MY THOUGHTS

Imagine being able to go to a training session where six of the most prominent international leaders of your  profession are the trainers.  The National Convention on Volunteering and Service has provided that opportunity.  Martin J. Cowling, Susan Ellis, Linda Graff, Rick Lynch, Steve McCurley and Betty Stallings  were the presenters during the Opening Session this morning.  Each discussed What’s a big/new issue facing the field (Volunteerism) or just around the corner?  These are just my notes and I may have missed some very important points and are not a complete description or an attempt to relay exactly what the presenter may have stated they are my impressions of what was said.  If I misinterpret or misquote, it is not intentional, it is simply a mistake on my part, but I believe that I captured the gist of what these leaders in Volunteer Management had to say.. 

 

 

 Susan Ellis

She discussed that this is Tremendously contradictory time.  That she gets tired of hearing about the incessant, never ending single days of service against the mission/role we have to involve high skilled “pro bono” volunteers and develop volunteer managers to lead highly skilled volunteers.  Discussed that there is an effort to establish an international Mandela day on July 18th, but that it had been announced just 1 1/2 month ago honor 67 years of service by Nelson Mandela by individuals giving 67 minutes of service.  The service is the same-old “stuff” read to a child, plant a tree, etc. then there is the extraordinaries for when you have a few minutes here and there to give.  She correctly (my opinion too) how do we gain highly skilled volunteers, when it seems that we have a never ending short-term, highly publized events that focus only on the short-term volunteers.  What happened to developing long-term relationships with volunteers and that we are working with more than just the stereotypical volunteer (envelop stuffer, greeters, receptionists, etc).  Discussed that we have to have board and executives more involved in the volunteer generation and management.  That there needs to be a systemic change, for when the professional “pro bono” are involved.  Also don’t label as highly skilled, just call them volunteers.  It is confusing to those in an out of volunteer management using the term highly skilled – what is highly skilled actually mean…different each place.  While the multiple high visibility short-term volunteer opportunities may look good on a press release, the longer term involvement of volunteers probably has more positive impact on the overall organization.  Volunteer leaders need to take control of the volunteer agenda in the organization instead of letting it being run by “others” however, well intentioned.

Rick Lynch

Volunteer Management has three parts

1.  Supervisory

2.  Programmatic

3.  Strategic

Volunteer Management is often overlooked and ignored entirely, and generally only lip service is given to involving volunteers who are highly skilled in the organization.  When in fact a volunteer program gives an organization access to every skill in the community that it needs to be successful.  A volunteer program is a means of engaging the community as a partner in accomplishing the mission of the organization.  However, the Volunteer program is not usually looked at this way, it is looked at to provide free labor. 

He discussed a quote “Although volunteers can certainly provide useful ancillary services, they cannot solve serious social problems” - Pablo Eisenberg

He disagreed with the quote.  Nonprofits will not have enough money or people to solve the problems they identified, but without volunteers there is not chance that they can accomplish the mission that they have identified.  This quote goes along with the idea that “There is what volunteers do, then there is a failure of imagination of what volunteers can do”.  How volunteers are actually used versus what they can actually do is sometimes or often very different from the reality of their abilities or knowledge.  Discussed that there is not any excuse for an employee of an organization with a strong volunteer program to be overworked when it has enough volunteers.  Gave the of a painting restoration effort and how 2 of the restorers complained of being overworked and so far behind.  That when he discussed the problem with them and how their organization used volunteers, that they thought of volunteers as the gift shop volunteers, but didn’t think of the retired former co-worker or other artists and college art departments – professors, exceptional students, who might love to volunteer their time to help with restoration projects, but had never been asked, they didn’t think of other resources or think outside of the box for volunteers who had skills other than the gift shop helpers. 

He stated that Volunteers have the potential to transform an agency…but they rarely do or are barely allowed to. People need to look at different uses for volunteers than just the typical “gift shop”, stuffing envelopes and other menial tasks.  That executives must look at how their organizations use volunteers and educate staff and nonprofit executives not to be threatened by the “highly qualified” volunteers who come in to help their organization.  As volunteering sessions/opportunities become shorter and shorter this is beginning to be less of an issue????  very complex question.

The question was asked about confidentiality issues – He discussed that this is another smokescreen issue and another of many mis-assumptions of volunteers. He asked how many of the people in the room volunteered and most everyone raised their hand, he then asked if at our regular jobs we had confidentiality policies  and most everyone raised their hands.  He then asked how many people forgot about confidentiality when we go to our volunteer opportunities and no one raised their hand.  He then asked what was the problem with confidentiality for volunteers??? 

Betty Stallings-

1. We need to be focusing more energy on creating Staff friendly volunteer programs.  Discussed that without staff support, we will never have volutneer-friendly organizations or programs.  Discussed the importance of creating a philosophy, a commitment or value statement for engaging volunteers into an organization one which truly guides all staff in carrying out the mission with volunteer partners.  When organizations don’t have this it causes serious schizophrenia in volunteer managers and makes the volunteer program less effective or ineffectual. That volunteer managers need to develop creative and effective ways to capture the potential multiple impacts that volunteers can have in an organization, -  Create a visual that helps folks GET IT!!!

2. Discussed that CLARITY in the role that the Manger/Director/Cordinator ovf Volutneer Resources plays in an organization is needed.  What is the best role to achieve maximum benefits for the volunteer program?  Discussed the impact of positive executive and board leadership on the success of a volunteer program.  

FROM THE TOP DOWN IN VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT.

Include CEO and executives in the discussion about volunteer programs, they don’t hate us, but they don’t think about us either, they are focusing on solutions to problems and unless we provide a solution to one of those problems we are just another department.  Volunteer managers must:

1. enhancing executive commitment from perfunctory to “volunteers are the heart and soul of our organization: to create active commitment and support.
2. providing resources to assist executive in carrying out the roles we need them to play
3. educating tomorrow’s nonprofit leaders about significance of volunteer/civic engagement and how to provide leadership in its development support.

As an example One executive’s comment  was quoted as “Bring me some solutions to the problems that keep me awake at night and the door is open” What part can volunteer management and volunteers have to do with the organization or program’s mission and resources?  Everything.

Martin J. Cowling

Discussed the impact of the Recession on volunteering.  Many of those who are being laid off are requesting to volunteer with different agencies.  Those who have been laid off are learning that if they are volunteering they are developing and keeping their skills.  This information is being passed to a lot more people, which is creating more initial interest in touching base, but not many people are actually following through, but that some are creating more new possibilities and difficulties for volunteer managers .  He discussed that volunteer managers are being asked to do more and more…but with the same amount of staff or less and being asked to do more with less resources, salaries, increased workloads, are leading to significantly  increased pressure on volunteer management practice.  The unstated trend replacing volunteer staff  with volunteers.  He discussed the need to stop devaluing volunteer managers and start valuing the volunteers managers as the professionals they actually are.  Sometimes volunteer managers focus so much on the small stuff and daily requirements that we don’t focus on our needs and kind of passively let things happen to us.

Will we have gone backwards or will go forward…will we continue to make a difference or do we become passive about volunteer management.  Is being a separate Volunteer Program is getting us in trouble, he believes that we need to look at integration of volunteers through all programs, instead of being viewed as another program that competes for funding with everything else in the organization.  There is the false impression out that that anyone who has volunteered can be a volunteer manager, but “if you have had brain surgery that you can do brain surgery”  ha!

Volunteer managers have done a lot of whining and victim mentality, we don’t let volunteers get involved ourselves, we tend to diminish volunteers input, just as other departments in organizations.  We are not walking our talk by devaluing our volunteers expertise or input into possible solutions.   We have to stop thinking of ourselves as runners of the cheap temp agency for the organization.  Volunteer management needs to be included into the professional job description and is part of their evaluation, if this happens believes that volunteer management would be looked at differently and thinks others impressions will be improved.

We have volunteers now – that we don’t need a volunteer manager.

The volume of information that was being presented was simply overwhelming and I just didn’t keep up after Mr. Cowling.  However, I learned a lot from just listening to these experts and am looking forward to the smaller breakout sessions.