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In
his usual humorous personal reflection style, Ivan Scheier points out that
we can accomplish so much more if we're willing to step back from a situation
and discover a new perspective on it. Traditional approaches won't work everywhere
and volunteer program managers need to be flexible and creative. Here is one
passage:
"I
remember trying to recruit church volunteers for regular, one-to-one visits
with jail inmates. I wasn't having much luck, until I realized that my broader, "real" or "true" goal
was not one-to-one visits. It was, instead, providing healthy outside contact
and influence for inmates and possibly, too, friends outside when they did
get out of jail. Once I realized this, it was easy to see that pairs or
small groups of volunteers could visit with one inmate and achieve the same
goal - maybe better. On that basis, I started getting plenty of volunteers.
Good people who were probably somewhat uneasy about solo visits in an unfamiliar
and quite threatening environment, could now stand "back to
back," so to speak.
I also remember a group trying unsuccessfully to get a grant to buy playground
equipment for a community park. Finally getting un-fixated on the grant
method - children can't play on grants - they realized that a combination
of community fundraising and donated equipment might do the trick - and
it did."
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