This month's spotlight is on volunteerism.

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3.  The Tick-Tock Thing

Minimal time commitments are big satisfiers.  That translates to the preference for shorter terms of office and for short duration work assignments.  Apparently volunteers want association leaders and staff to understand that they have another life.  Deep down they do know that, but perhaps aren’t sufficiently moved by that knowledge.

Some associations are suffering through a shift in their ranking when stacked against other volunteer opportunities.  Volunteer priority shifts are showing up in terms of choosing where to give time - profession/industry volunteer service or social/community oriented volunteerism.  More and more seem to be lining up for the latter.

I’m convinced that we will continue to see shrinkage in available volunteer time regardless of what we do, leaving us two possible strategies.  One option is to rely less on volunteers; a viable option for some, but impractical or cost prohibitive for many associations.  A better bet might be to attract a lot more players.  To accomplish that, if we heed what volunteers are telling us, we’ve got a lot of changing to do.  Listen closely to their feedback and you soon discover that a shrinking pool of volunteers and volunteer time isn’t the problem we need to address.  That’s seeing it backwards.  What we really have is a governance problem creating the shrinkage.  The peg has changed shape and no longer fits comfortably.  The way we conduct business may be turning off new volunteers, or at least failing to turn them on.  We’ve been very slow to do anything substantive because redesigning the hole to fit the peg goes deep into where we live; from vision to output.

So how do we redesign the association to fit these reshaped volunteers?

Work with meaning

Some veteran volunteers don’t seem to mind it much, but more and more of the new players say they prefer vision or mission focused work over administrative work.  They repeatedly talked about the desire to address something actionable for which they could see visible end results.  Feedback about what they considered administrative confirmed that preference for action.  The most dreaded administrative work was information intake, especially reading or listening to non-actionable FYI reports and communications.  We need to get better at streamlining their information intake, giving them more time to chew on the more tasty mission-critical work.

Self-directed committees often remain directionless, and that produces a highly unsatisfying volunteer experience for those who want meaningful, worthwhile work.  Veteran and new volunteers alike prefer serving on committees with tightly focused actionable assignments that feed goal achievement; environmental scan analysis, implications and conclusions; crafting and implementing strategic plan initiatives, strategic direction adjustment and policy development.  Too often that kind of work is reserved for the Board.  Committee volunteers say it is the kind of work they should be and want to be doing.

Reduced time commitment

Reshaping the association to fit the volunteer means working within the time they can and will give.  Shrinking time-available would suggest one year board and committee terms instead of two or three year commitments.  It would also favor ad hoc, consulting or contributing expert roles over service appointments to standing bodies.  At the Appraisal Institute, reshaping volunteer opportunities to include ad hoc service options tripled the number of volunteers the first year they were offered.  When the annual call for volunteers was issued, the vast majority of those new volunteers responded with a preference for ad hoc roles as consulting experts or on-call specialists.

Work alone – play together

Carving out a better fitting volunteer experience often means a shift to virtual volunteers.  It is a wise association that accommodates the growing reluctance to travel to meetings; using technology that enables participation from home or office instead of hotels and conference rooms.  Volunteers can work from anywhere.  The Independent Chauffeurs Association conducts virtual board and committee meetings with participants sitting in the limo holding area at O’Hare, using call phones and wi-fi connections on their in-car computers.

Millions telecommute to their jobs; they should be able to telecommute to volunteer work as well.  Associations need to build systems to accommodate and support virtual volunteers:

When the need is for face-to-face volunteer experiences, reshaping routines is key.  Today’s volunteers want a focused, structured framework that gets the work done quickly.  They want rapidly paced meetings to get them in and out fast, which speaks volumes about skill requirements for chairs.  And they definitely favor pre and post meeting, value added experiences like:

Stop asking wingless pegs to fly

Volunteers experience high levels of discomfort when asked to do what doesn’t come naturally.  Too often they say they find themselves with assignments that aren’t compatible with their experience or skills.  Many are reluctant to volunteer at all because they don’t think they have the required experience or skills.  We need to do a better, more selective job of matching people with the work, or training them up to it.

For some associations leadership training should go far beyond their traditional orientation to real skills building sessions.  Many volunteers consider skills training a value-added experience because acquired skills are translatable to other facets of career and personal life.  Associations like the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry have gone into leadership training in a big way, partnering with a major university.  The program is highly praised by the volunteers who’ve been through it.

Tools like check lists, how to descriptions, templates and samples are also highly valued, on-the-job aids for newcomers, removing some of the trepidation over taking on a volunteer assignment.

Short, shorter and shorter still

Forget long term volunteer commitments.  Sustainability of the volunteerism model favors more people with smaller, more manageable roles.  Emerging volunteers respond most positively to short term, fast-in/fast-out work modes:

Our best hope for the future may be ad hoc volunteers.  They can be consulting experts to temporarily augment or assist core committees, task forces and project teams.  They can be on-call specialists, responding to one-time needs for volunteer input or expertise.   And a favorite volunteer role is to serve as a focus group, survey or opinion poll participant. 

Ad hoc volunteers are our biggest, untapped resource; we just need to learn to work differently to make the most of it.

Lighten the load

Piling it on ‘til it hurts is a bad strategy.  Volunteers complain about being squeezed.  “Once they get you”, one said, “they never let go.  Serve on one committee and you’re on the go-to list for everything.”  Board members in particular often feel pressured to do more than is reasonable.  Multi-hat Board jobs often include a dizzying scope of work: the corporate fiduciary and strategic decision making role; representing and often functioning as the primary communications link with a constituency; liaison to one or more committees; public relations, legislative or other advocacy spokesperson; liaison to external organizations; and expected participant at every major association event during the year.  Multi-hat volunteers who can do all those jobs equally well are scarce on the ground – and more importantly, those who want to are a species nearing extinction. 

One job at a time is pretty much all most volunteers want to tackle.  People have and will give limited time, and individual capacity is easily overreached.  Overburdening volunteers is a turnoff; turnoffs spread “that’s not for me” reactions.  And there are successor implications; no one wants to step into the shoes of someone who was worked until they dropped or a job that is more daunting than appealing.

Instead of a few people with multiple roles, we need models that use greater numbers in smaller roles.

Open the gates

It is all too tempting to repeatedly visit the well you know has water.  We’ll need to begin placing more trust in untried, unproven new players.  This is outside the comfort zone for many current association leaders who think it takes tenure to be effective.  Staff members are also prone to prefer reliable favorites.  The smart association will routinely intake more than a few new folks to governance roles.  It facilitates new perspectives, creativity and new ways of getting things done.  Newbies also respond better when they don’t feel overwhelmingly outnumbered.  And a balance of new and experienced members creates a value-added experience learning for both.

The need for continuity and historical memory on governing bodies has some validity, but that card is often overplayed.  The rear view mirror is useful for context but far less so for forward movement.  Continuity and historical memory should rest more with the staff than the volunteers.  Where it does matter in the volunteer corps, a balance of veteran and new participants blended with staggered terms should be more than enough to preserve group memory for at least two years.  Frankly, if a committee is still working on the same thing after two years, I’d be seriously worried about them spending even one minute more looking backwards.

There is also a tendency to reserve the best jobs for the veterans.  That’s great for them, but newer volunteers want their association to be even-handed with meaty and weighty opportunities.  Their volunteer satisfaction levels are low when the really meaningful work is always reserved for the old guard.

Recruiting Reminders

Ask frequently and make it personal.  Do an annual call for volunteers and periodic calls for ad hoc opportunities as they arise.  Fully disclose the nature of the work and the time commitment.

Nurture those who volunteer but don’t get a structured appointment or assignment.  Keep them involved with proactive, regular contact; surveys, opinion polls and ad hoc specialist or consultant input opportunities.  Consider and prepare them as under-studies.  Provide access to info on all work in progress, especially in their stated area of interest.

Cater to the different care and feeding requirements for new and experienced volunteers.  When you influx a crop of fresh faces, the veterans need to know they aren’t being “replaced”.  They respond well to being viewed as elder statesmen, which is fine as long as they know that newcomers aren’t expected to always defer to them.  Newbies are needier.  They need to feel they aren’t outnumbered by veterans.  They respond best to warm welcomes and enthusiastic listening to their ideas.  Give them some of the plumb assignments to demonstrate their value and get full benefit from all they have to offer.  If your association is a bureaucratic and/or political labyrinth, see that they get extra support (background information, orientation, peer and staff guidance) to level the playing field for them.

Retention Builders

Decrease the burden.  Try to match individuals to jobs that fit their level of skill, experience and interest.  Invest in staff training, enhancing their facilitation skills to support volunteers.  Ramp-up for telecommuting, virtual volunteers.

Give volunteers tools to make them successful:

Many of the ideas – shorter terms, ad hoc instead of fixed roles and virtual volunteers sound simple on the surface.  But when it comes to implementation some associations will discover a need for considerable cultural, operational and infrastructure change to pull it off.

Finally, it is wise to remember and accept that volunteers self-define role preferences.  For officer positions there’s a very small interested population, but that is less problematic because few are needed.  We have greater need for worker bees and many more will want those jobs IF they are convenient.  Making volunteer service convenient is something we just need to get better at.  Ad hoc volunteer consultant or specialist roles will appeal to the largest segment of potential volunteers; almost everyone is willing to quick-share their knowledge.  We’ll get more volunteers and get more out of them if we shift to fewer fixed and more ad hoc governance modes.  And we’ll see our greatest success if we consistently hit the mark on volunteer satisfiers - meaningful work, compelling experiences and less time-intensive commitment opportunities.

Copyright  2006 Linda C. Ridge.  All rights reserved.

Author: Linda Ridge is President of OnPoint Solutions, Inc., She can be reached at (312) 565-1140