March 23, 2010Comments are closed.volunteers
Good morning!
All going well, I’ll be live blogging from Jayne Cravens’ ‘Building a 21st Century Volunteer Program’ seminar.
I’m quite excited as not only is Jayne visiting from the US, but she is big on using online tools for volunteer engagement. Some more info on Jayne here:
Jayne Cravens is the Online Volunteering Specialist at United Nations Volunteers, working with both NetAid and UNITeS. She directed the Virtual Volunteering Project for four years in Austin, Texas.
A nonprofit professional with more than 15 years experience in the field, she has presented workshops on online communities and culture, public relations, corporate relations, volunteerism, and volunteer management, among other subjects, for numerous organizations and conferences.
She is a regular contributor to various Internet discussion groups, and earlier this year, was selected one of the Top 25 Women of the Web. Jayne’s own nationally-recognized web site, coyotecom.com, offers extensive technology tips for community-serving agencies, and tips for camping (offline, ofcourse) with your dog.
Trends in Australia
– volunteers now want to make a difference
– want to be decision makers, leaders
– they want connection
– want an experience they can talk about
– skills for resume
– new roles for specific skills (eg. web design)
– involuntary volunteers (eg. dole workers)
– roles created to benefit the community (skills training)
– requirents for representatives from all demographics
– more corporate volunteers
– aging volunteer population: needing new recruits
– more Internet use/ online communications to volunteers
– tighter budgets: volunteer coordinator needs to prove value in role
Virtual Volunteering
Using the Internet to support your volunteers.
– The majority of your volunteers will be supported online.
– People who volunteers online will usually also volunteer onsite.
– Number one complaint for online volunteer recruitment is: “I signed up and no one ever got back to me”
— get an automated response
– Use photos on your website of your volunteers to show how important they are to your organisation
– Write about you volunteer team: case studies, successes, positive stories. Give volunteers a chance to have a say (blog)
– Look at what other organisations are doing, then steal their ideas :)
– Recruit a volunteer to splice up videos of your volunteers/roles & upload to YouTube.
Learning about online tools
– If you don’t start the conversation, your volunteers will start one for you. Start the (blog? Facebook page) yourself, set the tone and encourage people to participate.
– Use Google alerts. Set one up so that when someone posts about you, you know about it.
– You need to be communicating via one-on-one email, but you need to be having a group discussion also.
– Dealing with negative volunteers online: when mean volunteers dominate the conversation, handle it as you would in person; call them & tell them it’s not cool. Moderate their effect be being positive. Deal with it so people can see how well you handled it.
– Join this group for volunteer managers: OZVPN
– Become a participant of least two online groups (any topic) to see how different people communicate online.
– Watch the youtube/ online videos of other groups in your industry to see things you like.
– Find a way to include offline volunteers, rather than not doing something online because it excludes them.
– Keep you ex-volunteers in your online groups. They might come back if they see something that interests them.
– getting your organisation ready
— introduce the idea informally/softly
— partner with people comfortable working online
— look at your existing volunteers policies and map your processes for online volunteers
> develop role description
> recruit based on assignment
> assess and screen
– Make regular contact online with volunteers
– Invite them to events
– Recognise, recognise, recognise! Google recognition programs.
– When a volunteer complains about something you’re not doing, invite them to be the one to take responsibility for the task.
Recruiting for diversity among your volunteers
– representation from different genders, age groups, economic levels, ethnicities, abilities/disabilities etc.
– work out which groups are under represented (seniors, skilled professionals, uni students) and target the places they visit. Contact their representative groups if you don’t know.
– why do the groups volunteer? Appeal to them.
– express the kinds of roles you have available (show they’re not all long term, time intensive).
– Recruit: neighbourhood newspapers, targeted radio stations & programs, communities of faith/ not of faith. Send messages regularily.
Identify: civic groups, professional groups, online groups, facebook groups, neighbourhood associations, ethinic groups.
Using online groups to recruit
– Don’t just stroll in to an online group & start talking. Treat it as though you’ve walked into a physical meeting.
– Ask advice. Recruit a volunteer from the group, or contact the group manager for advice.
– Be polite and sincere.
– Ask what words, phrases and topics should be avoided.
– Apologise if you’ve offended someone. Ask ‘tell me more about that’ to find out where you went wrong.
– Groups are rarely unified. Ask a range of people for their opinions and be aware of ‘unoffical’ leadership.
– Coordinate your efforts with other departments in your organisation.
– The fund raising manager make sure all the staff know exactly how much money they make.
Everyone should know:
— what impact the volunteers have on the organisation.
— how many volunteers have been involved and engaged this month.
– YOU have to become the marketing director for your program.
– Submit a short pithy report on volunteering for each staff meeting.
– Submit a similar report or data for each board meeting.
– Prepare one page for the annual report.
– Send a short volunteer update email occasionally to all staff. Remind people you exist.
– Involve marketing staff in your programs outreach; often the marketing department are looking for things to market.
– Make your volunteering section on your website comprehensive.
– Celebrate staff members who involve online volunteers.
– Do presentations to each department on your volunteering program (keep it short, 10 mins).
– Be persistent. Don’t try to change everything overnight.
– Volunteer Managers are outreach managers; they work with the community.
– Don’t measure the value of volunteers in $$ per hour, but the value they provide in community engagement, participation and spreading the word. “people like what we’re doing, they keep showing up to help”.
– Changing community perception of our organisations; what do volunteers say about us?
– You have the power to debate for the changes you need.
– Use research, blogs and other peoples words to make you case.
– Ideas that were once common in non-profits (‘the Internet is dangerous’) have changed over time.
– Use powerful language: ‘community assests’ rather than volunteer, ‘supporting, engaging volunteers’ rather than ‘using’. Other words for volunteer; pro-bono consultant, team coach.
– selling volunteering internally is as important as selling externally.
