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My home town (Minneapolis/Saint Paul) is the top city in United States for volunteering in 2009 according to an article in yesterday’s Star Tribune. Over 900,000 area residents volunteered an average of 44 hours for schools, churches, and nonprofit organizations. Astounding!
Volunteers are no longer an after thought or a minor tactic for organizations. The nonprofits I am working with all are looking to transform and advance their volunteer programs. But there is definitely some trepidation about the value of this resource, if volunteers can be depended upon, if they can do more than very basic tasks e.g. “lick envelopes”, and if they can leverage more staff capacity rather than use it up.
I think we have to break with past stereotypes and rethink how we can leverage this incredible resource. Here are three “what Ifs” to help do that:
What if… we think of our volunteers as collaborators rather than free labor.
We ask them to join us to develop solutions to chronic issues in how we deliver our services. We invite them to strategy sessions, rather than provide directives. We delegate authority to them to take action.
What if… we raise the bar for who gets to volunteer and what is expected of them. I know, I know, this isn’t very Minnesota nice of me, but how about demanding results and becoming known as the place where only the best volunteers get to give of their time. We set the expectation that they get to apply their highest level of skill to the biggest challenges the organization faces.
What if… we merge our human resource, volunteer coordination, and resource development functions. Or at least, build strong cross-functional collaboration among these areas in order to imagine how to get the most from our volunteers. We help staff learn how to maximize the efforts of their volunteers. We measure volunteer activity in real dollars setting benchmarks for how much volunteer time (i.e. volunteer dollars) that needs to be raised each year.
These are just a few thoughts. Please comment and share your “What Ifs” for rethinking volunteers.
June 17, 2010 at 2:39 am, Susan/TogetherWeFlourish said:
While I agree with two of your three points, I have some concern about demanding results from volunteers. Making demands of people who are offering their time seems to be taking things a bit to far. I think it is far better to match a volunteer with a task they are suited for and the results will take care of themselves.
June 17, 2010 at 2:50 am, Lori Jacobwith said:
I like your post! When I work with organizations in a coaching capacity we always incorporate community volunteers into our work. We use metrics to evaluate their performance and start with a clear task or position description. The outcomes have been amazning and both staff and volunteers get excited to be collaborating toward success instead of floundering around why things may not be moving fast enough.
Thanks for the thoughtful questions.
July 24, 2010 at 5:39 am, nickdicolandrea said:
I enjoy the post. I believe there is nothing wrong with any of these points, and in fact are great talking points for all volunteer managers and organizations to have.
I feel the one of greatest merit is asking volunteers to produce outcomes. I would go one step further and require management of volunteers to produce the outcomes – with volunteer input – from the work volunteers do.
I know from experience in disorganized nonprofits, having someone assist in volunteer management is a luxury often not obtained. But where a nonprofit does have the ability to coordinate, it should take serious consideration into “what” they exactly want out of the hours given to them in the long run.
Great three points – I’ll be referring to them in my mind often.