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January 1999
If the Whole World is Changing,
Can Volunteerism Stay the Same?
By Susan J. Ellis

 

It’s 1999 and we have learned to live with a contradictory fact: the only constant is change. Everything seems to be in flux (some would say chaos) at once. The question for all of us professionally is: If the whole world is changing, how can volunteerism stay the same? Of course it can’t. But are we prepared to make fundamental changes as well as cosmetic ones?

Many years ago the satirical cartoonist Jules Feiffer drew a comic strip that I posted on the bulletin board by my desk. It has eight frames, each one with the same image of an old women’s wizened face. In the first frame she says: "When I was a child, we were poor." In the second frame she says: "Then the government came and told us we weren’t poor, we were economically deprived." Third frame: "A few years later they said we weren’t economically deprived, we were culturally disadvantaged." The strip continues in the same vein until the very last image, in which she says: "Now I’m 84. I’m still poor, but I have a great vocabulary."

Sometimes I wonder whether volunteerism isn’t playing the same word game. I have done my part to urge all of us to embrace the many strands of service that have evolved over the last two decades: student community service; alternative sentencing; time dollars; welfare reform; and other programs--both mandated and voluntary--that bring new talents (and perspectives) to our organizations. I do feel that the word "volunteer" is being defined (redefined?) in ever-narrowing terms and that does a disservice to the contributions of the people we lead. But whether we call our work "volunteer program management" or "community resource mobilization," are we urging our organizations to re-examine their approach to integrating paid and non-paid workers?

The following questions need to be discussed openly at all levels:

1. Do we want volunteers because we genuinely think they add value to our service delivery or are volunteers a second choice when there are no funds to pay the employees we really want? Whatever we call workers who are not on our payroll, do we think of them as "extra help" rather than full team members?

2. Why is it that  "volunteers" and "volunteerism" is being pushed further and further down the totem pole? Why do students in service-learning get more attention than mature adult volunteers with proven skills to offer? Why do those calling for a "new civil society" seem unaware of the volunteerism field? Why are so many unconvinced that the skills of recruiting, screening, matching, training, supervising and recognizing "traditional" volunteers have direct relevance to working with any worker not on the payroll, coming from an outside source, and staying a short while?

3. When money is tight, do we maintain the current staff roles and unrealistically seek to "fill the gaps" with volunteers? Why don't we start by redefining the job descriptions of remaining employees?  Overall, how often do we reexamine whether the paid staff is still doing the work that most needs to be done? After all, our clients and customers are experiencing rapid change, too.

4. Do we understand that too often funding drives programming? To obtain money we create projects to suit the funder’s requirements. Volunteer involvement, on the other hand, is based on solely recognizing real needs and recruiting available talent to do something about it -- even if money is not available.  So maybe, instead of always trying to seek funds first, we ought to do strategic planning based on needs assessment and experimenting with volunteer responses.  Later, once volunteers have proven the approach to be effective, we can consider ways to hire paid staff to assume the roles volunteers have proven to be effective.

5. Why do executive directors, CEOs, and other top administrators understand that they must concern themselves both with raising money and with personnel policies (even if there are frontline staff in both those areas), but resist the notion that they ought to involve themselves occasionally in substantive oversight of volunteer involvement? What exactly is the obstacle here? I’ve spent at least twenty years trying to reach executive audiences with only modest success. Is it prejudice that volunteers aren’t very important? Stereotypes about who volunteers and why? Is it the dirty little secret of our field that volunteers are not liked very much by our administrators?

All these questions involve broad philosophic principles. The answers reflect our attitudes about society and the meaning of work, both paid and unpaid. What I want to ask YOU is more strategic:

1. How do we initiate meaningful discussion of these and other questions in our own professional circles? Then,

2. How do we move from talking to the converted to opening dialogue with other fields? Especially, how do we reach executives in meaningful ways?

And, of course, if you have any responses to any of the questions I posed above--or want to add some of your own--please let us hear from you.

All of us at Energize wish all of you the very best, professionally and personally, for 1999.

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