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Super greatness from those who show up

PMD volunteers who show up as planned, on-time, for the entire project, are super great! We had just such a group preparing our eleventh annual Thanksgiving meal on 11/18.

I just read a guest posting in Tactical Philanthropy about volunteers who don’t show up and create other problems.

PMD strives for 100% attendance. We carefully plan our volunteer projects so that we match the right number of volunteers to the tasks needed and work spaces.

Having the expected number of people to complete the tasks needed is important. We know from experience that too few or too many people, or people arriving late or leaving early, compromises effectiveness and satisfaction.

PMD achieves 90%-100% attendance is because we clearly

  • Explain how volunteers will make a difference
  • Require and thank them for a firm commitment 10-30 days in advance (and have found that most people cannot commit reliably more than 30 days in advance)
  • Confirm and then communicate details in advance
  • Articulate the effect (on charities, clients, and the rest of the volunteers) from not participating as planned
  • Repeatedly provide clear instructions on what to do if one discovers s/he cannot participate as planned, since this happens occasionally to the best of us.

If someone is unexpectedly absent, the project manager and I follow up to find out what’s up, and I go so far as to describe the negative impact of someone’s absence.

If it happens again, I caution the potential volunteer to be sure s/he can reliably and responsibly commit in order to do more good than harm. And if it happens again, I remove the person from our lists until assurance of changes that will ensure reliable participation.

Doing more good than harm is one of the expectations that PMD regularly communicates to volunteers. This helps clarify the impact of not showing up or not following safety measures.

Putting things in perspective helps, like when you’re new and you find out that a charity’s clients are looking forward to the meal you help cook because past PMD volunteers did good to engender this positive attitude, or that not giving money to a client will keep things uncomplicated for the PMD volunteers who follow you.

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Dating before marriage analogy to volunteerism

Friday’s Financial Times has an article about joining nonprofit boards. PMD definitely recommends this process of getting to know the organization, its strengths, its needs, and your potential roles BEFORE you sign on for a 3+ year commitment.

Just as you generally shouldn’t propose marriage on the first date, I recommend that you don’t suggest joining our board until you’ve gotten to know us beyond our web presence. With the demise of effective board fairs, it seems like it is difficult to find appropriate board candidates (and dates) in Boston.

It starts with determining whether an organization’s mission and vision are in line with your values and motivations. Then one should volunteer/visit and engage in a “courtship” process.

PMD would be happy to court you for its board once you indicate genuine knowledge and interest. We are currently seeking a clerk and board directors.

Let’s switch focus from 3-year board governance commitments to hands-on volunteering: Although the tide is slowly turning, most charities still expect people to “marry” (i.e., volunteer hands-on) for 6 months or more without much courtship. PMD’s diverse array of one-time “speed dating” (i.e., hands-on volunteering) opportunities serves to help give people a sense of the culture, people, cause, etc. We’ve lost volunteers to ongoing commitments to some of our recipient charities, and we’ve also gained recipient charities from our volunteers who “play the field.”

These are folks who prefer not to settle down with helping just one charity. With PMD, they won’t be bored with the same volunteer activity week after week.

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PMD Volunteers Assemble New Harry Potter Books

It’s social justice that all (sighted and blind) kids who are excited to read should have access to these reading materials, particularly when it is a cultural phenomenon. No one wants to be left out.
This past week, 15 PMD volunteers confidentially collated, folded, married, checked, and stitched nearly 600 copies of volume 7 of 10 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and then helped box and label the two large boxes containing each braille book for shipping for the National Braille Press.
7/15/07 group photo
More than 850 PMD volunteers have assisted the National Braille Press since 1993. PMD volunteers have been helping make the braille Harry Potter books since the release of Goblet of Fire within a month of the print release in 2000. PMD volunteers also did the Order of the Phoenix in 2003, and the Half-Blood Prince in 2005-The latter was also released the same day as the print version, thanks to Scholastic allowing the Press access to the files in advance of the release date. Hopefully more publishers will give early access to the Press since it has demonstrated repeatedly that it can operate according to strict confidentiality standards.
On behalf of all 15 PMD volunteers bound by strict confidentiality agreements, I particularly thank the spouses, partners, friends, family, and employers who were patient when we volunteers uncharacteristically weren’t able to tell you exactly what we’d been doing this past week.
Elizabeth Ryan and David LaPointe Collate Pages
Elizabeth and David team up to collate pages of volume 7.
Melissa Kavlakli Folds
Melissa carefully folds sections of volume 7.
Patrice Oliver & Martha Dorsch Check
Pat and Martha marry sections and check page numbers.
Jan Doremus checks page numbers
Jan meticulously checks page numbers.
Ellen Kranzer stitches together volume 7
 Ellen stitches together volume 7.
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Stolen groceries delay lunch, but don’t dampen enthusiasm

A huge satchel of groceries was stolen from the curb in front of the Anna Bissonnette House (ABH) in the South End on July 14th. This heavy bag contained $60 worth of spinach, cheese, butter, summer squash, apricot nectar, crackers, and tomatoes that volunteers from British Telecom Conferencing were going to use to prepare lunch for the 40 frail and formerly homeless elders who permanently live at ABH. 

The satchel was on the curb for less than a minute, and was taken when volunteers were distracted by a bus melee while I parked three car lengths back. We discovered that it was missing after we had divided up the dishes to be cooked and were looking for the missing ingredients. (fyi: I filed a police report due to the outrageous nature of this theft, stealing from the needy, but don’t expect that anything will come of it.)

The seven volunteers and I adjusted the menu and someone rushed out to purchase some replacement groceries, only delaying lunch by 30 minutes and causing the cancellation of pre-lunch bingo.

We always say that our volunteers should be flexible and that our volunteer project managers should expect the unexpected, but the egregious nature of this theft really surprised me.

I thank the volunteers who made a delicious meal despite the early setback, and the understanding elders who understood why lunch was delayed and why we held a drawing instead of playing bingo as planned.

Volunteers ricing potatoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Preparing cantaloupe appetizers

Plating lunches 

 

 

 

 

 

 

British Telecom group photo

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I really like feeding people….good food.

I really like feeding people, whether they are family, friends, homeless people at a shelter, or formerly homeless elders who now live permanently at the Anna Bissonnette House in my former neighborhood, Boston’s South End. Maybe I’m nondiscriminating since everyone can be hungry.

Call it selfish, but I feel good when I prepare a nice meal for people. To me, a nice meal is something delicious and comforting and made from scratch, not something packaged/unhealthy, which is why I particularly like cooking for people who share this view.

On June 23rd, Greg, Eric, Karen, Jeremy and I worked hard to put together a popular luncheon that had frail elders taking seconds, thirds, and even fourths for dinner later at the Anna Bissonnette House. We served fresh fruit, crackers, and cheese for starters. Then Greg roasted and sauced* 16 kosher chickens (that had been frozen and donated to me by Trader Joe’s); Eric made fresh, summer vegetable medley; Jeremy made potato salad with lots of vegetables hidden in it; and Karen made low-cal, glazed chocolate sheet cake, all from scratch. Yum! *I highly recommend making quick barbecue sauce using the recipe from Cooks Illustrated.

Locally, Rosie’s Place recently wrote that they are actively trying to improve the quality of their meals by including more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and reducing fats, sodium, and processed foods, which only increases the pleasure I have in planning and preparing a delicious dinner for them. PMD will be there on Sunday, July 29, 2:45-7:45 PM, and we welcome your help if you are age 16 or older, male or female, and/or welcome your financial support to help us purchase top quality ingredients. The more people who help, the less work per person and the more ambitious a menu we can execute. Please sign up by 7/19 so I have time to plan accordingly.

While cooking is by far one of the most physically demanding activities that PMD volunteers take on, it’s incredibly rewarding. As Robert Egger, founder of D.C. Central Kitchen, said in the Washington Post, “I’m always amazed when people come in to volunteer at the kitchen and realize they’re having a good time, that it’s not ashes and sackcloth.”

This short interview by Tamara Jones is worth reading. Egger points out an emerging caste system, which is one reason why PMD has supported Hearth (formerly called the Committee to End Elder Homelessness) for nearly a decade. “You have all these efforts to feed hungry children when the reality is there are probably more hungry seniors in America than there are children. These are men and women who fought World War II. These are men and women who led the civil rights struggle. These are men and women who built our roads and a million other things that we owe them a debt of gratitude for, yet we refuse to even deal with the issue of senior hunger in America.”

In the interview, Egger raises important issues of respect for and empowerment of hungry people, many of whom are employed but still cannot make ends meet. I am not satisfied with serving anything of lesser quality than what I would feel good about serving to my own family and friends, and fortunately I have the ability to be uncompromising about this.

If you’d like to learn about food stamps and making food choices with limited funds, read the comments/tips that people posted in response to the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge in the spring. Congressman McGovern (and his wife) from MA was among the partipants who blogged about their experiences and received very interesting comments online.

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It’s good to carry your volunteer weight and then some

If you want to make a real difference, then you have to be contributing more than the resources you are consuming in the process. Otherwise, awareness building aside, it would be more efficient for charity staff to carry out the tasks.

Volunteer time + donations > staff time + resources used

Today’s Wall Street Journal article about the “Helping Hordes” straining New Orleans charities that the volunteers purportedly seek to help describes problems that are not, sadly, unique to the Gulf.

I am fortunate to work with individual volunteers and select companies that really understand this. Every time PMD cooks a meal, we use donations from the actual volunteers and our other donors to purchase all of the groceries from top-notch purveyors. This removes the burden of time and funds a charity would have to spend grocery shopping so that volunteers could cook a meal. Most charities simply cannot accomplish this unless they employ a full-time cook and supporting staff for their kitchens, and since PMD tends to help the small, grassroots charities, our resource-committed role is essential to feeding hungry people.

In April, McKesson did a great job with its annual Community Day for which PMD organized the volunteer projects for their Newton, MA, employees. Together, we planned for and provided all of the tools and materials, as well as feeding lunch and giving t-shirts to the nearly 60 volunteers and the dozen charity staff who worked with them. We had funds remaining in our materials budget, so we purchased needed items that recipient charity Cradles to Crayons identified on the regularly updated, “Top Ten Most Needed Items” on its home page.

This weekend with PMD’s organizing help, Cornerstone Research’s Boston staff will converge to give a “yard makeover” to a residence for frail, formerly homeless, elderly women, followed by a do-it-yourself ice cream social that will enable volunteers and the women to interact after several hours of hot, yard work. I’ve spent quite a bit of time purchasing all of the materials (flowers, composted manure, mulch, etc.) and tools for 30 people to garden simultaneously. And I’ve become quite the penny-pincher since I want to get as much value as I can for each dollar Cornerstone is contributing.

I could share many more PMD examples since PMD chooses to work with companies that believe in creating more net value. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time attempting to convince other companies that this is The Way to do things. Many businesses just don’t get it, and want to believe that participation from their group is enough, despite the obvious associated costs, even their internal organizing capacity. I find it odd since they seem to reserve this thinking for their volunteer activities and not their meetings and business activities, yet expect even greater productivity and enjoyment from their volunteer activities. Maybe this is like childish wishing one can “get something for nothing”?

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Give 5 Stars to PMD’s American Express Project Entry by 6/17!

Former founding PMD board clerk, Nancy Goldberg, and I have developed what we hope will be a winning proposal for a project that is
  • Innovative (i.e., people often ask PMD/me and Nancy for advice for bar/bat mitzvah and confirmation projects after they are unable to locate useful information online)
  • Achievable with $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 due to PMD’s and Nancy’s experience and networks, and
  • will certainly have a lasting and broad, positive Impact.

See project description below.

If you are an American Express card holder, please show your support by awarding five stars to #03770 Tried and True: Plans for Teens to Save the World and participate in the message board as soon as possible before June 17, 2007.
 
Like many online community contests, it’s all about spreading the word among people we know and getting them to vote, so any help you can provide would make a real difference, much the way awareness about PMD spread beyond the board’s and my friends after the first year. You already know that PMD has integrity and is all about doing a great job helping others–Now that we’ve had 3,503 people volunteer for 628 PMD projects helping 107 charities, and they’ve told us how we can do better each time, we’re sharing our knowledge base to help others do a great job, too.
A project of this scope would enable PMD to help many young people make a real difference to local charities, going far beyond offering lists of possible project ideas or standards of excellence for volunteers, volunteer group leaders, and charities (that I’ve helped co-develop) to providing practical plans useful for all stakeholders so that teens’ volunteer projects successfully
  • Produce appreciable results and generate tools and materials while conserving recipient charities’ limited resources,
  • Educate volunteers about broader issues, and
  • Bring people together to make a difference.
Last year, Nancy and her daughter, Liesl, learned about homelessness and poverty, selected a local women’s day shelter to support, collected what they said they needed and made innovative centerpieces, as well as volunteered together with PMD at that charity to see how their contributions would be used.

Project Idea #03770

Tried and True: Plans for Teens to Save the World

Unedited project description below. Rules limit online descriptions to

1,000 words and do not let us name People Making a Difference (PMD).

Although many teens have the time, interest and inclination to engage in meaningful community service, it is very challenging for them to do so. Most volunteer programs aren’t geared to teens’ abilities or availability. Despite the many obstacles, some teens, teachers, youth group advisors, etc. have succesfully found ways to engage teens in making their communities a better place. We propose building a web site where teens and those who love them can share their sucessful blue prints for volunteer projects that really work. The project tasks, timeline, cost, and other crucial information would be available to those around the world to replicate in their own communities.

To obtain and to share a wide variety of community projects of all sizes

and scopes, we will conduct a massive outreach effort to synagogues, churches, other faith-based groups, youth group leaders, teachers, etc. So that we can obtain useful, detailed, and complete information, we will offer a donation the 501-c-3 charity served by the project, in honor of the teen or adult organizer, as an incentive for sharing unique community projects.

© 2007 Nancy R. Goldberg & People Making a Difference through Community Service, Inc.
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No Time to Waste

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t know anyone who has excess time to waste. With the preparations for PMD’s 15th anniversary, several grants to write, several corporate projects to develop, and running PMD’s regular service program, I’m working 80 hours a week and not happy about it.

 

So I’m irked when meetings start (and thus end) late or I read about another Big Dig fix at “no taxpayer cost “ (that will cost precious time to many drivers due to reroutings and delays in order for the fixes to be completed).

 

While wasted time seems to be the status quo, at least PMD service projects start and end on time. We try to respect people’s limited time and their commitment to participate for an entire PMD project. Likewise, we, particularly our volunteer project managers and recipient charities, appreciate when volunteers respect our policies about timeliness. To aid volunteers with this, we ask that they arrive 5-15 minutes in advance of the advertised start time to check and settle in, and we also provide fairly detailed directions and maps with time estimates.

 

Arriving late or not at all are some of the most stressful things volunteers can do to our project managers. Assignments are incomplete. Orientation must be repeated. As a result, late people don’t enjoy volunteering as much and tend to be more critical despite their being responsible for their lateness, our volunteer project managers are unnecessarily stressed, and the on-time volunteers have to compensate.

 

Now if only I could get PMD’s board of directors to respect each other’s time and to treat their meetings like PMD projects…. Special kudos to Martha, Danielle, and Karen, who worked with me until 10 PM to complete the invitation mailing last week.

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What, Why & How volunteers should learn

When people volunteer and connect to a charity, its clients, and/or an issue, they typically become more committed and likely to participate again and are less likely to check off their involvement as “volunteer with PMD” alongside “pick up dry cleaning” and other tasks that they complete and never think of again.

How do volunteers make these connections? PMD incorporates learning opportunities in its project descriptions, info packets, and during every service project.

Although PMD shares key facts, links to charity web sites, and/or current news articles about the relevant topic, the truth is that few people do more than skim written materials in advance. Most often, people-to-people interactions during their volunteer experience make the difference: when a project manager repeatedly articulates that the completion of these specific tasks enables this charity to carry out its mission of helping some needy group, and when charity representatives describe their missions, answer volunteers’ questions, and share their personal stories about how they came to be involved in this work.

Most charities don’t have enough staffing to spend time with each volunteer or group, so I think that video is becoming increasingly relevant when people want to develop a greater understanding beyond their individual volunteer experiences assisting people in need. To fill this need, PMD has used excerpts from MonkeyRay Productions’ Growing Old documentary (now available on DVD!) to encourage people to consider aging and its challenges by watching relevant conversations with elders, professionals, and doctors in Greater Boston and learning about key trends.

If you or your group volunteer with elders, I recommend integrating viewing of this documentary to provide important context to the direct services you provide to individual elders. It is also a great starting point to discuss these complex issues.

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Appropriate gastronomic volunteer recognition

Today I had the honor of preparing a brunch for PMD’s dedicated project manager volunteers: Jennifer, Aimée, Phil, Michele, and Mary. Just as they bake homemade cookies each time they lead a group of PMD volunteers to help a local charity, I annually host an elaborate brunch for them in appreciation for all they do.

While it would be more convenient and economical to take them out to brunch at a restaurant (and I wouldn’t have to clean and de-clutter my apartment), the act of cooking something special just for them in my home is important since they work so hard as PMD project managers, enabling groups of many other PMD volunteers to engage in good works effectively, safely, and enjoyably.

It was my pleasure to do something nice and somewhat unique for these dedicated people. PMD can’t afford to compensate them monetarily since they are worth so much, both in their professional lives and in their impact on PMD’s capacity to carry out the mission. It is the least PMD can do since being a project manager is very challenging: engage a group of strangers with no assumed skills or experience to work productively and effectively immediately to address the special needs of a local charity.

There was good camraderie, interest in each other’s lives, and positive karma on a very cold, subzero/just-stay-in-bed winter day. Midway through their omelettes, Michele joked that they would be returning for brunch again next weekend.  And while I know that it will be impossible to get these busy volunteers together again until next year, I can’t help but wish we could do it again next weekend.

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