volunteerplaintalk

Tag: volunteer retention

  • Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma!

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

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

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

  • Management 601

    Belushi“Hey, not everyone is cut out to be a manager,” said my friend, Rennie, who works in the finance department of a large charity organization. She occasionally uses a volunteer to help with end of year reports, and adds, “the volunteers are always so wonderful to work with and our volunteer manager, Chase is awesome. But volunteers are not my problem. My problem is we have a new senior manager in our department, Bridget, who was hired to make our financial processes flow more smoothly. And since she’s gotten here, our department is miserable and everyone talks about quitting. It’s demoralizing.”
    “What is it about her management that is so bad?” I asked.

    “Well, when she first got here, she gathered our department together and told us what a great bunch we were and how excited she was to be working with us. She said she’d heard great things about us and that she wanted to learn from us.”
    “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
    “Yeah, but that was then. Now when our department meets, she tells us what a great bunch we are and then proceeds to rip into each one of us for something we did not do correctly or on time or according to her schedule. It’s apparent that the praise is just generic lip service while the criticisms are specific and targeted. We used to be a happy, productive department. Now, we are just defeated.”

    I feel for Rennie. Her senior manager seems to have been sleeping during management 101, which got me to thinking about volunteer managers. Where are we in the management curriculum, if 101 is your basic course? I’m thinking that the vast majority of volunteer managers passed the first five years and are completing management 601 on the way to a master’s degree.

    Why do I think that? Well, I’ve compiled a list of the skills we have honed by working with volunteers. Here’s just a few of those skills: See if you agree.

    Volunteer managers have mad leadership skills. We inspire, encourage, cultivate and mentor people. We believe that our volunteers will do amazing things and we develop their strengths instead of focusing on their weaknesses.

    Volunteer managers immerse themselves in outcomes. We keep statistics and prepare reports, but our bottom line is always about the human results. Because our eyes are on the work of the mission, we instill the joy and meaning of helping in our volunteers which creates excellence. When our volunteers do pure work, the stats and reports just naturally follow.

    Volunteer managers think “in the long run” terms. We build teams for long-term help, and not just for today’s assignment. Our hard up front work is meant to retain satisfied volunteers. Because we can’t just hire a replacement for a volunteer who quits, we make sure that our existing volunteers have what they need to succeed. We don’t “use” volunteers, but rather, we support them so that they remain committed to our cause.

    Volunteer managers stimulate growth. We are open to new ideas, new ways to help our clients and routinely look to recruit people with diverse backgrounds and fresh ways of doing things.

    Volunteer managers are expert mediators. We are the middle men in almost every assignment. We negotiate between clients and volunteers, and volunteers and staff. We quickly learn the art of persuasion, and the ability to deliver a negative message without hurting feelings. We are skilled at compromise to get jobs done.

    Volunteer managers operate with clarity. We know we will not keep volunteers if messages and instructions are not clear, so we frame every instruction so that it is clear. We know that muddied messages can ruin a volunteer experience and cause the volunteer to quit.

    Volunteer managers are critical thinkers. We have to meet challenges in a timely manner and so we have highly developed problem solving skills in order to succeed. We keep file cabinets full of pertinent information in our minds and databases so that we can cross think to find the best solution to any volunteer involvement. We can offer the best volunteer for a job, because we know that volunteer’s skills and abilities and can match those to a situation.

    Volunteer managers are chameleons. We can adapt and change quickly. We know what tone to take and can switch from light-hearted to serious in a moment as the situation warrants. It’s silly, but we are kinda like the Christmas tree lights with so many different settings and we’re constantly on the “all” setting so that we can fit into any mood.

    This list is just a portion of the skill set possessed by volunteer managers. There are so many more and unlike our compatriots in human resources, we must develop and use many more people skills to recruit, lead and keep our volunteers.
    People ask what is our volunteers’ substitute for a paycheck? We say that it is the meaningful work that keeps our volunteers coming back. But also, please remember, that in part, it is the vast skill set of the volunteer manager that fills the void of not receiving a paycheck.
    Instead of monetary compensation, our volunteers receive a meaningful volunteer experience thanks to the leadership of volunteer managers who are constantly growing in skills to help make that meaningful experience happen.
    -Meridian

  • There Are No Shortcuts

    two pathsThere’s one thing every volunteer manager knows. There are no shortcuts to volunteer management. Nope, no easy path, no automatic pilot, no kick back and let it go. No, we actually put some effort into matching volunteers with assignments. Yep, we actually go so far as to try to get as much information on the assignment so that we can not only find the best volunteer, but also to make sure the 80-year-old volunteer who just had knee surgery doesn’t end up standing hours in the hot sun at a health fair.
    We trust our instincts, and our instincts tell us not to take shortcuts, to check, recheck, and then follow-up. It’s called retention, or self-preservation, because if you put some good up front work into volunteers, you hate to lose them because they were given bad directions and instead of arriving at a client’s house, they end up at the wrong house where a “deal” is being made and then they are never seen or heard from again, but their car is fished from the lake three days later.
    The shortcut path of just simply handing volunteer Dave an assignment is fraught with pitfalls. One or two “what am I supposed to be doing, exactly” and “who’s in charge here” and poof! Dave falls off the rope bridge into the piranha infested river of “I quit” below.
    Jolene is a volunteer coordinator for a small hospice. “Recently, we started a pet therapy program,” she said. “I recruited my first volunteer, Beth and her dog, Chick. Beth works for a local veterinarian and has a lot of contacts with the therapy dog groups in our area so I was really pleased to recruit her. When we talked, Beth told me about a few horror stories she’s had trying to take Chick, her black lab, into hospitals.”
    Jolene continued, “I could see that Beth was hesitant about bringing Chick into our program, because she was afraid that we would give her poor directions or ignore her when she needed us, the two things that happened to her on her own. So, I assured her that this would not happen with us and I set up a time to meet her at a nursing home where we see patients. At the time, we were taking care of three patients in this nursing home, I’ll call ‘Shady Rest.’ So I called Shady Rest and asked to speak to the activities director, Deena. Deena took my call and I explained that I would be meeting a pet therapy volunteer at her nursing home and that I would love it if Deena could join us. She agreed. So, a week later, I pulled up at Shady Rest a bit early so that I could talk to Deena about any pitfalls like residents that might be afraid of a dog and so forth. I walked into the nursing home and there was no one at the reception desk. I stood for a moment, and nodded to the few residents sitting in the lobby and then walked around a corner to find someone to ask where Deena’s office was. I found a woman in an office on the phone, who pointed and said, ‘down the hall’, so I headed down the hallway, looking for a sign. I found the activities room, but it was locked up and the lights were off, so I returned to the lobby. There was still no receptionist, so I returned to the lady in the office who had directed me and she agreed to page Deena. I went out to the lobby again, checked my watch and sat down and waited. A few minutes later, the lady from the office came out and said that Deena was really busy right now, but to go ahead and visit the patients.
    As I was listening, I kept thinking about Beth and how she would have perceived all this if she had come alone for the first time. This was probably the kind of experience she had already. I was so glad I was there to walk with her down this path. By the time Beth arrived with Chick, I had scoped out all the patients’ rooms, had found a place where other residents were gathered and talked to a few of the staff. I walked with Beth through the facility and we had a decent time. Deena managed to come out for a few minutes to introduce herself so that was good. Beth felt comfortable enough to decide that she could come once a week and so it was a success. But had I not been there, I can’t imagine that Beth would have stayed long enough to figure things out. Good thing I was there.”
    While volunteers are capable people, they still require specific directions and when they do not receive them, the volunteers will eventually quit. Knowing how much effort goes into recruiting volunteers, we have no time for poor directions or faulty treatment. We’ve all had to apologize to a volunteer who has had a bad experience because their assignment was not properly planned out. We’ve had the morning visits from volunteers who were inconvenienced the day before. Sometimes you just know you need to pick up every phone call and greet with, “Hello, let me begin by apologizing to you right up front.”
    When I try to explain how important clear directions are and why I spend so much time on the check and recheck, I often have staff members ask, “yes, but if the volunteers can’t adapt to a little inconvenience, then they really aren’t meant to volunteer, right?”
    To which I say, “that’s not it at all. Volunteers come to be of help, to know their volunteering has meaning, not only for our clients but to help the burden of overworked staff. Being sent on wild goose chases says to the volunteer, ‘THIS JOB IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT’.”
    Our volunteers are not prima donnas. They don’t look for special treatment. But they are looking for clarity and meaning. It’s the very least we can give them.
    -Meridian

  • Just Put That in My Bag

    junk drawer“Freebies,” volunteer coordinator Sara lamented. “Our staff thinks of volunteers as freebies. They think I have a bag full of volunteers and when one is needed, I just reach in and pull off the wrapper.” Sara continued, ” I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love freebies, like the BOGOs (buy one get one) or get a free cruise if you listen to our sales pitch or a free flashlight to the first 100 customers. Freebies are great, but they’re just, well freebies. I didn’t pay for them, and maybe I didn’t want them in the first place. I certainly don’t value them that much.”
    That conversation got me to thinking about how we view volunteers in our organizations. Sara is right. There is very little investment on our part in freebies. Someone hands you something in the mall or at a conference. All you had to do was show up, therefore, you place little value on that item, because, after all, it’s free.
    So how do organizations view volunteers in this context? Do organizations view volunteers as the junk in the bottom of the plastic bag after attending a conference? You know, the free trinkets handed out like the assortment of band-aid holders, wet wipes, and lip balm which is all just more stuff to deal with in a busy life, stuff that has no real meaning except to advertize a logo?
    Are volunteers the rubber jar opener that we throw in the junk drawer until we might need it one day? And, if so, how do we make volunteers the substance of an organization and not the free stuff? Let’s take conferences and symposiums for example. There are conferences and symposiums which are geared specifically towards the volunteer sector. That’s really nice, but who is attending these symposiums? I doubt very many administrators of non-profits are attending. We, the volunteer managers are attending.
    Our own volunteer themed symposiums are pretty much like the lip balms and band-aid holders holding their own symposiums year after year. “Yeah, how do we make a better lip balm, maybe one with more sunscreen?” “Maybe we should make the band-aid holders green instead of yellow this year.” And yet, the lip balm and band-aid holders end up in the bottom of the bag once again. Do symposiums not geared solely towards volunteerism have substantive volunteer components? Would a conference on health actually feature volunteers presenting a workshop? Horrors, volunteers aren’t experts, are they now?
    When will volunteers and volunteerism be truly integrated into the missions and not just a freebie afterthought? When will the “free stuff”(volunteers) be more than fluff?
    Well, I was chatting with a retired business executive, Charles, who is married to a friend of mine. He politely listened to me lament about the “silo” of volunteering, taking in my ramblings as he slowly raised an eyebrow at my frustration. ” You know, we were in the business of selling our products and all things worked towards that end,” he said. “You want to sell your product, AKA, volunteers, to the rest of your team and to the community around you. Some of the ideas we used to sell products might work for you too.” He went on, “businesses give out free samples to high influence customers, newspapers, bloggers and reviewers in hopes of getting a positive review or testimonial. Those positive reviews are proven to work, to create buzz, to make people want your product. People trust reviews by others who have actually taken the time to do a review. Maybe you can do the same with volunteer services and staff.”
    “I have no idea how to do that,” I admitted.
    “Look,” he said, “you want everyone in your organization to appreciate all the things volunteers do for your clients. But, does staff actually see or hear about all these great things? Do they engage with all the volunteers? Are they aware of how much volunteers help, aside from some meaningless statistics?”
    “No,” I said, “they don’t.” And, I thought, they don’t want to sit through some lecture about all the great things volunteers are doing. So, how to engage them, show them? Well, there are volunteer managers out there doing some pretty creative things.
    A volunteer coordinator I know says he has pictures of his volunteers in a book for staff and visitors to look at and get to know each volunteer as a person. He calls the book, “Volunteer Team Members.”
    Another volunteer coordinator polls her clients for testimonials to showcase how much volunteer involvement means to the people receiving it. She shares these testimonials at every staff meeting.
    Another coordinator publishes a monthly menu of volunteer services so that staff can pick from the different offerings and subsequently get to know all the great things volunteers are doing.
    A tech savvy coordinator has a twitter hashtag specifically for his volunteers to share their amazing work. He encourages all staff to check in on the hashtag.
    And yet another volunteer manager takes videos of volunteers telling stories about their favorite volunteer memory. These are available to staff on a private channel.
    Some coordinators publish newsletters, make scrapbooks and invite volunteers into meetings to share their stories.
    Others ask staff to help with training, so that staff has a “stake” in volunteers from the beginning.
    All these great examples are helping to make some headway into integrating volunteers as productive members of their teams. Truth be told, we have an uphill battle here. How can the lip balm and band-aid holder become more than “junk drawer bottom dwellers?” When non-profit staff think of volunteers as equal members of the team.
    When will I know that’s happened?
    When I walk into a mainstream conference and see a session given by volunteers.
    -Meridian

  • A Moved Problem is Still A Problem

    volgredients“I won’t work with her.” Camille’s matter of fact tone belied her conviction. Camille was adamant. “No one will work with her, she’s impossible.”
    Here’s a not so shocking news flash. Volunteers talk amongst themselves. We discover this when they tell us things we know we did not tell them. They discuss us, the work, the organization, the staff, the clients and each other. Volunteers have standards. They will put up with our forgetfulness, our shoddy instructions, our missing their birthdays, our failure to call them back right away and our stressful demeanor. They are patient and understanding with clients and overworked staff. But they draw the line when it comes to having to routinely work with someone they cannot get along with.

    It’s not just volunteers either. I have a very good friend, Judy who works in a not for profit finance department. Last month she called me one day, upset because a new person was entering her department. “It’s Syl from PR. She’s unhappy in her job and so they are moving her over to my department. What a nightmare this is going to be.”
    Judy went on to lament that the entire organization knows that Syl is a “gossip, backstabber and self-proclaimed know it all.”
    “Instead of getting rid of her, or forcing her to actually do her job, they shuffle her around and now it’s our turn. I cringe when thinking about listening to her non stop chatter every day.”
    I feel for Judy. I’ve endured shuffled employees and wondered why they were moved from spot to spot instead of weeded out. They enter a department, wreak havoc and move on, leaving the bruised and bleeding stalwart staff behind. They complain that “the other guy” is at fault and that they really just want to help. They rip apart the seams holding the fabric of a working team and cause stress. They are truly poison.

    I’ve also tried moving volunteers who can’t get along with other volunteers. There are the chatty ones (actually they are beyond chatty, they really never quit talking), the grumpy, picky ones, the know it all ones and the complainers. I’ve tried talking to them and tried appealing to the kind nature of the new group they are joining. But eventually things start to fall apart a few days or weeks after the volunteer in question tries to modify their behavior for a bit. Their new group of volunteers may really, really put on their compassion overalls and welcome the new person but then the egregious behavior just creeps back in like a criminal returning to the scene. Pretty soon the new group is unraveling too. That’s when you start to wonder how many groups of volunteers you can have lying in tatters before you stop moving one person around.

    This is one area in which we agonize as leaders of volunteers. We can’t alter personalities. We try to bring out the best in everyone and we spend hours of effort cultivating our volunteers, getting to know their strengths and how they work with each other. We mix them together like a chef creating his signature dish. Each volunteer is a distinct ingredient, a volgredient if you think about it. A pinch of Joyce with a base of Marguerite and for a dash of spice, there’s Mike. Yum, what a wonderful concoction they are. But sometimes we have a volgredient that just clashes with all the others. Think about a chef creating a dish out of a fermented duck egg. There’s got to be something to make it palatable we think. Maybe that volunteer can work alone (if they agree of course) or maybe they can work with us (if we have the energy) or maybe they just have to time themselves out and realize that there may not be a place for them. Sometimes we just can’t find a dish to mix in the volgredient and so we have to shelve them until they either ripen or change.
    As leaders of volunteers, we feel personally responsible for their failures and chide ourselves for not finding that spot where they can shine. We see everyone as having the potential to do great things. Do you realize what an amazing statement that is? We see everyone as having the potential to do great things.
    Every great dish came about because a visionary chef created it. He/She dared to pair unlikely ingredients together. So, cook on my friends. Your view of volgredients makes you creative, compassionate and adventurous. Not every dish will be award winning and sometimes you must take out a volgredient, but as you taste each creation, your finely honed palate will serve you well.
    Bon appetit!
    -Meridian

  • The Shaping of Volunteers

    child with flowerWith Mothers Day still fragrant from all the vases of flowers and all the leftovers from dinners out, I started thinking about the stories volunteers have told me about their mothers. I have a friend who laughingly tells me that people volunteer because they were wild in their youth and are now making up for it, and for a few volunteers I know that’s true because they have said it. But most stories the volunteers tell are great yarns, the kind of stories that feel like they are coming from a huge book, read while you sit on the floor, hands propping up your chin.

    Annabel told me that her mom was so old-fashioned that when she met her husband to be, Ben, her mother gave her firm, ‘not to be ignored’ instructions. See Annabel, an only child was 14 and Ben, a mature 17 fell in love at a country picnic. He began to court her by showing up at her house, hat in hand, a polite “yes ma’am” on his lips. Her mother and father looked Ben over, decided to give him the chance to prove his worth and they let the two young people get to know each other. “And my mother,” Annabel said, “Oh my mother gave me lots of advice. She told me what to wear, how to act and what to say to be a nice girl, a good catch for this gangly almost grown man who I was head over heels in love with. But she also had stern rules for me too. I could only kiss Ben five times on a date. When I told him that rule, he laughed, but he obeyed out of respect for my mother. We were married when I was 16 and we’ve been married 65 years now and we often talk about my mother and how much she loved both of us. Mother was a strong woman, fair and loving. Ben and I could not have children so we adopted four. My mother was a wonderful grandmother to them. It was because of her that I adopted children and now want to help others.”

    Corine came to volunteer two years after her mother died. Corine, a divorced woman with no children, lived with her mother until her mother’s death two years before. She often speaks of her mother who was her best friend, citing the sacrifices her mother made for the family. “My mother was raised in an orphanage and did not ever know her real family. She put herself through business school and raised myself and my sister. We never wanted for anything and although I know my mother struggled, we never ever knew that. My mother helped anyone and everyone, from our neighbors, to down on their luck strangers who she gave probably her only spending money to. I lived with her for 20 years until her death. She was my best friend, my confidant and although I miss her every day, she was the one that told me I must go on living. Because she was such a good person, I want to be that good person too.”

    Grace speaks of her mother wistfully. “My mom was dealt a blow no mom should ever suffer. My brother Jay was killed in Vietnam at the age of 19. I was only 14 at the time and I still remember the funeral. How my mother and father cried. My mother grieved her whole life but she never let it affect the rest of us kids. She never let his memory hold us in the past. Rather, we kept his memory with us, as we moved forward and my mother lived for us and for him. On his birthday and on holidays my mother would slip away for a bit and sit in Jay’s room and cry. She cried her tears of pain and then powdered her face and joined the family. My mother was strong and loving and she taught me that heartache could not diminish love nor spirit. After my husband died, I was devastated, but I picked myself back up and decided to live. I volunteer in honor of her.”

    Greg told me that he and his brothers and sisters grew up in the hills of Tennessee. “Early in their marriage, my father had an accident at work and was disabled so that meant my mother had to be the sole provider for our family. I can remember the hard times, when we would take a walk up to the store and buy a pound of flour and a pound of sugar so that we could make flapjacks and homemade syrup for dinner. Mom worked, sewed our clothes, made our food, helped us with our homework and cared for Dad. She never complained. She died at the age of 54 and I think she lived two lifetimes of work and responsibility in her 54 years. I remember though, laying in bed and Mom singing us to sleep. Her voice calmed my fears and told me that, although times were hard, I was loved and safe. I want others to feel that way.”

    In our profession, we have this wonderful opportunity to engage with our volunteers. The vast majority of them are amazing human beings and getting to know them is a glimpse into the stories that shape them. Listening to them speak of their mothers is like hearing the singing of a tale or the recitation of an epic poem. These stories are enlightening and inspiring. I wish I could meet those mothers.
    If I could meet them I would tell them thank you for shaping our volunteers minds and hearts. I would say to them, “I wish you could see the wonderful person your child has become. I know you would be proud.”
    -Meridian

  • The Song of the Weathered Explorer

    newell-convers-wyeth-the-rakish-brigantine-sea-captain-in-stormVolunteer Appreciation week has always been a chance to reconnect with volunteers. There are those you see every day, those you talk to on the phone weekly, and those you only see at meetings. Each volunteer takes the right amount of interaction, praise and mental follow-up. Don’t think for a moment that an event is easy, so if after an event your head is swimming, that’s normal. Events take finesse and each volunteer that comes up to you takes a minute or two of intense volunteer retention. It’s worth every moment but it is exhausting.

    There are a few volunteers who do not attend meetings, and they prefer to bob out there on the volunteering sea, wind in face, their hands skillfully steering them through storm and calm. They take little to no management interference for they have impeccable motivation, mad skills and they’ve circumnavigated the globe of helping far longer than they’ve been managed. Open their brains and a tide of experience comes gushing out. They are the historians, the pioneers, the explorers who have led the way in your organization.
    I encountered Jenna at an event during volunteer appreciation week. I hadn’t seen her in quite some time so I was thrilled that she came. Jenna and I go way, way back. She was one of the first volunteers I recruited to work at a hospice house about 20 years ago. Jenna, a British transplant, married an American man and spent time tutoring local high school students in the fine art of composition. I even got to attend her swearing-in ceremony when she became a citizen. Back in the day, we roamed the halls of the house, imagining volunteer programs while caring for patients as we went. It was new territory to discover and Jenna was fired up to be in the middle of something unique and innovative.
    Several years later, Jenna moved and she ended up visiting nursing homes in her new area. Another volunteer coordinator was now involved with Jenna and occasionally I talked to her new manager, Shelby, about how Jenna was doing.
    “Fine, just fine,” Shelby would always say. “She pretty much keeps to herself though. I don’t have a lot of dealings with her. Sometimes I’m just happy if she comes to a meeting. But she does turn in her paperwork and the patients love her.”
    Hmmmm. These conversations never felt like we were speaking about Jenna, at least not the Jenna I knew. But I always requested my hello be passed on to her.
    So, during volunteer appreciation week, Jenna surprised me. She snuck up behind me as I was checking people in and popped me on the back. “Jenna!” I yelled and gave her a big hug. “Wow, I didn’t know you were coming!”
    “I was in town,” she said, and smiled. “I figured you’d be here and I wanted to say hi.”
    “I’m so glad you did,” I returned, genuinely pleased to see her.
    Since the event took up time and effort, Jenna sat with some long-term volunteers that she knew. But after the event was over, she hung around and helped clean up.
    “So, how’s it going?” I asked. “I heard you were visiting nursing homes. That must be pretty awesome for you.” I said as I crumbled up paper tablecloths.
    “Yeah, it’s ok,” she offered, a bit half heartedly. “I love the patients, don’t get me wrong.” She stared at a candy dish.
    “Then what is it?” I asked putting aside my cleaning.
    “It isn’t, it just isn’t the same.” she said. “Don’t you miss those days when we first started? How the atmosphere was so exciting and we were the first ones to create so many things? All of us, staff and volunteers, we were in it together, we had this incredible chemistry and we did amazing work.” She traced the top of the dish. “I miss it. It just isn’t the same. I feel so, so ordinary.”
    I put my hand on her back. “You, my friend, are an amazing, wonderful volunteer. We never could have done half the things we did without your vision and enthusiasm. Sure, I miss it. I miss you, too.”
    She looked at me and I wondered where explorers go after they’ve discovered whatever it was they were looking for.
    “Jenna,” I offered, “things have changed. Goodness knows, they’ve changed a lot and we couldn’t do today what we did back then. But you have so much to offer. Look at all you’ve done. That Jenna is still there. Still waiting to reconnect and imagine.”
    “I think I might want to try some different volunteering.” She said it almost as a question, as though she might be disloyal.
    She looked like a little girl who has been down in the claustrophobic cabin of the boat, itching to get her hands on the wheel and steer somewhere exciting.
    “You should. Go for it, you don’t have to cling to this. Go out and find a fledgling volunteer group and do amazing things.”
    She gave me a hug. “Thank you. And thank you for understanding.” As she popped a chocolate in her mouth she asked, “you do feel it, don’t you? It’s not the same, right? I’m not crazy.”
    “No, you are most certainly not crazy. I feel it. But things never remain the same. And neither do we. So, grow, my friend and don’t look back.”
    With that she walked out. I’m certain she will find another spot to volunteer. Whether she can recapture the excitement of newness and innovation remains to be seen.
    So, until I hear from her, I will just picture her, spray in face, hands on the wheel, steering for the horizon and whatever new territory lies out there.
    -Meridian

  • Retinal Scan Anyone?

    Frankenstein (1931)Background checks. They have become a permanent part of our volunteer manager lives. Now, don’t get me wrong, I see the reasons for doing them, but they are not done by our waving the magic wand. Sometimes they don’t even get done for reasons out of our control after we’ve spent a whole bunch of time trying to set them up. Then the volunteer process drags on. And on and on until we forget we have a prospective volunteer or they give up. That’s frustrating for everyone.
    See, I come from the early days, before background checks. (“Want to volunteer, fine, step up. I can’t imagine you have anything to hide.”) It makes me think back to one of the first volunteers I had the pleasure of working with, Joe McDermit. Joe was the kind of guy who did whatever he thought necessary, and he had already been volunteering for years when I came on the scene. Joe taught me (or should I say scared me) about the individuality of volunteers. A couple of weeks after I arrived, one of the staff members pulled me aside and said that she had seen Joe driving our patient down the road. “That wasn’t the problem,” she added, “but Joe’s passenger door was missing.” Well, I thought, isn’t this going to be an interesting job?
    To be fair, I also remember the day I was talking to a family member and she asked, “are your volunteers back ground checked?” At that point, we had begun conducting the checks, so I could honestly say yes. That felt pretty good and I realized that we were going in the direction our clients needed us to go in. I’ve been privy to criminal records for a long time and they are interesting to read. There’s history, emotion and back story in every one of those reports. I really hate having to tell someone we can’t take them, but risk management is all about, well, risk. However we feel about it, we have to think in terms of liability. (Did you know that your volunteer was jailed for resisting arrest with violence when she hit that client? Hmmmm, explain that one. But she seemed very nice and sincere doesn’t cut it in a lawsuit.)
    Fingerprints are another matter. Someone has to actually capture the volunteers’ fingerprints. Did you know that our fingerprints are hard to record when we get older because our skin is drier? Of course you know that. You’ve had those complaints. What if the person conducting the fingerprinting is not nice to the volunteers? What if the fingerprinting person goes on vacation or is back logged? Then volunteers have to wait and they may lose interest. What if they are afraid of what might show and they bring you “proof” that charges from 1988 were bogus? (Sadly, these things don’t go away willingly, the information sticks around to make a life miserable).
    I’m thinking that in the future, we will have to do drug screening too. Will this make it difficult for volunteer managers to recruit folks? Probably. I know a volunteer coordinator whose volunteer mentioned that she smokes marijuana occasionally at home and she does not live in Colorado. What to do with no mandatory drug test? What about background psychological information? How about those folks who have spent time in a rehab, or mental facility or are recovering addicts? Will we be testing or searching for that as well?
    So, on that note, I’ve decided that when I retire, I’m going to go into the business. I imagine there’s a ton of money to be made in checking out the backgrounds of volunteers. I’m going to call it VolunCleanse, the all-inclusive volunteer background check. I’m going to buy an old tanning bed and refit it with all the equipment I need to guarantee that pesky potentially lawsuit inducing volunteer is clean. Here’s how I envision working with a potential volunteer:
    “Hello, Jake, so you want to volunteer at the library, do you? Well, let’s just see whether or not you can pass this highly sensitive cleansing test. Think you can fool the cleanse o meters? Get into this state of the art deception detecting unit and just try to keep information from me. Muahhaaaahaha!”

    So, Jake lays down in the tanning bed and the large lid creaks shut. I throw the switch and tell Jake to place his hands on the crackling lid above, thus capturing his fingerprints.
    Needles come from the side and his DNA is extracted while his hair is sucked into a hole in the bed and a few strands are pulled out with follicles intact. Oops! Maybe it was more like a clump, but the bleeding is mopped up with a sponge that serves as a specimen. A retinal scan flashes across his face while truth serum is administered into his mouth as he yells “ow”. As the truth serum takes effect, a monitor shows him Rorschach blots and he is instructed to quickly identify each image. A silky voice intermittently asks, “are you sure you don’t see something sinister from your past?” After the serum has settled, Jake is subjected to a series of questions probing his background. A biometric scanner notes how many sweat beads pop up on Jake’s brow. Then Jake is left to recover while some soothing music is played and he drifts off the sleep for a few minutes. At some point in the future, there will be a memory erasing device to wipe away all the unpleasant thoughts from this assault on human dignity. I’ll be charging big money for this service. After all, good volunteers are clean volunteers.
    For now, though, we’ll still try to assess volunteers by our old methods, like interviews, observing, and careful cultivation. But at least we won’t have to worry about their past lives, because risk management is here to help. Always minimize the risk.
    I’m forced to think of a conversation I had with a thirty something woman who had a mess on her background check. “How’s a person who has changed her life around supposed to catch a break?” she asked me and I had no answer for her. Inside my head, I pictured Joe McDermit cruising down the road with a client hanging out his door. But, you know, those clients absolutely loved Joe and so did I.
    I looked at this young woman and knew that if I took her, I would be violating every liability no-no there was. I also knew that I was a part of the society that wasn’t giving her a second chance. I offered her some volunteer work that didn’t involve patients.
    Now, I have no say over background results. They go through a large clearing house where trolls in overcoats throw darts at a board for all I know.
    Step into the VolunCleanse machine. It knows all, but doesn’t care.
    -Meridian

  • Living in an Inside Out World

    you have never really livedJack is a part-time manager of volunteers at a large animal rescue shelter. His Volunteers do everything from checking animals in to cleaning habitats, interviewing perspective adoptive owners, marketing and raising funds. Besides his volunteer manager duties, Jack is also entrusted with managing the shelter, which is oftentimes a seven-day work week. Jack recalled a day not that long ago that resonated with him. He remembered, “It was a day when major donors were going to be touring the facility. Our parent organization was also sending senior management to have a catered lunch with the donors in our conference room. Volunteers were expected to act as hostesses for the event, and I admit, that pretty much made me mad, but I asked two volunteers, Jeri and Liz, who I really get along with to come, and they decided to bail me out for the day and help.
    On looking back at that day, I gotta tell you, I was anxious. I knew that I was a hard worker, a guy who took time with each and every volunteer, so that they could be an extension of me and my drive for a great shelter. I knew that I had brains and talent and was resourceful. I knew I had a head full of knowledge and could wow anyone who came into the shelter with my handle on everything.” Jack stopped there for a moment. “I knew and the volunteers knew that I had the shelter moving along like a well oiled machine. So why was I anxious?” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I wanted to show the higher-ups what a great manager I was, and on some level, I wanted them to be wowed and to immediately ask me to move up into senior management. I mean, clearly, a guy like me….” Jack laughed. “A guy like me doesn’t happen every day, at least that’s what I wanted them to see.
    But,” he continued, “that day came, and there was a problem with the heating unit and I had to spend my time with repairmen. The senior managers never saw me, not once. Luckily, Jeri and Liz were there. They kept everything on schedule.” Jack sighed. “I was mad, mad at the universe, mad at management and the volunteers, and mad at myself. I seethed for a while in the back room, when Liz stepped in to see if I was okay. I think she saw the frustration I was feeling so she left and came back a few minutes later with a woman about 50ish. The woman had stopped in to make a donation to our shelter. She told me that a few years back, she had adopted a small older terrier named Betsy. I remembered Betsy. Betsy had been rescued from an abandoned house. She was literally found cowering in an empty closet. When we brought Betsy in, she had been so shy, almost withdrawn and we thought that she might not ever get a real home, but the volunteers worked with her until she was adoptable. The woman told me that Betsy lived with her and her mother, but her mother had died last month after a long battle with cancer. She told me that her mother and Betsy adored one another and that she gave her mother a reason to live. With tears in her eyes, she told me that she would always take care of Betsy and she thanked us for rescuing her.” Jack drew a breath. “I had an epiphany right then and there, and realized that I was in this job for the Betsy stories, not for promotions and praise and raises and titles. I had exactly what I wanted. That faulty heater did me a favor. It kept me from trying to be someone I’m not.”
    Jack lives in an inside out world, just like every other volunteer manager. I think that deep in our hearts, we are searching for those moments that mean everything to the people we help. The outside world may try to tell us that we need to move up, that in order to succeed we need to have a mouthful of words in our titles. While the outside world might tell us that respect comes with a large office, our inside hearts remind us that self-respect comes from the stories about Betsy, or from volunteers who are inspired by our mentoring, or from clients who make it through their crisis with a volunteer we carefully chose for them.
    In the scheme of things, there are those who get to do the work and those who don’t. There’s the medical personnel who save lives and the administrator who makes more money and has a title. There’s the teacher who shapes minds, and there’s the head of the board of administration who makes policy. There’s the volunteer manager who orchestrates pure altruism and the senior manager who sits in meetings all day.
    We may not have the largest office or even a quiet one and we may not have the highest salary or even a salary to be proud of, but there is one thing we do have. You know what it is. You feel it inside everyday.
    -Meridian

  • The Mass That Lurks Beneath the Surface

    iceberg I’m not telling you anything new when I say we all want our volunteers to be acknowledged and appreciated. We all want our volunteers to be treated with respect and looked at as integrals members of our teams. We all want volunteers to be thought about as contributors, not extra little worker bees. So, when that happens, are we, volunteer managers, not completely satisfied? Are we done? (Finally, the volunteers are treated as equals, I can stop clenching my teeth!)
    Hmmm, if the answer is a hesitant no, what more do we want? (Besides world peace of course)
    So let’s take a little trip if you will and look in at a volunteer manager, Josh sitting at his desk, answering phones, solving problems, listening to stories, making placements, (fine, for brevity’s sake, I won’t list all of the tasks going on) and a staff member wanders into his office. (for giggles, let’s say, a member of senior management) “Wow,” the senior manager says, ” I have to tell you, Ellen is such a great volunteer, she really did an excellent job last week. What a gem she is, you’re really lucky to have her!”  Josh immediately smiles, looks up and agrees, “Yes, she is wonderful, thank you so much for acknowledging her contribution, I will certainly pass that along to her.”
    The senior manager walks away, mentally patting herself on the back for praising a volunteer. There, now everyone’s happy, right?
    Well, yes, but Josh has this nagging little feeling that not everyone and everything has been properly acknowledged. For him, there is a back story to that praise. Now, don’t get me wrong, we are all thrilled to hear our volunteers receive praise. So, then, what is that invisible behemoth of a back story lurking beneath the surface?
    In the case of volunteer Ellen, what that senior manager did not know is that Ellen at first spent three months questioning whether volunteering was right for her. Josh allowed Ellen to observe other volunteers in action, invited her to educational in-services and arranged for Ellen to have her own volunteer mentor. Josh spent hours on the phone encouraging and motivating Ellen in order to give her exactly what she needed to feel comfortable. Although swamped with requests, Josh focused in the moment and saw in Ellen the potential to be a great volunteer. So when praise for Ellen also includes the phrase, “you’re lucky to have her,” Josh invariably remembers all his efforts beneath the surface.
    Some volunteers are naturally great, some quickly develop into great volunteers and others need more mentoring. It is as much an art to recognize the volunteer who needs little mentoring as it is to find the right way to mentor a volunteer who is unsure. The yin and yang of volunteer management is a nuanced role that takes the eye of an artisan who dabbles in human potential.
    When major events go off with no major problems, it’s the volunteer manager who has spent the time calling and recalling volunteers so that they know all the little things like where to park, whether they’ll need to bring water or sunglasses, the proper dress, directions to the event, who to check in with, where the bathrooms are located, and what they will be expected to do. All that work is never seen, only the fact that volunteers are on time and prepared.
    Beneath the surface there’s all the time spent hearing volunteer concerns and the follow through in correcting a wrong or getting an answer. Beneath the surface, there’s all the work behind the scenes everyday that volunteer managers do, like dropping everything when a potential volunteer walks in off the street, skipping lunch to visit a volunteer in the hospital, staying late because a student needs papers signed to prove they’ve volunteered, looking up airline tickets for a volunteer who’s computer is broken, making a fuss over grandchildren who have come to visit, going with a volunteer to a doctor’s visit because her daughter lives in another town, looking at pictures of a trip when a report is due, saving that book for a volunteer who loves the same author, framing pictures of volunteers as gifts for their families, and bringing in garden flowers to share.
    Beneath the surface of any excellent volunteer program is a volunteer manager who cares enough to work tirelessly with a mixture of raw gut instinct, mother hen tendencies and a passion for human potential. That tip of the iceberg did not poke through the water on its own for it is supported by a massive base of cultivation, patience, persistence and old fashioned sweat.
    So, once we get the respect and acknowledgement for our volunteers down and once we are comfortable knowing that our organizations will always treat our volunteers with respect, then maybe we can start working on some recognition for our contributions and our everyday efforts.
    It’s a lot to hope for, but I can dream big, as big as that iceberg base, can’t I?
    -Meridian