Julie Nelson 
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Demote Your Staff To Create Limitless Potential.
Massive change is sweeping through the business world. Corporate Social Responsibility is precipitating thousands of new Employer-Sponsored Volunteer Programs. But can non-profit organizations handle the huge increase of volunteers coming their way? Maybe not. If non-profits do not reinvent their current volunteer management model, they threaten to suffocate these brilliant new efforts and disenfranchise the volunteers who come through their programs.
Non-profits and community organizations are due for a change: they must understand that volunteers are the key to achieving their mission. Unfortunately, this new understanding will require NPO’s to demote their entire staff.
Less is More
When it comes to working with volunteers, the less you do, the more you will get done. By focusing on the few things required to create a great volunteer experience, you will be able to maximize the efforts of dozens - maybe even thousands. The alternative approach utilizes volunteers to maximize the efforts of a handful of staff. This option is run by the “genius with a thousand helpers” and will consistently bottleneck the organization. It also squashes all ingenuity and energy outside the parameters of the "genius'" own comfort.
If you are the type of leader who is able to facilitate the efforts and individual contributions of others, then there is little limiting your potential. They key is found in how you perceive yourself, and what you understand your role to be.
the rest of the article
Some Conditions Apply
The instructions are simple: Don’t do the work yourself. Instead, your job is to make it possible for others to do the work. For that to happen, there are Four Conditions that need to be met:
Carry Milk
Ok, so the job is to mobilize volunteers to achieve the goal. Assuming this is the case, we are willing to take steps to ensure that the Four Conditions are met. From here on it’s easy, right? Well, yes and no. I’ve found that the real problem staff have with this approach is not the hard work it takes to get the organization ready, nor is it a simple change in mindset. Nope, the real hang-ups come with the face-to-face stuff.
I remember working with a colleague at a community meal a few years back. He was a phenomenal guy, lots of talent and mad skills when it came to interacting with men and women off the street. Volunteers loved him. He was funny, charismatic and competent. Problem was, he was doing too much. The volunteers were waiting for their chance to help him out, but he was busy doing the work himself. Consequently, many of our volunteers stood around feeling a bit un-needed. The problem wasn’t our set up. It wasn’t our directions or communication. The problem was my friend. He was too helpful, too willing, too able. He was doing too much himself.
So I took him aside to discuss how we could involve the volunteers. He was eager to listen and understand - like I said, a phenomenal guy. He absolutely believed in allowing volunteers to play a key role in what we were doing. He had helped ensure that the Four Conditions were a part of our organization. Turns out he simply felt bad asking people to do what he could easily do himself. He figured they might wonder why he would ask them to do something simple when they could both see that he could accomplish it in the same amount of time it was taking to pass it off. Made sense actually. People hate being humored. I hate being humored. Busy work feels trivial. And yet when people are investigating, this is exactly the kind of work they need and want. These seemingly trivial tasks offer a sense of belonging, purpose and achievement. (As long as the task really is necessary and not concocted.) So, I made a suggestion...
“Carry milk,” I said.
“....What?”
“Grab a pitcher of milk in one hand, some cups in the other, and carry them with you as you tell the volunteers how they can help,” I replied.
He sighed. “Why?” He was looking at me like I had incurred a brain injury since we had last spoken.
“Cause,” I said slowly, like I was giving the answer to a clever pun. “If people see that you are busy with a task, they won’t mind doing what you ask.”
He looked at me, grinned, and grabbed the milk.
From that day on, we adopted the “carry milk” philosophy. It became a metaphor for dealing with the awkwardness that can accompany the assigning and accepting of tasks in a volunteer setting. The milk, or broom or rake - whatever - became the tool that allowed us to play the role our volunteers needed.
Demote the Staff
Your priority is your volunteer - they are your ticket to achieve the organization’s mission. Remember this as you demote your staff from “more” (do it yourself) to “less” (facilitate the ‘doing’ to everyone else). The switch has it’s perks, but it’s still a demotion, which doesn’t exactly feel good. Most of the time, staff interact with the community they are serving like a surgeon with a patient and they view volunteers as support staff - nurses handing over a scalpel during surgery. Lots of acclaim and recognition for the surgeon, with an “I couldn’t do it without all this help” for the nurses. “Demote the Staff” suggests that the doctor become the nurse, support staff, janitor - anything to make it possible for the volunteer to play the primary role. This flip is often difficult for staff, especially when they initially took the job with the organization to play the front-line role.
Another difficult aspect of the demotion is that “facilitator” is a new job description and with it must come a change in philosophy. The former description consisted of managing people and their tasks, but the facilitator will primarily manage the processes that make the ‘realized worth’ approach possible. The Four Conditions are now the main work of the staff. If the conditions are right, then the space is mostly automated, and there is little management required of the volunteers. The object of “carry milk” is to ensure that the space is right for volunteers, rather than managing the way people work in that space.
Making it Happen
Here are 6 steps to tapping into the unlimited potential of your volunteer program:
Stop Treating Everyone Equally!
Exceptional volunteer experiences account for the uniqueness of each person, and their reasons for volunteering in the first place. Whether you are managing your company's Employee Volunteer Program as part of the overall CSR mission, or you are coordinating volunteers at an NPO, you have to avoid one of the worst mistakes you can make - trying to treat everyone equally.
Quick Review
A month ago I began writing about How To Offer A Great Volunteer Experience. A month can be a long time in blogland, so here’s a little recap:
First, we established the need to automate as much of the volunteer process of recruiting, screening, job assignments and evaluation as possible. Most NPO’s don’t have dedicated Volunteer Managers and even if they do, standard Volunteer Management Theory acts as a bottle neck in many cases.
Next, we covered meeting the volunteer where they are at. Our positions require us to maintain the perspective of a realist and admit that if volunteers don’t ‘get it’ that’s not their problem - its ours. Provide experiences that create the space in people to learn. That’s the job, nothing less.
Finally, we covered the idea of meeting people at their Highest Level of Contribution. This means paying attention to who people are, rather than seeing them as a sack of experience and skill sets for the organization’s purposes. People are desperate for meaning. If you can align yours with theirs, the convergence of those horizons will transform your volunteer programs.
In the coming weeks we will discuss demoting your staff to grow your resources exponentially, and how to avoid becoming myopic by focusing too narrowly on your clients, or your “primary audience.”
But right now we need to talk about the problem of equality.
The problem of equality
The most destructive part of any volunteer program is not poor planning, unclear job descriptions, late emails, or even lousy recognition programs. Rather, it is the tendency to treat everyone equally. Giving each volunteer equal ‘say’, equal privilege, equal responsibility and equal recognition will kill enthusiasm and create insurmountable obstacles for people.
(the rest of the article)
Of course, the ideology of social equality is necessary for societies to achieve greatness. Offering equal rights to all people is essentially non-negotiable in developed nations today. Although here in Canada women have only been allowed to vote for the past 90 years, today the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1985) is a formidable legal document ensuring equality under the law. “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. “ One of the best known proclamations of equality is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, with Jefferson, cribbing a bit from British philosopher John Locke , stating, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ Unfortunately, nobody seemed to take the idea seriously until much later when slaves were freed, Native Americans were no longer massacred as part of Manifest Destiny, and again, women were allowed to vote as of the 19th Amendment in 1920. While these developments are encouraging, we find significant societal norms that show how far we remain from operating as a people who believe each other to hold equal value.
The Confusion of Equality and Sameness
The problem I have is not really with equality. The problem is that we often confuse the political and societal ideals of equality with sameness. We believe that everyone should be treated fairly (I agree), that each of us has merit and worth in our own right (I could not agree more) and therefore, everyone should be treated the same (wrong!). Most of the time, when we talk about treating everyone equally, this is the sequence of thinking that goes on in our heads. So when someone shows up to volunteer for the first time, we try to give them the same opportunities, attention, responsibilities and recognition that we do those who have been coming for years. This is a great mistake and here’s why: people are not the same. When it comes to volunteering in particular, they are at various stages of realizing the worth of the opportunity, the cause, and themselves.
The Stages of Realized Worth
There are basically 3 Stages that your volunteers fall into:
1st Stage - The Investigators. As this group investigates, they are generally uninformed and have loose ideas about what they’re looking for. They may dislike the work, they may stop showing up. No problem. They are some of the pool from which you will discover the best of your volunteers.
2nd Stage - The Investing. These folks are after something. They’re still not quite sure what it is, but they have an inkling that you might be offering it. They are beginning to invest in the cause. You may notice them asking asking questions or even complaining a bit (which is an encouraging sign that they’re connecting emotionally.) They need to be seen and heard. Discover them. What are they after? What meaning do they hope to find by volunteering with you? You can recognize them because they have a quirky type of commitment which is mostly dependable.
3rd Stage - The Invested. This group is there for the same reasons healthy people go to the gym. It’s part of their lifestyle, their brand. They believe in your cause and will show themselves to be dependable quickly (just a caution here, it’s easy to get enthusiastic 1st Stage people confused with 3rd Stage stalwart.) Take every effort to hear their ideas and involve them in the work. If they feel they have permission, they are usually power-house recruiters, because they are includers. Depend on them, and they will find the kind of reward they live for. Oh, by the way, you probably only have one or two 3rd Stage people, if any. That’s just the way it goes.
So what does it look like to allow for people’s differences within your organization? What kind of space does each stage require? It may help to imagine yourself in each stage (we all go through them) and consider what your needs may have been at the time...
If you are in the 1st Stage: You require spaces of discovery where you are free to investigate. At this point, pressure and obligation will only hinder you, so long term commitments aren’t really what you’re after. You’re at your best when compelled to ask better questions and go beyond what you’ve always known and believed.
If you are in the 2nd Stage: You need permission to be a little angry and a little confused. You know that committing to this organization is akin to committing to a relationship: If you never get past the infatuation stage to start getting angry, hurt and wounded, then you probably never cared much in the first place. When things don’t matter, things are easy. You are ready for substance and you hope that the organization can prove to you that they’re ready for your investment.
If you are in the 3rd Stage: You need a space brimming with offers of high-level, contributing responsibility. You know they know you’ll take care of the ditch-digging every time, but they respect you too much for that. You need to be treated carefully because, like a long-term relationship, this kind of commitment is rare and fragile - not to be taken lightly.
Working with the Stages of Realized Worth
The 1st Stage is easy to develop and manage and offers tremendous benefits to your recruiting and screening process. It essentially automates much of the Volunteer Management Cycle. You can read more about it in detail in the article “Automatic Volunteer Management: How to Offer a Great Volunteer Experience”. At this stage you will spend a little bit of time with a lot of people. This is a place of discovery for you and the volunteer. Resist the urge to develop, recruit, or retain.
The 2nd Stage is tricky. It can go by quickly, or last for many years. Everyone has unique issues, questions, and reasons for coming to you. When they start asking better questions, showing up with regularity, making themselves more available, or getting a bit difficult to deal with, they are probably working through this stage. Offer answers to questions in the form or training, or further exposure to issues. Better questions are what we are after, so always provide answers knowing that they serve only to take us further down the road of discovery. Classes, assessments, time at a coffee shop, field-trips and introductions to broader networks of people are all helpful spaces for discovery.
The 3rd Stage will consume most of your time and energy, and it should. You will spend most of your time with the fewest number of people. A true 3rd Stage person will pay off in spades for every investment you make. They have moved beyond the need for external constructs like your volunteer program. Drop them anywhere on the planet, and they are such dyed-in-the-wool-sold-out-for-the-cause believers they will invent ways to do what they do. Facilitation is the key word here, along with collaboration. Use their ideas, partner with them, give them what they need, resource them and then let them loose. They will recruit, promote, network, fundraise, whatever - all the time. All. The. Time. And you know why? Because they are doing it for their own reasons - not yours. There is convergence between your needs, the required work, and their needs. All three horizons have merged and now they are operating at their highest level of contribution. The only thing you can do to mess it up, is treat them or talk to them like they are 1st Stage people.
Know your volunteers. People are not the same; they do not function within a formula and they are not children to recognize with gold stars on a chart. The more we treat our people equally, the more likely we are to lose our most valuable stakeholders without ever knowing they were there.
NEXT on How To Offer A Great Volunteer Experience: The most effective key to really take advantage of 3rd Stage people....
DEMOTE YOUR STAFF!
Re-write the job description of every staff member you have. In order to run an excellent volunteer program your staff must see themselves as facilitators of volunteers rather than “bosses” working to get a job done. Staff make it possible for volunteers to do the work, not the other way around.
Build Your Jobs Around Your Volunteers
Meeting People at their Highest Level of Contribution
On a beautiful, mid-western morning in Spring, I was enjoying breakfast with my friend, Jay Hein. At the time, Jay was the Executive Director of Civil Society Programs at the Hudson Institute, a ‘think tank’ and public policy research organization in the U.S. I had a lot of respect for his position and experience, thus valued any opportunity to glean a bit of wisdom. A dilemma I was facing at the time was with the number of talented and well-connected people who were leaving the congregation of the church where we both attended, and in which we were highly invested. We had heard the stories of some of these people and had noticed a similarity that would almost be funny - if it weren’t so damn serious. They were bored. Not with the sermon....not with the people or the classes.....But as educated and intellectual men and women, there was simply no appropriate outlet for their talents.
Now, if you know Jay, you understand that when he speaks, you listen. He spent the last two years at the White House as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Without question, he’s a smart guy. On that sunny morning at our small breakfast table, Jay defined the problem that had plagued me for months, “Chris,” he said, “we’ve got to meet people at their highest level of contribution.”
With that phrase, “highest level of contribution,” my perspective changed. Rather than try and shape a volunteer around the ill-fitting form of a “need”, fit the “need” to the shape of the volunteer. This way, volunteers find that they are acting out of who they are, and the sense of “becoming” that we’ve spoke of before begins to take place.
Ok, so let’s just pause here for a moment of realism. There are essential roles in every organization that simply need to be filled. We need those roles to enable programs and projects to happen. Volunteers make what we do possible. In fact, in a Whitepaper prepared by LBG Associates “Can Corporate Giving Support The Bottom Line,” the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is cited as estimating that the amount of time Americans spent serving their communities in 2004 may be valued in excess of $58 trillion. We need volunteers if we’re ever going to accomplish our goals. If they’re not feeling challenged enough, if they’re “bored,” we just need to clarify our expectations, specify roles and job descriptions, and provide the support they need to do the jobs we need. Right?
Actually, um....no.
Admittedly, certain types of organizations do need volunteers simply to fill allotted roles. These usually boast a large administrative support staff with access to high numbers of eager volunteers. For example the Vancouver Winter Olympics is in need of some 30,000 volunteers and have received 50,000 applications from around the world. The Toronto International Film Festival, regularly turns hopefuls away who want to give their time. Situations like these aren’t directly applicable to our discussion because of their unique nature. Our focus is on the normative; the long-term struggle.
This “long-term struggle” is where many NPOs are stuck. We want something that works, but we’re not sure where to start. Creating a volunteer experience that meets people at their highest level of contribution takes concentrated effort. It means stepping back and, like most of the elements of “creating a great volunteer experience,” it means reevaluating the basic functions of your program. At times this process can be a challenge, but just wait - the payoff is more than worth it.
The first step is automation (Automatic Volunteer Management: How to Offer A Great Volunteer Experience). This is the method we discussed a few weeks ago. It welcomes people to a “First Stage Experience” where they self-select ‘in’ if they feel a personal connection. We did this by meeting people “where they were at.” We never asked them to be someone other than themselves. At this point, the highest level of contribution had nothing to do with skills, talent, experience or availability. It had everything to do with value. “Do you see the value here? Do you believe in what you can bring to this?” This is the first stage of “realized worth.”
As people connected with the value of the opportunity we were offering them, and returned on a repeated basis, we began to spend more time getting to know them. We wanted to know who they were. We asked questions about their lives, and why they were regularly making the 1/2 hour trip to spend their afternoons with us. We spent some time telling them more about us, the work, and what we believed was important about what we were trying to accomplish. With these questions we began to understand who we could become together. Of course, we eventually got around to discussing what they did for a living, their experience and background, their skills and connections. These ‘doing’ questions always followed ‘being’ questions.
This is the essential departure point between the Realized Worth approach to volunteerism and the typical ‘need bodies to do tasks’ mentality of volunteer management. As we understood who our volunteers were, it became natural and effective to build our positions around the unique talents, life-skills, passions and abilities of each one.
John McKnight of Northwestern University founded an approach known as Asset-Based Community Development and Asset Mapping. He believes that absolutely everyone has something to contribute. These contributions can be arranged into a map of assets. I enthusiastically endorse McKnight’s approach; it is sustainability at its finest. Everyone has a ‘highest level of contribution’, whether you work at the Whitehouse, or you’re illiterate and living in subsidized housing.
Margarite is a beautiful friend of mine. A middle-aged women with a formidable physique and a personality to match, she has lived a colorful and difficult life. Upon our first meeting at the Sunday Suppers in Halifax, I was warned to be careful of her. As if the weekly crowd’s collective fear of crossing her wasn’t enough, her strong street “cred” and even stronger connections virtually flashed a “warning” sign over her head. The second time we met, she marched up to me with a greasy mess of governement-issued papers in one outstretched hand. She announced what the papers were for: I was to document the 1200 hours of community service that she had been ordered to perform. She stated that she planned to serve all 1200 with me at the Sunday Suppers and not only that - I could pick her up on the my way to the City each week and she would help me set up before our guests arrived. Despite my confusion, I agreed. I figured I would speak later to whoever had ‘okayed’ all of this. Turns out no one had - she just decided.
Margarite and I grew to be friends over those 1200 hours of community service. While she was no less trouble than I had been warned to expect, she also proved to have more to give than I dared to predict. Within a year she had move from helping orient new volunteers (in her own unique style), to actually playing supervisory roles with a number of community projects. In one of my finest moments of brilliance (or insanity) I decided to put some of her ‘street smarts’ to use with the people who regularly came in to ask for financial assistance. It was often difficult to decide whether or not the stories of hardship and need were legitimate - a middle class status could render a person a bit naive. Margarite, well, she knew what she was talking about. She had her own stories of winning over the gullible hearts of the financially blessed. So, when the requests came in I happily asked them to wait a sec while I grabbed “the person in charge of that.” Many times, when they saw Margarite walking over they would roll their eyes and shuffle away mumbling something akin to, “forget it.” They knew Margarite could speak their language, and they had heard that she was unassailable in her ability to identify a legitimate request. When we could not offer assistance, she offered alternative solutions for late rent or power bills. More often than not, she would request a higher amount than the individual thought they could ask for because she knew the whole situation.
It was a delight to see Margarite acting at her highest level of contribution. Even Jay Hein, with his education, skills and intelligence, could not do what Margarite did at the Sunday Suppers. Had I never taken the opportunity to get to know Margarite, I wouldn’t have been able to see that she was capable of the roles we ended up giving her. But who she was became clear to us over time and we were able to fit our needs to Margarite’s specific shape. Other needs were fit to other volunteers, based on their unique talents, life skills and passions.
At times the volunteers that come to your organization will easily line up with the current needs. Other times, probably more often than not, the expeditious method for moving the cause forward will not be so direct. It will take the effort to meet people at their highest level of contribution. Pay attention to who your people are, give them a chance to discover the value of the opportunity offered, and maximize the skills, connections and experience they bring. Your priority may simply be to get a job done, and that’s your prerogative. But if you’re after something more, if you want to see your cause succeed in more substantial ways than getting through the day, try meeting people at their highest level of contribution. It’s a vital step on a rewarding path.
Give The Volunteer What He/She Wants!
Most people don’t actually want to volunteer. Most of us are over-worked, over-stressed, and have obligations far beyond intended human capacity. When we say, “I’ve been thinking of doing some volunteer work,” we usually mean something more along the lines of, “I’ve been thinking about this sense of dissatisfaction that overwhelms my life and I thought volunteering might offer a remedy.”
Of course, as we’ve talked about in earlier discussions, there are a myriad of reasons to volunteer. Several recent studies offered reasons like, “to impress your mom” (Volunteer Match), to have a “feeling of belonging” (Voluntary Action Directorate; Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada), or to “contribute to a cause in which they believe”(Volunteer Canada).
Often we are simply unclear of our own motivations. In the great scheme of things, however, volunteering is not so much unlike the rest of life....where we are all deeply involved in the great search for meaning.
What is the thing - the issue, the problem, the heartache - that causes a palpable stir in your soul? Do you gravitate toward justice for people; the homeless, the illiterate, the starved and abused? Maybe the recent reports of thousands of whales and dolphins killed in Japan have moved you to tears (Peta), or the ban of energy-wasting light bulbs in Argentina last spring had you celebrating (Greenpeace).
For various psychological, spiritual, sociological and genetic reasons, we each identify with specific “tastes.” The cover-article in this month’s Psychology Today, refers to differences in taste as an opportunity for “interpersonal revelation”; a chance to learn something about who we are. Tastes are poignantly personal. They do not belong to the world, they belong to each one of us and they are meaningful. If you doubt this, try listening to an argument between an environmentalist and an animal rights activist regarding saving whales versus saving trees. No one will win (or ought to win) that discussion.
Our tastes influence our search for meaning. Whatever reasons we may offer for choosing to volunteer, there is, without fail, a plea for some semblance of a solution to our human search. NPOs must know that offering a great volunteer experience requires an effort to understand that people come to us believing we might offer them something that will connect with who they are.
This connection, via the issue your volunteers adhere themselves to, may be quite simple. For example, Nancy had a hankering to hand out religion - in the form of small Bibles. It went something like this:
I stood, facing Nancy, with a stupid, half-grin on my face.
“We should give out Bibles,” she repeated, with the innocence and enthusiasm that you might see on the face of a three-year-old.
“Um, okay.” I said.
“I got a whole box donated, and even though it’s the King James Version, it’s the most updated one,” she pulled out a little paperback edition and handed it to me.
“Um, okay.”
“Good. I’ll bring a couple boxes in before we start and you tell me where to put them, okay?”
“Um, sure. Okay.” I was gaining eloquence.
Okay, so....I guess her perspective wasn’t so difficult to understand. After all, we did hold Sunday Suppers in a church and a good number of our volunteers showed up from the various congregations in the vicinity. Still, Bibles were simply not conducive to our cause. The reasons were simple and I knew them well: 1; Personal religion or faith potentially presents a barrier to community. 2; only a fraction of the people we were serving could read above an elementary level, if at all.
But, still, I said yes. (Or, more accurately, “Um, sure.”)
I suppose “Um, sure” marks a change that had begun to take place in me. Week after week, well-meaning volunteers shared new ideas for making the Suppers bigger and better than ever. And week after week I found myself saying, “yes.” Admittedly, many of the ideas were good...and some were terrible, but that’s not really the point. The point is, when given permission to participate beyond the day’s allotted work, volunteers inadvertently reveal why they show up in the first place. As volunteers learn about themselves, they experience an authentic and unexpected sense of meaning, and thus become the most passionate and invested workers - staff or otherwise.
It takes awhile. I mean, when Nancy handed out the Bibles, and later walked outside to see that our guests were happily using the thin pages as cigarette paper, she was a bit shocked. And disappointed. But this experience was one stepping stone along a path of growth that became invaluable to Nancy.
Our tastes influence our search for meaning. Offering a great volunteer experience requires that we account for both those elements (tastes and meaning). Still, let’s be realistic. When a guy comes to you ready to save the environment, but he’s brand new to the cause, we can pretty much count on a few things:
1. He wants to do hands-on work with nature, but you don’t have hands-on work with nature readily available. You have envelopes readily available. And letters that need to go in them. Today. So, you tell him that the donations these letters bring in will change the world. And that’s that. Newbie + busywork = No headaches.
2. He’s all revved up and excited to be a martyr for the cause, but at your stage of experience this enthusiasm has you rolling your eyes. He doesn’t know what the real issues are. He is uninformed. He is annoying.
3. The trouble is really more than the newbie is worth. If he stuffs envelopes you could actually advance the cause somewhat. But getting him out raking gravel for a new trail is only moderately helpful, and it just ties up your time. It feels like wasteful hand-holding and tawdry publicity.
Here’s another thing that we can pretty much count on: your newbie showed up to investigate your cause. He wants to know; Is there anything here for me? Can I learn something here about who I am? Will I discover a sense of meaning?
Despite the difficulties new volunteers present, you must allow for these kinds of connections. Your volunteers will not want the “right” things, but give them what they want nonetheless. When people want to fight poverty, let them ‘do’ something. When they want to save whales, get them as close as possible to the whales themselves. Besides offering high potential for a life-changing experience, direct contact with the “cause” almost guarantees long-term commitment. (Obviously, if they’re simply at the wrong organization - you don’t save whales, you build parks - send them on their way.) Allow the meaning behind the work you’re doing, to converge with the meaning the volunteer brings to the work (known as the Point of Convergence), and you’ll find yourself with a fighting chance to change the world.
Ask yourself the question, “What kind of volunteer experiences do we offer?” If we insist on using volunteers for the benefit of our staff and organization to get work done expeditiously, we will institutionalize volunteer recruitment and retainment as a herculean task. But if we upend the organization, meet our volunteers where they are, and create volunteer experiences that allow for Points of Convergence, we will have a steady flow of converts to the cause.
au·to·mat·ic:
Having the capability of starting and operating hands-free.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain in the 18th century, almost 80% of Agrarian (agricultural) societies were focused on self subsistence, which roughly means “just enough to get by.” There was no ‘middle class’ and very little new revenue - with the exception of the gold bullion coming across the Atlantic from ancient civilizations. But with new ideas about technology and innovation, the world began to change. By the time electricity, the combustible engine and the assembly line came about in the 19th century, the possibilities of automation were endless. Soon, handfuls of people would produce more goods and services than entire nations would have been able to produce over hundreds of years.
If you will allow the analogous stretch, most NPO’s operate as agrarian societies. With a tremendous demand on resources just to provide basic services to their clients, we function with near equivalence to subsistence. The occasional influx of new bullion via generous donors enables some growth in infrastructure, but what is gained is soon consumed by the demands that inevitably follow. The answer to this quandary is, of course, to mobilize an army of volunteers. But developing an army demands amounts of time and personnel which are already in scarce supply. We are due for a change that, so far, remains all too elusive.
The Volunteer Management Cycle (VMC) has done it’s best to offer a caveat to this change. While most NPOs will acknowledge the logic behind the VMC, they admit it is virtually impossible to effectively implement due to limited time and personnel. Frankly, the VMC seems to be intended for use only by organizations with numerous support staff and strong financial support. Without these guarantees, the Cycle is neither realistic nor practical. In fact, as I mentioned in the first of this blog series, if you’re in charge of the volunteer program, you are probably the E.D. and in charge of....well, everything. (Except your salary, eh? Bummer.)
So, your time is limited - too limited to find the people you need. You need Board and committee members, fundraisers, mentors, program helpers, project coordinators, counselors, custodians, outreach workers, administrative support, special events personnel and so on. If only a few of these positions were up and running, you just might be able to find, train, place and retain more volunteers. But you don’t and that makes it all feel like subsistence living - peasants of the middle ages.
I know, I’ve been there. I remember, after a particularly long and discouraging Board meeting, saying goodbye to each member and trying hard to hide the fact that I was nearing the end of my rope. Those last few lingerers must have regretted their pace when they became the lucky recipients of my frustrated sputterings. “There’s no time!” I began, “There’s no time to get the help I need.....to make the time.....to find the help I need!” (It made sense to me.) I was spinning my wheels, inches away from the solution to my traction-less work. The Chairman stood in the doorway listening with sympathy registered on his face. It felt good to say (however ineloquently), “Its not my fault...arrrggghhh!” Then, in an act of wondrous problem solving that I will never forget, he said, “You know what your problem is, son?” (I’m sorry, what?) “You need to delegate!” (I’m sorry...wait....WHAT??).
Wow, just writing this brings back some un-dealt-with emotional baggage.
It would be years before I realized that the answer to both issues (lack of time and personnel) had been within reach since the 18th Century. The key was automation. Manage the process, not the volunteer.
I had taken a position at a large church as the guy responsible for engaging the congregation in local expressions of social justice. This was no mean feat, considering this particular congregation numbered up to 7000. They had been mobilizing hundreds into the community, but the leadership wanted to see that number increased. I came in with high ambitions and decided the number should be increased by several thousand per year. One problem: there was just one me, and one part-time assistant (who, incidentally, was the best assistant I could have asked for at the time).
Needless to say, the VMC wasn’t an option. I didn’t have the time to Plan, Recruit, Organize, Train or Supervise anyone. And I didn’t have the help I needed in order to mobilize thousands. If I focused on the few that I could handle, it would be years before we saw the numbers increased and I simply didn’t have the patience for that. I wanted to ramp up the numbers fast. Specifically, the goal was to see 1000 new volunteers in 12 months. I had to make a decision and it looked like I would be required to step outside the ordinary boundaries and try something unconventional. Mentally I tossed the VMC aside, and in the end, it wasn’t much of a decision because I only had one option: Forget about volunteers. Offer an experience. Automate.
My Industrial Revolution happened the day I created the Stage One experience. This was the first piece of what I now call the Stages of Realized Worth. A Stage One experience is all about offering people who want to volunteer a chance to see what we were all about. Because I needed to automate everything, and find enough time for everyone, I simply took myself out of the process. I let the space I was inviting people into do all the work for me.
First, I found an organization offering an opportunity to serve a meal on the weekend. I met with them and described what I was hoping to achieve. In one meeting we agreed that I could bring in a handful of volunteers each Sunday to serve the meals. This offered them a connection with the community (potential donors) and me a basic entry point for potential volunteers. In order to automate the process I would need to achieve the following;
RECRUITMENT. Eliminate repeat promotional events, large activities or organization of any sort and thereby move to a passive (hence automatic) recruitment process. By making the Sunday Suppers a regular, identical, weekly event, all project management implications were removed. I also had a continual entry point that would eventually fit anyone’s calendar.
SCREENING. Use the space where you invite volunteers to do the screening for you. With so few available resources, I could only afford to invest in people who would eventually be able to return on the investment. If they came back a number of times, I figured they were someone I should start spending a bit more time with.
TRAINING. Create opportunities that don’t require training. Beyond a simple brief, I didn’t have time to train or orient anyone. The space itself needed to be structured to communicate what most training events aspire to. For us this looked like one-on-one time with our guests, and a quick de-brief after the event to learn from each other.
FOLLOW-UP. We pretty much need to eliminate follow-up all together. Besides a simple database entry process to prevent unnecessary risk, I didn’t have time to call anyone or explain much of anything. My focus was on the weekly rhythm of the Sunday Suppers; the process, not the people. If people came back a number of times I would invite them to the next opportunity or training event (which we’ll talk more about when we get to “stage 2” opportunities).
DEVELOPMENT. Allow the space to self-select people in or out of a development process. I only wanted to work with the most interested, the most dedicated and the most committed. Again, with a week after week event, it was pretty easy to know who these people were.
Automating everything is just one step towards leaving the agrarian reality behind. Subsistent living is not good enough for NPOs - not anymore. If we are willing to take a few, innovative steps toward our own, personal Industrial Revolutions, we will soon accomplish in days what is currently taking us years. Most importantly, the world will begin to change. And you and I will be an integral part of that change.
Don’t forget, this is the first of a 6-part series. “Automate everything” does not address your immediate needs (for example, those boxes of letters on the floor of your office that need to be collated and stuffed this week), but don’t worry - we’re getting there.
Realizing Your Worth Blog; realizedworth.blogspot.com
LinkedIn Profile ; http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjarviscan
Twitter; @RealizedWorth
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