Energize Book Blog

Are you looking for ways to re-energize your recruitment and retention efforts? Our online journal, e-Volunteerism, has recently published two really interesting articles on the possibilities that social networking holds for volunteer engagement.

The first article is “Using Social Media in Your Volunteer Engagement Strategy” by Joshua Fixler. This Training Design article will help you and your nonprofit or government organization identify opportunities for using social media in your volunteer engagement strategy. Use it as the basis for in-house training (it even includes a ready-to-use Microsoft PowerPoint presentation!) or just read it yourself to jump-start your thinking. (This article presupposes a bit of familiarity with social media tools on your part. Need some basics? Read this free article from JFFixler and Associates (and be sure to check out the resources and definitions at the end!). Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Some Tips on Using Social Media (The Five Bs)

• Be Yourself
  Do not just go to social media to sell something. Share your interests, passions and skills, just as you would in an in-person relationship. People do not come to these spaces to be pitched to, but they are always happy to hear about exciting opportunities from people they trust.
• Be Prepared (to give up some control)
  You will have less control of your message, but your message will be more powerful. Think of the difference between the impact of a handwritten appeal versus a form letter. When asked, your circle of influence will be happy to speak on your behalf…

(You’ll need to read the full article to get the other three “Bs”!)
Full Text (for e-Volunteerism subscribers)
Purchase article (for non-subscribers)

The second article is “Social Media and the Gift Economy: Volunteerism in the Vanguard” by Patrick Daniels in the UK.  Here’s an excerpt:

Increased Visibility for Volunteering

Engagement with social media can increase the visibility of volunteers’ experiences and improve volunteer managers’ understanding of the volunteering they offer. When a volunteer is providing service online, perhaps as a discussion board moderator or an online peer mentor, a big chunk of their engagement is clearly in the form of comments, posts, edits or messages. A consequence of this is that much of what the volunteer does is probably recorded, searchable and, to an extent, measurable.

Social media also offers the volunteer manager more opportunity to be open and transparent with volunteers about the particular needs of the project and its service users. Blogging or sending out regular e-mail updates about the project keeps volunteers more informed about the broader context and empowers them to get more involved should they want to. This can also give volunteers a perspective on the wider work of the organisation should their involvement be narrow, such as volunteering for a short shift outside office hours or remotely away from the main office.

Full Text (for e-Volunteerism subscribers)
Purchase article (for non-subscribers)

“Volunteers Donate, On Average, 10 Times More Money than Non-Volunteers.” That’s a headline sure to get the attention of anyone in the not-for-profit world. It’s just one of the important findings in a recent study released on December 3 by the Fidelity® Charitable Gift Fund and VolunteerMatch.  The findings support Energize’s long-held stance that volunteer-involving organizations should remember their “time donors” when looking to support volunteer involvement financially. In 1996, Energize President Susan J. Ellis wrote in her best-selling book From the Top Down, “…studies have shown that satisfied volunteers frequently are so supportive of the organizations with which they serve that they become donors of money and goods as well.”

When revising her book, Susan greatly expanded her take on the connection between volunteering and donating funds.  Here’s an excerpt from the soon-to-be released 3rd edition of From the Top Down: The Executive Role in Successful Volunteer Involvement. This fully-revised edition will be available for purchase in early 2010 (keep checking back here or sign up for the Energize Book Buzz, which will announce the book’s release!).

The Volunteer-Donor Connection

Pre-publication excerpt from the manuscript of the 3rd revised edition of From the Top Down: The Executive Role in Successful Volunteer Involvement by Susan J. Ellis, © 2010, Energize, Inc.

As an executive, you do have to be concerned with the funding to keep your doors open. So while I have just stressed the importance of engaging volunteers for the benefits they bring as volunteers, consider this perspective as well: A check never writes itself. All contributions of money or valuables come from people who are voluntarily demonstrating their support of your cause. This implies a strong correlation between those who give time (to whom we refer as volunteers) and those who give money (to whom we refer as donors). Would your consideration of volunteers change if you were to start calling them “time donors”? Or speak of “fund raising” as “people raising”?

Do you regularly ask for a report on how many volunteers in your organization are also financial donors and vice versa? If not, why not? If yes, have you analyzed what this means? Are the databases for these two groups integrated or, at least, accessible to both volunteer administration and development staff?…

Asking Volunteers to Give Money, Too
Periodically the debate surfaces over whether it’s appropriate to solicit money from volunteers. Those who are uncomfortable doing so have a sense that this might be “double dipping.” Despite research showing that people who volunteer are more
likely to also give cash than uninvolved people, the reluctance to ask for money from volunteers keeps the development office and the volunteer resources office operating in distinctly separate spheres.

One stereotype is that volunteers don’t have a lot of money. This, of course, is only understood for frontline volunteers, since those engaged in things like planning the gala dinner are conversely assumed to be wealthy enough to pay for anything
requested of them. Beware all assumptions!…

But let’s get back to “it just doesn’t feel right” to ask faithful volunteers to give money, too. An organization can—and probably should—offer volunteers the opportunity to donate funds, but it has to be done in a way that is clearly different from soliciting people who are not already actively working for you. The key is to start by acknowledging that the prospective donor is a volunteer. It’s true “recognition” to know this important fact. Nothing is worse than a volunteer receiving the same mailing sent to everyone, as if his or her service is invisible.  Try the following sort of appeal:

We are so appreciative of the time and talent you share with us throughout the year as a volunteer. Thank you!

Please know that your volunteer contribution is of great value in many ways. Volunteers ensure that we can spend every dollar we have on needed services and still do more. We also know that giving us your time comes with various costs/expenses to you personally. But because you are so familiar with our work, you know that it takes both participation and money to accomplish our mission.

How can we ask strangers to contribute funds and not give you the chance to decide if you want to add a check to the ways in which you already help us?

Of course, there’s no obligation to give money. It’s completely your choice.

Done properly, such a solicitation can (and should) feel like a thank you. Possibly this request for a donation should be sent only once a year, without follow up. The point is to include volunteers in your fundraising efforts, but not to guilt them into writing a check.

Can you believe it – volunteer management now has its own Idiot’s Guide book! Working with the standard template, author John L. Lipp  crammed a lot of very useful information into 304 pages, all in bite-sized chunks.  Read on for our interview with John and a taste of the great information you’ll get from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Recruiting and Managing Volunteers.

Energize,Inc. (EI): What makes this book different from previous books on volunteer management?

John Lipp (JL): As a profession, we’ve been very fortunate to have some great books on volunteer management. Many of those books gave me a lot of guidance over the years and the feeling that I wasn’t alone. I’m hoping this book will do the same for a whole new generation of leaders in the field, especially those who might not even think of volunteer management as a profession.

I wrote this book from the perspective of a practitioner. I’ve worked in the field for 22 years and spent many of those years directly leading volunteer programs in a variety of settings. I’ve made lots of mistakes along the way, and want to share what I’ve learned and hopefully prevent others from repeating some of those mistakes. I’ve also had my share of battles, usually with people who only think of volunteers as free labor or in very condescending terms. In that spirit, I hope the book will not only be valuable for people whose main job is volunteer management in an organization – whether or not they are paid or volunteers themselves – but a valuable resource for all people who find themselves supervising volunteers in some capacity. In other words, I hope this book gets shared among several people in an organization and that it just doesn’t sit on the volunteer manager’s bookshelf.

It’s also nice being part of the “Idiot’s Guide” series, with their familiar orange covers and format. Hopefully, this will make the book – and the information inside – very accessible to lots of people. I’m also hoping more bookstores, major chains as well as the independents, will carry it with their other titles in the “Idiot’s” series. It will probably end up in the business section, with other management books. I actually feel the “for profit” sector can learn a lot from those of us who work in the independent sector, so maybe the book will even have some crossover appeal? That would be great!

EI: In the chapter on volunteer training, you introduce the “Goldilocks Rule .” What’s that?

JL: The “Goldilocks Rule” comes from personal experience, when I served as Director of Volunteer Services at an organization that provided emotional and practical support volunteers for persons living with HIV/AIDS. At the time, the organization was requiring all volunteers – whether or not they intend to provide direct services to clients – to attend a two weekend training program that was Friday night and all day on both Saturdays and Sundays; approximately 35 hours. It was a phenomenal experience, but at the same time, it was way too much for people who wanted to provide other volunteer services for the organization; services that we really needed.

Although I initially got some resistance, we ended requiring a much shorter training for those volunteers who wanted to work behind the scenes.  I learned that the key to preparing volunteers was to give them just the right amount of training they needed to be successful in their positions. If your organization requires too much, you can lose valuable people who might have a lot to offer. Require too little, and you may be putting your organization’s clients, and the volunteers themselves, at risk. It’s a balancing act. Goldilocks understood when things were “just right,” and most volunteers will too.

EI: The book goes through each step of the process of effective volunteer involvement – from position design, to recruitment, to recognition.  In your opinion, what’s the one step in this process that’s most often neglected?  How does that neglect affect volunteer engagement?

JL: I teach a lot of classes on volunteer management and leadership and, from talking with participants over the years, I’ve come to realize that many organizations want to focus on quantity – “how many volunteers and how many hours” – and not on quality, “what is the impact those volunteers are making?”  As such, a lot of organizations don’t spend enough time planning for volunteers and instead put all of their efforts into recruiting.  As we all know, bringing in volunteers without a clear sense of what role they will play and how they will be supported can lead to a lot of frustration and finger pointing down the road.  In short, never underestimate the importance of a good position description; the process of crafting them helps answers a lot of these questions ahead of time.

EI: We tend to put lots of time and effort into big, fancy recognition events, but your book contends that creating an overall “culture of thanks” is just as important to making volunteers feel appreciated.  What is a “culture of thanks” and how is it cultivated?

JL: A “culture of thanks” is a fancy way of saying that recognition of an organization’s people – volunteer or paid – should happen every day. People should feel welcomed, appreciated, and receive some acknowledgment of how they’re contributing to the cause.  Big, fancy recognition events can be a lot of fun, but they don’t replace the most simple gestures – smiling, greeting people when they come in, and saying “thank you” as they leave.

EI: Any closing thoughts?

JL: It is such an exciting time to be in our field! There are all these international, national and local movements to engage volunteers.  At the end of the day, it will be up to our field to make sure all these new recruits have a meaningful experience and can truly make a difference.  It’s going to come down to capacity building; helping the leadership in our various organizations understand what kind of systems need to be put in place to maximize the impact of all these new volunteers. I say it a lot in my book – volunteers are free, but volunteer programs are not!  I’m hoping my book will help spread that message. I have no doubt that everyone reading this blog “gets it” – now we just need to make sure that our bosses “get it” too!

The book is available at Amazon.com – they even have a kindle version, which I think is very cool! I feel a little embarrassed saying this, but if anyone wants a signed copy, they can order it directly from my organization Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS) in San Francisco. If they do it that way, all the proceeds from the book will go back to directly support our programs to keep low-income seniors and people with disabilities, including HIV/AIDS, living independently with their beloved pets. Just go to the Shopping Link at www.pawssf.org.

Finally, if anybody has any questions or feedback about the book – I’m especially open to suggestions about what should be included or changed for a future edition! – please e-mail me at John@voluncheer.com.

A million thanks for this opportunity to be part of the book blog and for everything Energize, Inc. has done for our profession!

Here’s the third  in a series of questions submitted by our readers and answered by volunteerism and risk management expert Linda Graff (read previous posts, on Risk Management and the Swine Flu and policies on reference checks).

The Question: I presently have a volunteer driver who has just come back from leave for medical conditions (stroke).  She still has her license and is eager to drive for us again.

My supervisor received an irate call from her son stating that his call was confidential and he did not want his mother driving due to her health condition.  He also implied that her health condition had deteriorated due to her busy schedule with us.  He made it VERY clear we are not to tell her he called.

The volunteer’s husband has passed and she enjoys her volunteer work.  The volunteer called wondering why she is not getting drives.

The son should speak directly with the mother, but won’t. The volunteer is getting frustrated, as we haven’t given her a clear answer as to why we are “holding off”. In the end if I can’t reveal the son’s call, what do I say to my volunteer?

Linda’s Answer:  Since the volunteer was off work for medical reasons and since the work she is wanting to return to is responsible, demanding, and risky, it would not be unreasonable to request that she provide a physician’s note verifying her ability to resume her volunteer driving responsibilities.  This way you can be more certain that she actually is well enough to drive for you and you transfer the responsibility for determining so to the expert.

You might consider (though this is tricky) notifying the son that this is what you plan to do and let the son make his case to the physician if he chooses.

I might add that the question of driving ability arises often in my workshops on risk management.  As you observe, the possession of a driver’s licence does not guarantee good driving ability, particularly for some of the demanding driving roles we ask volunteers to fulfil, such as night driving, driving long distances – sometimes will an ill person in the car – driving in demanding weather conditions, and so on.  It is also common for managers to worry about a decline in driving capacity among elderly volunteers or volunteers, who, as in your example, have experienced a related health issue.

My recommendation is that the organization recruit a volunteer expert assessor of driving capacity – a driving instructor – who will either routinely (every year or two) take volunteer drivers for a test drive to ensure they are still driving with the degree of skill required, or as the need arises, such as in the case of recent illness.  This technique ensures a more accurate assessment by someone who has the qualifications to do so.