Responses to:
It's Volunteers and Money
Posted on 3 May 2008 by
H. Roberts,
PLNJ Inc.,
President,
Keyport/NJ USA
Attracting program funding, drafting allocation charts and agency budgets are challenging discussions to have in a website space that is not Q&A but rather post-driven.
However, I do have a perspective on what I see as a snag in paying for materials, consulting services and supporting for-profit writers/consultants/conference planners (just to name a few). Today's VM and the volunteers recruited and placed in support positions become the publication topics, conference and training workshop case studies for professionals working the for profit side of this industry. We (VM's) are already providing free experiences through interviews, sharing what works-what doesn't scenarios that become the research topics for those observers who make a living writing, speaking and creating materials for us (VM's) to buy. Without the VM and volunteers many of these publications/workshops/conferences would not exist. Many colleagues ask, why then should we pay for these materials? With spending limits on professional development, I think there's a point to be made for questioning what is a truly useful resource.
Secondly, the WWW is now full of marketers who fashion themselves experts on the non profit industry who in fact are technology pros entering the "there's money to be made" forum with little expertise in supporting VM's. Just take a look at the "who we are" button on some of these sites.
Lastly, the growing number of cause marketing programs (and I'm receiving at least four a month) that place a registered non profit in the position of fundraising online, or pooling large numbers of supporters to an online forum in the hopes of attracting enough viral "hits" to raise dollars, or the larger number of sites that ask you to register amongst a list of hundreds of charities and still expect you to believe the individual charity will stand out is asking the already understaffed, underpaid VM to help market a for profit companies wares.
At the end of the day, we, the VM's of x, y, z charity, are left picking and choosing a limited number of support materials and programs that most closely align with our most immediate professional needs and still remain in budget. The business of non profit has exploded on the for profit side. What exists is a sea of experts/scammers/wannabees all asking for your limited dollars. VM colleagues welcome a viral guidepost that addresses the best of the best resource materials now more than ever.
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