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Responses to:
Still Tilting at Windmills

Posted on 24 August 2005 by Janet Tanner, Volunteer Centre Warrington, Year Of The Volunteer Development Worker Cheshire England
Today I have posted a response on our local volunteer managers eforum - the hot topic related to how volunteers and those that manage them are perceived by the organisations they support. Generally speaking low down the list !! I have recently left a job where I managed a team of over thirty volunteers. I was only given part time hours and earned considerably less than my "professional" colleagues, none of whom had any managerial responsibilities! It is still the case in England that the majority of people who manage volunteers are expected to do so as an add on to their "real" jobs!! In my opinion, if the role isn't valued than neither are the volunteers!!

Posted on 16 August 2005 by Jeff Brudney, University of Georgia, Professor, Athens, GA USA
I thank Susan Ellis for raising this provocative topic. I also appreciate Beth Gazley's commentary (see Beth's commentary below): Beth and I have been teaching in the area of volunteer administration at the university level for some time. The only study that I know of that has examined systematically the extent of instruction in volunteer administration at the university level is by Jeffrey L. Brudney and Gretchen E. Stringer, "Higher Education in Volunteer Administration: Exploring -- and Critiquing -- the State of the Art," pages 95-109 in Michael O'Neill and Kathleen Fletcher (eds.) *Nonprofit Management Education: U.S. and World Perspectives* (Westport, CT: Greenwood/Praeger, 1998). The article shows that instructional coverage of volunteer administration even in universities with a program/reputation for nonprofit sector management can vary dramatically.

Submitted on 15 August 2005 by Beth Gazley, Ph.D., School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University - Bloomington
A couple of corrections regarding the volunteer management curriculum: My introduction to volunteer management in the university curriculum was at the University of Georgia in the MPA and MNPO degree programs. The course, taught by volunteer expert Jeff Brudney, is devoted exclusively to recruiting and managing volunteers in the public and nonprofit sectors. This is an outstanding example of Susan Ellis' point and should be recognized in this column.

Readers might also note that volunteer management is indeed covered in various public and nonprofit human resources courses, and sometimes to a much greater extent than a course title might indicate. Certainly, volunteerism is not always covered to the extent that it could be. Some courses devote no more than a day to the topic, while others place much more emphasis on volunteerism. Susan mentions the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Both the human resources courses at IU's Indianapolis and Bloomington campuses extensively cover volunteerism in their graduate curriculum. Various courses address management of volunteers, volunteerism policy, and civic engagement and volunteerism on a global scale. The Bloomington course, which I teach, gives equal emphasis to paid and unpaid personnel issues. This course was developed specifically because faculty agreed that volunteer management required more emphasis in the curriculum.

Submitted on 11 August 2005 by Lacretia Bacon, Human Services Department, City of Phoenix Volunteer Coordinator AZ USA
In reading the responses about change and the challenges of welcoming new blood into our programs, it seems we sometimes beat ourselves up for being too comfortable and resisting change. But sometimes the problem is not us and our only failing is we are too close to the issue and don't recognize it.

A number of years ago, a new volunteer coordinator in the area asked me to consult and give "tips" on managing a program. She was new to the field, enthusiastic, inherited an existing program, and had brought in new people but was having an incredibly bad experience with retention. They came for a while and left.

While talking, it became more clear that the issue wasn't the VC or the program design, it was the volunteers!

In this program, for a heart association with docents that gave tours through the heart education center, the volunteers had established a hidden, unspoken criteria: you needed to be a heart attack survivor to be a docent.

Never stated, it was expressed in the attitude of the volunteers, their helpfulness to the new person, and by excluding the new person to the degree of almost shunning.

What was clear to me was not apparent to the VC struggling with this issue.

So, it is sometimes the hidden issues that affect our ability to impact our programs, not our own skills, abilities, and willingness to change.

Submitted on 8 August 2005 by Lynn Brooks, Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System, Director of Volunteer and Health Career Services, Salinas, CA USA
I have been a DVS for 22 years at a 266 bed hospital in a growing city in California on the Central Coast. We are a regional heart center with several areas of excellence and have top 100 Hospital Status from AHA. We have a traditional auxiliary (Service League) which was in place when the hospital opened in 1952.

At a recent Northern California Association meeting, I was shocked to hear how many hospitals are letting their Auxiliaries die out. It makes me sad that change has come so slowly to these organizations that were once so vital. Most of us have had to work around their structure while meeting the current needs of our hospitals.

Our program is very oriented on community outreach programs and student programs. We have developed more workforce advocacy/training programs and now see to the R.O.P. and Intern programs for the hospital. It is my feeling that Hospital State Volunteer Organizations have been slow in presenting or discussing more modern models that would attract the new type of retired volunteer today. So many of us are stuck in the old boxed models of yesterday and when these new volunteers present they are put off with not having more responsibilities and training.

Hospital auxiliaries have traditionally NOT sought out members because of their life experiences and what they can bring to their organizations. We need new blood and the hope of our future is most definitely with our youth and their exposure to our industry and volunteerism through their training/workforce advocacy programs.

Submitted on 4 August 2005 by Liana Sommerhauser, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Special Event Coordinator, St. Louis, MO US
Regarding the state of volunteer conferences, is it possible that these conferences are breaking down into smaller and area-specific meetings? St. Louis will host CAVORT (Conference About Volunteers of Regional Theatre) in April of '06. This is a small (approx. 150 attendees) group, but it has sustained its attendance for several years. Due to the average age of our attendees, I do see a strong possibility of our numbers declining in the future. The volunteers tend to be 50+ and the staff attendees 30 - 50 yrs. old.

Submitted on 4 August 2005 by Todd Martin, University of Illinois, Medical Center, Volunteer Coordinator, Chicago, IL US
I haven't been in the field long (3 years), but I still feel super energized. (Maybe because I am taking my first real vacation next week). I have 20+ years of life/professional experience that I bring to managing volunteers, so I seem know when to turn left or right about 80% of the time. What I'm finding most exciting right now are three things:

1. The exploration of "authenticity" in how we do volunteerism
2. The elevation of volunteers into ownership/leadership positions so that we can develop a feeling of structured collaboration with them
3. The deeper moral/spiritual imperatives that volunteerism addresses and how attractive this is to today's young people

Submitted on 3 August 2005 by Cissy Seibel, United Rehabilitation Services (URS), Development Director, Dayton, OH USA
I empathize with the feeling that overwhelms us all at some point in our career. But, if you will allow me, I'd like to present another point of view and some facts that make for discomfort.

Remains the same you say? Maybe, but could that be because we fail miserably at changing our own paradigm?

I agree with the first responder. The teenage/ college age generation, the generation that began younger than any previous generation as volunteers come to our facilities/agencies and WE (VM professionals) continue to discount them. It is far easier for us to 'manage' our older generation or same-age volunteers...then it is these youth. So we, consciously or not, shuffle them off to certain jobs. No, not all of us...but with soul-searching, many who read this already know they are the practicing this self-defeating action.

Remain the same? Maybe true but do we look at the changes we can make and ...find them 'not what we are used to doing'? Do we know about the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership that rewards/acknowledges/ encourages volunteerism? Do we go to schools to recruit? Do we mentor and work along side youth volunteers? Are we doing all we can to leave our comfort zone?

If you always do the same thing, you always get the same result. Do we have an invisible shield we use to deflect changes we don't like? Just thoughts from the other side.

Wright State University -Dayton, OH 2005, taught a (Grad(MPA/undergrad) course in " Urban Issues: Volunteer Management for NPO Executive". It is a 100% volunteer management course.

As an Adjunct for this recent course I was thrilled with the enthusiasm these youth had for volunteerism. Yet, each of them had many stories of how 'sadly' they were valued because of their age, their experience as a volunteer and more.

As professionals....if we can't change your mind--we can't change anything.