my replacement find all the systems in place they need to succeed?
If I leave tomorrow, will my replacement be able to continue the calendar that I have set up for volunteer meetings, events, training’s, educational in services etc?
If I leave tomorrow, will my replacement find the volunteers welcoming or will he find hostility because the volunteers are loyal to me instead of the mission?
If I leave tomorrow, will my replacement find that boundaries have been consistently crossed with volunteers, hence making her work life impossible?
If I leave tomorrow, will my replacement have a list of currently active, currently inactive and also former volunteers?
If I leave tomorrow, will my replacement walk into utter chaos or find a smoothly run department?

Ahhhh, if we can occasionally look critically at our work with the eye of our potential replacement, we might just discover some things that need our attention. We might just see the forest instead of those pesky daily, demanding trees that get in the way.
And if a professionally run environment is better for our potential replacement in case we happen to leave, then isn’t a professionally run environment better for our own health and well-being?
-Meridian

October 8, 2014
Confessions and Connections

Sometimes 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.”

Volunteer 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

October 1, 2014
I’m Going to Be Locked in a Room With a Naked Man?

Oh, those odd requests. You know, the ones that can either make you cry or seek therapy. We get them all the time and our volunteers can sometimes just walk into them. The other day, I was talking with one of our retired volunteers, Greta, who, for 12 years provided respite in the homes of terminally ill patients. Completely nonplussed, Greta would take the assignments that no one else would or could. She particularly loved working with men whose care giving wives needed time to shop or visit relatives or even take a nap in the next room. Some of the male patients cared for by Greta had dementia or Alzheimer’s, which made for a challenging time.
She recalled the day we sent her to a patient’s home and she met with the man’s wife who calmly instructed her to lock herself in the bedroom with her husband. “He tends to wander,” she said. “And oh, he usually walks around naked.”
Luckily, Greta, a retired psyche nurse and case manager, had already been to odd request-ville and survived. Completely unfazed, she would coax the patient to dress himself.
She talked about another patient she dubbed “Bad Brad.” Bad Brad would flush anything and everything down the toilet if he got near the bathroom. Greta put a stop sign on the bathroom door. “I just looked at everything as doable,” she said. “And if I couldn’t, well, you heard about it!”
We all get the out of the ordinary requests.
There are the unusual requests for volunteers who can sing in Olde English, or volunteers that have no sense of smell.
While odd requests may seem like a hardship, they are actually a chance to step back and think outside the box, even if you cannot fill the request exactly as it was put forth. That’s when bargaining can be used, because we ultimately want to help our clients. “Maybe I don’t have a volunteer who plays “Bringin in the Georgia Mail” on the fiddle, but I do have a volunteer who has a fine collection of bluegrass cds.”

Mindy is a volunteer coordinator who has always tried very hard to fulfill every volunteer request. She has meticulously paid attention to exact needs and worked hard to find the perfect volunteer fit. “But lately,” she says, “I’ve found myself wanting to be involved in the requests before I begin to fill them. I’m finding that the more I speak directly to the clients, the more I can get a sense of the type of volunteer they need. And I can offer the type of volunteer I think would work for them and the volunteer who is actually available. It’s made my job so much better and given me a proactive way of filling needs. I’m just sorry I didn’t think of it sooner.”

Being proactive is an excellent tool for not only managing the amazing volunteers we have, but for showcasing the skills and possibilities of the volunteers who may not have a current assignment. We don’t have to wait for invitations to planning meetings. We can ask to be included. We can come with a menu of volunteer services and offer to plug volunteers into the spots that we know we can fill even when there is no request. Think of it as akin to being a personal shopper. Personal shoppers get to know their clientele and because they also know all the designer clothing lines, they can offer the outfits that flatter their clients’ body types.

Mindy continued. “I know who my volunteers are and what they are capable of. The rest of the staff in my organization can’t possibly know all I know about them. So, I figure, I can offer the volunteer service I know will work, versus constantly rejecting the requests that I can’t fill. The more I am proactive, the more respect our volunteers receive, and the more I can place volunteers who have a skill or passion in situations that are enjoyable for them. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

Mindy reinvented the way volunteer involvement is utilized in her organization. She stills receives traditional requests for volunteers, but now, she has taken on an activist role in promoting and controlling the ways her volunteers are assigned. “I’m trying to play to the strengths of my volunteers. They come with varied skill sets and I want to see those skills used.”

Volunteer management can be a passive position (receive requests, then fill them) or it can be an active position (seek ways to use the volunteers available based on their interests). On the surface this may seem like a no-brainer, but when Mindy stepped back and took a look at the way things were done in her organization, she really had an epiphany. “I had requests that were difficult to fill and I had volunteers who were not being utilized in the most advantageous way. It became clear that I needed to step my role up and become a part of the request process. I’m using the volunteers more efficiently now and I feel so much better about my work.”

Our roles can and need to expand. For instance:
Staff: Do you have a volunteer to stuff goodie bags?
OR:
Volunteer Coordinator: I see you’re putting together a brochure for services, I happen to have a volunteer who is a graphic designer. I think he could be persuaded to help you with that.

Because we’re somewhat like that personal shopper, we know our inventory of volunteers and how each one can enrich the ways our organizations serve our communities which will eventually lead to volunteer managers sitting at organizational planning tables.

Me? If I could afford a personal shopper, I would. They’re really good at their jobs and frankly, I’m not so great at picking out flattering outfits. Maybe staff members who put in requests would appreciate a knowledgeable personal shopper for volunteers too.
-Meridian

September 24, 2014
Just a Ripple I’m Seeing

One day a few weeks ago, I was on my cell phone walking down the hallway when I noticed a woman speaking to the front desk volunteer, Molly. While listening to the person on the other end of the phone, I watched the woman engage Molly in conversation. As I talked, my attention kept darting back to the woman at the front desk. There was something about her.. something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She looked familiar, and I wondered where I had seen her before. I thought that she might have been a former caregiver who we had helped. I see caregivers all the time when they come back and thankfully want to give back. I studied her face. Her eyes, they just had this crinkly way of smiling as she spoke. And her chin, it was just so familiar, but really her mannerisms spoke to me. It was like losing your memory and seeing a good friend again for the first time.
Curious, I came closer and heard her ask Molly about volunteering. Molly was handing the woman a packet of volunteer information, but as I approached,
Molly saw me and said, “oh here, here’s Meridian, she can tell you more about volunteering.”
I caught the woman’s eye and as she looked at me, I felt deja vu. “I’m Bree,” she said, holding out her hand and we shook. Her hand felt like favorite family. 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. Then she smiled a knowing smile. “My name is Bree Phillips and I’d love to volunteer here.” Hmm, I thought, the name rang no bell, and I wondered if maybe she had changed her name. Bree continued. “I just moved here to be near my mother after having been through a long divorce. Because Mom is getting older, 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, not recognizing the name Phillips, “who is your father?”
“George Keenon,” she said.
My mouth dropped open. “Your dad is George Keenon?”
“Yes,” she answered, “did you know him?”

Oh my gosh, it suddenly dawned on me, those eyes, her chin, the mannerisms, I was looking at a female version of George, a volunteer who was one of my all time favorite volunteers. 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 volunteered during a time when sadly, male volunteers were scarce and he stepped forward to fill requests for a male volunteer to help male patients. He 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 was asking to see Frank Sinatra, George entered the room and she looked at him with a smirk and said, “whoa, you really let yourself go!”
Bree listened to my stories of her father and told me that before he died, he recommended that she try volunteering 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 often and 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’ve got the time and I want to do something that lights me up the way it lit up my dad.”

Then last week, I had a new class of volunteers. In the class was a middle-aged woman named Holly Starfire. What an awesome name I thought as the volunteers introduced themselves. Holly was quiet, shy almost when it came time for her to comment on the icebreaker. “Why am I here?” she mused aloud. I think it’s because of my father who volunteered here a long time ago.”
“Who’s your father if I might ask,” I inquired.
“Hardy Pike.”
“What? Your dad is Hardy Pike?”
“Was,” she corrected. My dad died last year in Florida where he retired.”
Hardy Pike was a volunteer who, as a young man, had changed his name from David Toth to Hardy Pike because he liked the sound of it. It figured that he would name his daughter Holly Starfire. A big brute of a man, Hardy had blue-collar hands and a bohemian heart. He had built his own house from scratch and fixed heating and cooling units for a living. He loved fishing and poetry and could listen to anyone from little prim ladies to salty language gents. Hardy was an enigma. Everything about him pointed anywhere but volunteering, and yet, he faithfully committed to providing a pat on the back for the terminally ill.
“I grew up with a sense that the world is full of possibilities,” Holly told me, “and that giving back was more a possibility than a mandate. Dad spoke often about how good he felt when volunteering. He inspired me to find that too.”

Most of the time, we’ll never know the lasting impact volunteering has on our volunteers. There’s not a statistic for “volunteers who, in whatever area they live, go and volunteer because they’ve been inspired by someone we worked with”. We don’t hear the stories they tell their children. We can’t see their friends and relatives, who are inspired to go out and volunteer themselves. We’re not a droplet of water on the ripple, along for the ride. But if we’re lucky, we will get to meet a son or daughter or friend who comes because they want that meaningful experience they’ve heard so much about.
And, I figure, if I last long enough, I’m going to meet the next generation too.
-Meridan

September 17, 2014
The Incredible Shrinking Volunteer

Lately 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

September 10, 2014
The Volunteer Manager Mind or Volunteer Beef Wellington

After all these years, I still believe that everyone has the potential to help, that anyone is capable of becoming a great volunteer. I still think that each and every person who expresses just a hint of maybe perhaps it might be possible sometime later if I kinda sorta could be interested for only a wee bit of time is going to be the next volunteer of the year. How do I know that I truly deep in my soul believe this or am I just fooling myself? I truly know this because I know how my mind works.
See, my mind and I, we’ve gotten used to living with each other. It reminds me that I can’t take that fork from the restaurant and I yell at it because it forgets names, places and where I put my stress ball.
So I know I sincerely see everyone as volunteers reaching their potential because as I speak to them I get this visual. I sort of see their edges starting to sparkle, kind of like the way an excel spreadsheet cell sparkles when you hit copy. Then the volunteer, as they are talking, becomes a pseudo butcher’s diagram of their parts. Those parts are their skills, their interests, their personalities, their experience, their mindset, their availability, their aversions, their hidden dreams, their motivations, their personalities, quirks, etc. Then my pal, the mind, as it holds the sparkling cuts of volunteer, travels into the mind’s kitchen where it starts to look at all the available ingredients for this volunteer recipe. Hmmm, a dash of Tuesdays, with a sprinkling of creative license and some fresh clients that need a singer who studied in Paris and loves to draw pictures of cats on bicycles. Voila!

These volunteer diagrams are like the first ingredient in a fine recipe. Just as each part of a butcher’s diagram represents a steak or rib or filet which is the basis for hundreds of dishes like hamburgers and pot roast, our volunteer diagram represents the potential of the volunteer.
Now here’s the volunteer manager part: All the other ingredients in this unique volunteer recipe come from our ability to catalog and store vast amounts of extraneous ingredients in our mind’s kitchen. We remember that a client grew up in Hungary and loves baseball. We tuck away snips of conversations in the cabinets of our mind. A senior manager muses that it would be nice to see volunteers take part in a holiday chorus, or a staff member tells us how he could occasionally use a volunteer who is adept at stats.
We may overhear a snippet of a conversation about someone who wants to donate craft supplies. We shelve that near the knowledge that a student group wants to volunteer to help seniors who live alone. So when that new volunteer, Jamie sits down for an interview and we really start to get to know her, that sparkly edged diagram begins to appear. Jamie, a retired accountant who wants to give back to seniors, shares that she used to teach preschool while finishing her degree and says that it was one of her favorite experiences. Later in the conversation, Jamie shares that she relaxes by scrap booking and belongs to a craft group. Suddenly, those pieces of the diagram become the basis for a spectacular creation. Jamie is paired with the students and the donated goods. Jamie is the main ingredient in a recipe called “Project Senior/Student Crafting.”
Obviously, it is not that easy. Pieces of good ideas can languish for a long time. Everyday, we integrate volunteers into our organizations. But as we go about our everyday jobs, recruiting, retaining, and cultivating volunteers while filling a wide variety of requests and needs, we also stock bits and pieces of information in the spice cabinet of our minds.
And when those ingredients come together in a perfect way, I’m thinking it’s got to be similar to a chef creating a new signature dish.
As volunteer managers, we may often feel more like a short order cook in a non-stop busy diner, but in our hearts and minds we are that chef who sees the potential in every ingredient.
And when that new volunteer dish is savored by the people we are helping, we can step back, wipe the flour from our face and bask in the moment.
-Meridian

September 3, 2014
Of All Things, Teeth Cleaning

I just got my teeth cleaned. After Corey, the hygienist and I catch up on each other, I kinda use the time to close my eyes and think, usually about all the things I’ve forgotten to do. But this time, I was looking into my Corey’s eyes above her mask, backlit by that huge bulb. Those eyes look sad, I thought.
“What’s going on” I asked before she could put her fingers into my mouth. Her eyes jumped, puzzled. “What do you mean,” she asked, her hands retreating.
“You seem, I don’t know…”
“Tired?”
“Yes, maybe.”
“I’m not sleeping much,” she admitted.
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know, just so much work and it’s exhausting and I go home so so tired. Maybe it’s just the weather.” Her fingers came back.
Unable to ask more in words not garbled, I closed my eyes and my mind starting to drift, like a thought canoe down the Amazon River of figuring things out. I’d seen those eyes before, but where? The thought canoe continued to float through the heavy waters and I searched the shores of memories for answers, but I did not recognize anything slithering along the shore. The thought canoe drifted with the current and then a vibrant image flew into view. I’ve seen those eyes on volunteers, who were burnt out from so much taking in of strangers’ pain and suffering. Their volunteer eyes, ringed with the emotions trapped within, sometimes silently pleaded with me to give them a break and allow them to see the sun for a bit. I recalled volunteer Marie, who looked so bone weary one day I asked her to sit and talk. She confided that her husband was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The patient she volunteered for had Alzheimer’s and was an emotionally difficult case. Volunteer Jim’s eyes flew into view when he had four patients die in rapid succession. These volunteers wore the emotional toll on their faces. Corey’s eyes spoke volumes. She was bone weary, but why? I thought about her job and I saw her superimposed over the many volunteers and staff and bartenders and hairdressers and all the professions that hear so much. Corey’s job required her to be calming, gentle, soothing and that demeanor made her very much like the volunteers I work with everyday.
When the polishing stopped, I sat up, my mouth now mine to use. “Corey, do you hear a lot of stories from your patients?”
“Why yes, they all tell me things about their lives and sometimes they must have some really tough procedures and I just feel for them. Some can’t afford what they need and they tell me why. It’s sad.”
“What do you do with those stories, I mean, you, personally?”
Her eyes were puzzled, wary. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you go home and think about them?
“Oh, yes, all the time, my husband thinks I’m crazy, but I can’t help it. There are people who have hardships in their lives, people who have bad things happen to them. Sometimes I find myself thinking about them at bedtime and my mind just won’t quiet.”
Corey knows I work with volunteers. I told her about how we try to help our volunteers be able to purge so that they don’t think about death all the time. I told her that she, like our volunteers spends intimate time with her patients and they naturally open up to her and that she is taking in, absorbing their pains and frustrations. I told her I tell volunteers that in order to be successful, they have to learn how to empty their vessels of compassion or else they will suffer, both mentally and physically.
“How do you know this?” she asked, as she put the tools down.
“I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the effects of it. I’ve seen great volunteers become so immersed in a patient’s life that they infect their own. I’ve seen volunteers with the weight of the world on their shoulders who become inert because they can’t think about one more tragic circumstance. You’re not alone, Corey. You and all the hygienists here and everywhere are not alone in this.”
“But what do I do? What do your volunteers do?”
“They learn to be with someone 100% when with them and not 20% when they are not. Do you think that your worrying about your patients at night at home helps them?”
“No, I don’t suppose it does.”
“Do you think that your listening as someone who cares helps them?”
“Oh yes, I do think so, they tell me.”
“Then do you think that your listening to them has to translate into worrying about them later? And does that worrying help you be with your family or does it keep you at work?”
She thought for a moment. “I don’t know, but I see what you’re saying.”
At the end of the appointment, Cory hugged me and thanked me for listening to her, although I felt like I might have lectured her. I sure hope not.
See, the lessons we learn and share with our volunteers can be shared with anyone. These are life lessons, lessons in living, lessons in character, lessons in survival and lessons in humility. We, volunteer managers, can throw it out to the world and if the world wants to hear, then fine. We typically do not hoard the knowledge we’ve gained, just like we don’t hoard volunteering. We invite everyone to participate, to grow and learn and to teach us, because I believe that we are knowledge junkies and perhaps in some small way, we can share the things we have learned with our volunteers, other staff, family and friends and even the hygienist with the weary eyes.
-Meridian

August 13, 2014
Volunteering’s Big But

Chad is a volunteer for a public school system. A retired engineer, he has been working with students in the same fourth grade classroom for many years. Chad loves the challenge of helping students better understand complex math and he oftentimes serves as a surrogate grandfather. The kids call him “Chaddie”, a name that stuck because of his chatty nature. Jorge, the current fourth grade teacher chuckles when he speaks about Chad. “His enthusiasm is awesome and the kids love him. He has a great rapport with the kids and he certainly knows the subject inside and out. Sometimes though, he has these great ideas and he wants me to implement them, like for instance, he wanted to start a fundraiser for kids who couldn’t afford these cool extra math books and I told him, look, Chad, every fundraiser has to go through the PTA. We just can’t make up our own fundraisers. Chad can’t see that, he doesn’t deal with the bureaucracy like I do and frankly he shouldn’t have to because he’s a volunteer. When I tell him that we have to go through channels, he gets disappointed and says, ‘but the kids need it now.’ Sometimes I think he thinks I just don’t want to help him, and that’s not it. It gets frustrating when there are things out of my hands and a volunteer sort of argues with me. I get butted a lot because I don’t have the authority to just make things happen. I wish I could.”

Marie volunteers in a large nursing home. She is new to the facility and her activities director, Anna is happy to have her. “Marie is great, she sings to the residents and helps us with our activities twice a week, so we are really, really thankful. I think, though, because she’s new, she really doesn’t understand the tremendous rules and regulations we are under. Marie wants to be overly involved with some of the residents and is sometimes meddlesome in their family affairs. I try to explain to her that we have rules in place and really I wish she would just stick with singing and doing activities. She wants to do more and says, ‘but these people need more help.’ I can’t really disagree with her and yet, I can’t give her the green light to get involved. It’s difficult to explain to her and I don’t want to lose her. It’s frustrating.”

I was at a meeting with a group of volunteers last week. Each volunteer was reporting progress on their activities and when we came to Stan, who is a relatively new volunteer, Stan had a list in his hand. See, Stan brought his fresh ideas with him in a wheelbarrow of enthusiasm. He wanted to create a volunteer marketplace, kinda like a craigslist for volunteers. He wanted the organization to purchase camcorders to record volunteers in action, and on and on. “But, I’m a man who gets things done, he proclaimed and I smiled. Clearly I should be frustrated, but I wasn’t.

See, in the old days, these “buts” would frustrate the heck out of me. I would try to patiently explain to the unknowing volunteer that things moved slowly, that not all ideas would be accepted, blah, blah, blah. The explaining would frustrate the volunteer, which in turn would frustrate me. I began to picture a child asking a parent why he could not fly and the parent sighing while saying, “because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.” Now, I am in no way comparing a volunteer to a child, but I am comparing their raw enthusiasm to the wonderment in a child’s eyes. Volunteers who sign up to help do so with the wonderment of providing meaningful work. We, the volunteer managers are often put in the position of quashing that enthusiasm by dumping the spaghetti bowl of rules and policies on their heads. How sad, for them, for us and for the clients who would benefit from that sense of wonderment.

I’ve heard a lot of buts: “But it’s the right thing to do,” “but he needs the help,” “but who will know,” “but what’s the big deal” and “but are we here to help or not?” What’s frustrating now about the buts is for the most part, I agree with them and find myself having to “spin” replies in order to tow the company line, for instance, saying, “It’s a great idea, Stan, but we must go through several committees for approval before we can do anything.” I think our frustration at having to curb enthusiastic volunteers comes more from our own frustration at our respective organization’s spaghetti bowl of rules and policies than from our volunteers wanting to purely help. I think for me, at least, when I hear a volunteer say, “but we should be doing more”, I completely agree.

I often picture volunteer managers in my head as the guardian, shield in hand, protecting the volunteers from the nonsense, aka, the politics of an organization so that the volunteers can comfortably do the pure work. The less nonsense we share with them, the better their experience.
For my own sanity, I’ve learned to not let the buts frustrate me. Instead, I let the buts carry me back to the days when I was new and full of wonderment. I loved those days and frankly, why should I give them up when they fill me with joy and wonder? I’ve now made it my mission to try and help each volunteer see their idea at least be heard and tried in some form if at all possible. This means I may not get to those reports as quickly or to that pile of paperwork in a timely manner.
Now, don’t get me wrong, those reports and paperwork are part of my job, but they contain no wonderment at all, do they?
-Meridian

July 30, 2014
And the Award Goes to…

Periodically people send me forms to nominate a volunteer for some sort of recognition and award. Immediately I think, “oh good, a chance to showcase the volunteers,” then I start to mentally scroll through the volunteers, looking for that perfect one to nab that coveted engraved plaque. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the retelling of a volunteer’s deeds is as much a part of their winning as the actual deeds themselves. Their story needs to grab the judge, or it should show the overcoming of the odds, or it needs to be some unusual type of volunteering. It seems as though dismissing the every day volunteering in order to award reality TV type volunteering is the antithesis of good, solid volunteering, but everyday good work is just not very exciting, is it?
There are any number of volunteers who would make great candidates for that cute trophy, but their day-to-day boring altruism does not quite merit a second look by judges who can’t experience their stories firsthand. These volunteers will never walk up on that podium and never hold that lump of highly polished metal, but in my mind’s eye, they hold so much more.

So, here and now, I nominate these volunteers for “Heroes Amongst Us.”

I nominate Madge, for the Hero With Guts award. Madge told me a few weeks ago that she would be cutting down on her volunteering in our crafts program. See, Madge was at a gas station where she met a man, Harold. buying a sandwich. They struck up a conversation in which Harold said that he had just lost his home and was living in his van. Harold appeared to be in his late fifties, and had fallen on hard times after losing a job and dealing with cancer. “He was so honest,” Madge said, “so completely void of complaints that I asked him if he would accept a few dollars from me and he refused. He said he had a bit of savings left, but needed to completely recover from cancer before he could find a job again. And I don’t know what possessed me, but I told him to follow me home, that I had a spare room he could sleep in until he got on his feet.” Madge shook her head at what the rest of the world would perceive as folly and smiled. “His cancer came back with a vengeance. He has no one, so I’m going to care for him until he dies.”

I nominate Sheri and Paul for the Heroes Who Love More award. Several years ago, Sheri took a job in a large nursing home as a receptionist. Widowed for a number of years, Sheri had raised her four children and was now an empty nester at age 53. Having worked in a corporate world, she wanted to slow down a bit and savor a job that took a different set of people skills. She embraced the residents, and in between duties, spent time listening to each one as they wheeled by her station. “And then one day, I saw him,” Sheri said, her eyes coming alive at the memory, “Paul, a resident with MS. He was being wheeled into the dining room by one of the staff. He looked up at me with the most devilish grin. At that moment, I knew I had to talk to him.” And talk they did. Paul was only 48, a younger man with no family in a sea of another generation’s Big Band Music and Ice Cream Shoppes. They got to know one another in between her phone calls and other duties and Sheri fell in love. “He didn’t belong there, not in my mind,” she said. And so, she married him, took him out of the facility and into her home. That was ten years ago. Sheri and Paul volunteer together. Although they are careful not to take assignments that might physically tax Paul, the two of them are dedicated inspirational volunteers. Paul is one of the funniest men ever and it is easy to see why Sheri lights up when she takes his arm. “We have faith,” she says, “faith in a higher power’s order of things and faith in each other. I don’t know what will come in five or ten years, and I don’t care. We have one another.”

These are our volunteers. They are folks from down the street, across the bridge and beyond the sea. They look at life as how they fit into the scheme of things, how they can make the world better for unseen children. They cast a wide net of kindness and we are lucky to occupy a small corner of that net.

There’s Brad, who cared for two wives with debilitating illnesses. When I would talk to him on the phone, he’d be soothing his wife so gently that I couldn’t believe this was the same man who ran a company.
There’s Simone, who, after volunteering for a single mother, went out and started a small non-profit to help single mothers.
There’s Ginny, who, at the young age of 17 is helping care for a sick brother while attaining straight A’s in her studies.
I could go on and on and I bet you can too. What awards will these volunteers ever hold? How many hours helping mankind are not counted and are we, the volunteer manager who sees their kindness spread like cream stirred into coffee, content with just the knowing?

Volunteer Awards are normally based on what is done. If, instead, awards were based on the core of a volunteer’s being, on who they are, it would be impossible to pick any one person over another. And maybe, that would be the point.
-Meridian

July 23, 2014
Little Gray Lies

“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

July 16, 2014