Category: management

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Forward-Thinking Charity Partners Wanted

When the Boston Globe headline read “Volunteers unwanted” above the fold on the front page on Wednesday 3/25/15, I had to respond in case people got the wrong impression, since volunteers are very much needed in the nonprofit sector, and this is the premise of PMD’s business model.
Yet the subhead “Nonprofits often fear what corporations want to give” had some truth to it.

So I wrote a Letter to the Editor that was published today*, adjacent to a nice letter by Community Servings’ CEO David Waters, who reminds us that contributed services are a valuable resource that can greatly expand charity impact when done right.

Another critical part of PMD’s business model is that we rigorously plan and prepare for PMD service projects, making site visits, mobilizing expertise, and buying, transporting, preparing materials, and setting up the tools and materials so that volunteers can become productive quickly AND learn about the context of their contributions. It can sometimes take 40 manhours of preparation in order for 50 volunteers to help out together for one hour; luckily when we repeat service projects like assembling Lego science kits, we can reuse the training slides we’ve carefully developed and refined over the years.

One last plug about PMD corporate partnership projects: our partners (Novartis, EMC, VMware, etc.) donate to PMD to ensure that everything is ready to go for their private groups, “much the way some organizations have an event planner orchestrate their holiday party.” PMD is currently planning summer and autumn service projects, so call me to learn about options for your business.

*Due to space limitations the only thing that was left out of my letter was my specific example, so I’ll share that part:

Now planning its fifth year, exemplary Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) makes $5,000 grants to its 40+, vetted charity partners to pay for materials and staffing, fosters communication/clear mutual expectations during a four-month planning period, as well as assigns its own staff to make site visits in advance and help lead 3,000+ employee volunteers participate in its annual, company-wide Service Day: One Community. One Blue.

Note: PMD was a BCBSMA charity partner with the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences, assembling protein science kits in September, and we have applied to expand this project in 2015.)

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Enforcing the “Lines” for Volunteers

Last week, I heard on the “news” that celebrity Lindsay Lohan showed up 40 minutes late for her required training for her court-mandated community service, so was sent home (before she was later incarcerated for violating the terms of her parole). Kudos to the charity which enforced its standards rather than accept any effort as better than no effort.
While I’m certainly not Lindsay Lohan, as I attempt to do more, I increasingly run late despite my best attempts to allocate enough time, and it seems that this is not uncommon for others. So when I personally volunteer, I must make a huge effort to overcome my tendency to run late, so that I don’t cause more harm than good, such as delaying meals for many diabetics who must medicate and eat on-time.
As volunteers increasingly take responsibility for critical tasks for nonprofits, nonprofits need to set and enforce appropriate boundaries that reinforce the high standards of their charitable missions. While incarcerating any PMD volunteers who arrive late (or unprepared) is not an option, this year I’ve begun enforcing our basic requirement to call in absences by the day before, by revoking volunteer privileges, so we don’t compromise our services. When volunteers arrive so late that we’ve already scaled back expectations for the group (thereby doing more harm than the good we originally planned), we send latecomers home. And when volunteers arrive unprepared, such as being improperly/unsafely dressed, we also send them home.

This may seem like overkill to some, but we’ve already drawn reasonable, publicly-revealed “lines,” and now we’re actually enforcing them because they are significant to the good we strive to accomplish.

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Why Does It Take So Long to Post PMD Project Descriptions and Send Project Details to Volunteers?

Simply said, because I’m waiting for all the details needed for a successful volunteer experience, whether it’s signing up to volunteer and the project itself matching expectations/pr or the details being complete and correct. Since PMD partners with many charities, most of which don’t have staff dedicated to running an ongoing volunteer program, it takes time for us to work out these details together, sometimes longer than expected.

My related TSNE article on nonprofits must prepare to recruit volunteers has gone live today. It’s relevant whether a charity needs a volunteer to help for only two hours one time or needs many volunteers to help for several hours a week.

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Humor and stories help people understand/retain key points on engaging volunteers.

Although People Making a Difference (PMD) is often thought of as being the group for individuals and businesses to go to for fun, well-organized, hands-on volunteer opportunities helping community-based charities and their clients in need, PMD also provides needed training and pro bono consulting services (and serves as the fiscal sponsor and leads the Directors of Volunteer Administration (DOVA) ) so that more charities can engage more volunteers effectively.

I’ve been a regular presenter at the annual conferences of VolunteerMaine and the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network, plus the Technical Development Corporation (TDC) and the Nonprofit Net (where they recorded my 90+minute seminar) in Greater Boston. (Since the United Way abandoned volunteer management training when it reorganized two executive directors ago, PMD has been trying to fill the void.)

Earlier this month, I offered data, insights, and advice on enabling volunteers to make a difference to a packed workshop organized by Jackie Cefola and her team at Third Sector New England, as part of its free, Bottom Line training series. Originally planned for just 35 participants, it filled beyond capacity within two days of being advertised, and 50+ people actually participated. I suspect that there is such a huge interest in volunteers since donations of time and treasure distinguish the nonprofit sector, everyone is trying to do more with less during the recession, and a typical American’s volunteer involvement has become just 1-2 times a year. Fyi: I began with trends in volunteer (mis)management and had participants base their thinking on key volunteer motivators balanced with their charities’ prioritized needs, followed by targeted marketing approaches/tools. (Email me if you’d like a copy of the handouts.)

Attendee feedback from this workshop was quite positive, and I was delighted to learn that many people appreciated my humorous approach. While I don’t typically think of myself as a funny person, I guess I do use humor when sharing stories of nonprofits and volunteers, particularly cautionary tales, beginning with my own story as a 10-year-old, novice violinist “serenading” captive/immobile residents at my great grandmother’s convalescent hospital.

In my subsequent high school years as Key Club Governor and Lt. Governor of the California-Nevada-Hawaii District, I mostly shared lists of facts and dry logic during trainings and presentations I gave, so I’m glad that my presentation style has evolved to integrate relevant storytelling and humor. People really do remember stories, not isolated information, and humor helps us deal with difficult subjects.

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Rejecting/Accepting Volunteers Based on What We Need

Jenny Hibbard blogged about “Volunteer Hoards: More Work Than Help” and Brad Feld blogged about “Saying No in Less than 60 Seconds” this week, so in this spirit of of maximizing the time/effort that one spends on what’s important, I think more volunteer managers need to educate the public as to what their charities need AND say “No” quickly and often, so they can spend time on potential and current volunteers who could/do make a difference to their charities, rather than distracting offers to do unrequested, less needed things, unless, of course, all current volunteer needs are addressed.
First, more charities need to think and plan their volunteer programs critically:

  1. Assess and articulate their volunteer needs using comprehensive position descriptions
  2. Determine and allocate charity resources to support a volunteer program that engages volunteers who will address these needs
  3. Target groups/places with the most likely candidates (rather than a random, shotgun-like approach), using real marketing techniques
  4. Encourage people to self-select, to apply for specific roles, based on sharing the criteria of each, specific volunteer need
  5. Maximize staff time spent on people most likely to become (or who already are) great volunteers and be (or keep them) satisfied in these roles

Beyond the aforementioned volunteer program “must haves,” this means learning how to quickly intake and assess nonstandard offers*, and to thank but reject: “Thanks for your kind offer, but your does not match our agency’s volunteer needs at this time.” While harsh, together we’ve got to train the public to learn about our causes as well as what our charities say we really need.
*This probably means eliminating a general volunteer application form as a first contact a potential volunteer has with a charity, since these forms tend to create more work, like requesting more information, unless a charity has sufficient staffing to review and respond to the volume of general applicants quickly. Lately, I’ve been recommending tailoring forms for specific positions AND only offering them to applicants who have attended an open house or have already completed an unskilled volunteer task for the charity, and thus already learned the basics about a charity and its needs.

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What’s Missing from the Calls to Volunteer

2009 has already had unprecedented numbers of leaders encourage more Americans to serve: President Obama on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, the massive Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, and Michael Bloomberg encouraging more New Yorkers to volunteer last week. Last year, Deval Patrick created the Commonwealth Corps in an effort to increase volunteerism and the capacity to volunteer among Massachusetts residents and charities.

However, not much has changed for the ordinary person who still has to work, pay rent, and put food on the table, who cannot dedicate more than a few hours a week to volunteer, or for local charities struggling to serve more needs with fewer resources in this economy slump. Beyond leaders telling the public to do more for the common good, little has (or has so far) changed to remove barriers to involvement since few resources and directives have been created to improve the volunteer programs and capacities of local charities.

For significant growth in the for-profit sector, a supply chain (which translates to the nonprofit sector as volunteer program development, recruitment, screening, placement, and feedback loops) is developed to handle expansion, but it seems like our leaders are overpromoting one aspect, general volunteer recruitment, instead of the whole process for volunteer engagement. I’m concerned that many people may try to volunteer but then not feel valued or utilized effectively if local charities can’t respond and place them immediately. For example, at the very beginning when someone is newly inspired to volunteer, s/he is typically directed to a web search engine like VolunteerMatch that assumes s/he knows who s/he wants to help, has skills to do it, and what will be personally fulfilling, then generates an overwhelming number of purported matches. These sites have been around for decades, and yet they still lack eHarmony-like interfaces to help people identify their passions, temperaments, and resources and display appropriate matches based on more than physical proximity and a cause/needs. If these sites aren’t improved, then we have/will plateau since they are geared for people who think they already know what they want to do.

Volunteer program development (such as ongoing needs assessment and the creation of fulfilling positions) is static/outdated at most local charities. During the past two decades, the number of volunteer programs with professional managers/coordinators/administrators on staff has significantly contracted; some volunteer programs have been totally eliminated, while others have staff who also has significant fund raising and programmatic responsibilities (like PMD board director Jenny Hartwell at HEARTH). Volunteer programs are typically absent from nonprofits’ strategic/business plans, often with unwritten assumptions that if funds cannot be raised to accomplish documented goals and objectives, then uncompensated volunteers will somehow do so to meet these needs without additional charity staffing to recruit, screen, and manage them.
Furthermore, without fewer staff to welcome and screen potential volunteers who have been inspired to serve RIGHT NOW, long response times can be a huge turn off. There’s nothing like hearing a barrage of calls to volunteer since charities need more help, responding by calling/emailing my interest, and then hearing nothing back or delayed responses while those general messages continue. This phenomenon can really make someone feel unappreciated when, conversely s/he needs a really positive, first experience so s/he doesn’t give up.
Beyond finding out what’s needed locally (since I’m unconvinced that knowledge was provided by the Council on Foundations, Independent Sector, the National Council of Nonprofits, and other national organizations among the 300 who met at the White House on 5/20), leaders must fund real volunteer capacity increases at local charities and must help the public understand that volunteering is like searching (and finding) a perfect job. This process depends on

  1. Determining what one is passionate about and the types of activities one is suited for (and can make a difference at)
  2. Learning what is needed in one’s community, and
  3. Understanding that this takes time and special effort. And, like many of our professional paths, it could mean a series of several volunteer commitments to determine and to find a good fit.

I fear that another volunteer web site snafu like the former pic2009.org one (since removed) on MLK Day (didn’t collect phone#s or allow charities to email informative attachments or close sign ups when capacities were reached) will jeopardize a White House call to serve this summer.

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Tell me about project problems, and I can often help you out.

Open communication is key to good service project development, particularly since we at PMD are good problem solvers, plus tap resources and connections when things are not going as planned. Most of the partner charities PMD assists need more than simply volunteers recruited to help them.
For example, last year one of our long-time charity partners asked for our assistance with a new activity, we were excited to expand to something different, and many people signed up to participate even though an earlier-than-normal start time required many to leave paid work early. However, when I arrived 45 minutes before the project began, I learned that 90% of the envelopes, a progress-limiting supply, was missing. Had I learned about this sooner, I could have brought a few hundred from home (since I often have card stock around given that I’m a letterpress journeyman) and informed the charity how it could easily order and have more delivered from Paperworks. Finding out the problem upon arrival was too late for me to be of assistance, and our volunteers would have completed the task in a matter of minutes, not three hours as scheduled, which is unacceptable when people make time in their busy lives to volunteer. (Fortunately, at our urging, additional charity staff identified alternative work for our volunteers that still made a real difference, just not what the volunteers originally expected.)

Another example is a previously town-funded, environmental effort that sadly was not funded this year. PMD volunteers loved volunteering for this service project in 2007 and 2008, and we already had nine people signed up for the 2009 project when we were informed that it was canceled due to lack of funding, only three weeks in advance. Had the funding problem been shared with me 1-2 months earlier, I would have fundraised to make this popular project possible in 2009. We could have asked the dedicated volunteers and companies who participated in this project in years past, as well as small foundations known to support environmental efforts like this. Sadly, it’s too late to save this project and too late to schedule an alternative service project to help another charity on the date we reserved.

So you don’t think that PMD is lost in the theoretical land of “should of, would of, could of”, we’ve purchased and solicited donations of sugar pumpkins and delivered them for past community Halloween parties for Hawthorne Youth & Community Center when the pumpkins they ordered did not arrive as scheduled. Furthermore, during our service projects, PMD project managers are empowered to purchase additional supplies should the absence of a supply limit volunteers’ progress.

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Real reasons why people don’t volunteer

Deborah Finn, who moderates the Mission-Based Massachusetts yahoogroup, pointed us to a blog entry about Information Age volunteerism by Ben Rigby, a cofounder of the Extraordinaries. It combined with the comments are interesting. Like the commenters, I think that a combination of new and old ways of volunteerism is needed.
I also posted this comment about real reasons why people don’t volunteer:
I founded and run People Making a Difference (https://www.pmd.org) in Boston to remove the common barriers to direct service volunteerism while providing effective recruiting and volunteer group management services that bring real value and non-redundant assistance to the mostly small charities we serve.

Though I am quite familiar with the traditional, survey responses as to why people say they do not volunteer, I no longer believe these for the most part. It seems like respondents are giving the same excuses because the survey instrument offers these standard, superficial choices about not having time, being unasked, etc. when the underlying reason is that most who do not volunteer have yet to become motivated. As Ben points out, if people have time to watch tv (I’ll add: and they are not responsible for caring for family members), then most can and will make time to help with something for which they are passionate (cause or tasks) and for which the experience is positive. And the easier the entry point, the easier it is to get started.

Motivation is a shared responsibility between nonprofits and potential volunteers. As others have already pointed out, nonprofits need to define and to articulate accurately what help is needed, provide the internal support to make it possible, structure/market the opportunities attractively like the Extraordinaries is attempting, and select people best suited to help. (Few for-profits expect their employees to be productive as quickly and stay on staff with as little as the nonprofit sector allocates for volunteers, whether in strategic planning, budgets, supervision, work space, etc.) Likewise, potential volunteers need to figure out, sometimes by trial and error, what inspires them and how they can contribute meaningfully. When they find a rewarding volunteer position, most people will stick with it, finding a way to contribute unless their personal circumstances change (commonly in Boston, they move too far away).

I admit that I am concerned about the statistical “problem” with low volunteer retention, but I wonder if this is partly a side effect of the trial and error when people seek a “volunteer placement of a lifetime.” Just as most people date before they marry, moving on to volunteering somewhere else is not necessarily a sign that the original volunteer position was bad, just that the fit perhaps wasn’t great for that person. And while the nonprofit and person could do more to try to “save the marriage,” the easiest path is usually to split up and try again. (Of course, if the experience is really horrible, some people give up and don’t try again.) People often become unmotivated because they don’t understand how they make a difference, so PMD project managers articulate this a lot before, during, and after people volunteer, which seems to work, but is much easier to implement during 3-7 hour, one-time volunteer experience as compared to once every week.

One last thing: We should make entry to volunteerism easy, but also maintain high standards. At PMD, while we do let anyone sign up 10-31 days before a PMD service project, we promote “informed and responsible volunteerism” to raise the proverbial bar on one-time volunteers since we are investing limited resources into organizing high quality, free service opportunities for both participants and recipient charities. I often talk/blog about doing more good than harm, like the direct consequences of not showing up as committed, and so we have 90-100% participation. No matter what volunteers are expected to do, all nonprofits should set high standards out of respect to the people, places, and others we aim to assist, and explain our rationale. Implementation will vary from requiring 40 hours of technical training with certification to basic reference checking about people’s ability to do what they say they can do to help, then supervision with checks and balances to review volunteer performance along the way.

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