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by Bessie Wright

Maine is teeming with volunteers and volunteer opportunities. Though I’m no expert, I’m willing to bet that a good proportion of those opportunities are less like the Red Cross and more like the local high school athletic boosters—volunteers who come together, work together and manage each other to meet a desired goal. In addition to athletic or music boosters, some examples might include:

Angling Clubs
Garden Clubs
Road Associations
Lake Associations
Service Fraternities and Sororities
Snowmobile Clubs
Hunting Clubs

Admittedly, many of these groups have membership fees, but they all operate in similar fashions. Most often this means the group relies only on the members to donate their time, energy and resources toward the respective mission. These organizations basically run themselves.

Membership Makes a Big Difference
Understaffing is problematic for all organizations, but for volunteer-based programs it can be a serious detriment. Non-profits suffering from low numbers will start showing considerable wear. For instance some organizational goals might be only partially met while others will be dropped altogether. Existing members will begin feeling the stress of trying to do the work of multiple volunteers. Under this kind of pressure many members burn out and leave the organization – further depleting a crucial resource. Finally, members who do stick it out just don’t have fun anymore; they stay solely out of a dogged sense of duty. A volunteering experience should never be viewed as only a chore.

Sometimes it’s hard for organizations to realize they just don’t have the capacity to do everything they want to do. But realizing there is a membership problem is the first step to revitalizing an organization; the next is making membership top priority. Often this means temporarily setting aside the group’s main purposes, and that can be a tough pill to swallow. But a volunteer-based program without enough volunteers is doomed to struggle.

All that being said, here are a few things worth thinking about when trying to increase membership:
- When recruiting, start by trying for about 10-15% of your target population. Shooting for 100% is setting yourself up for failure.
- Don’t forget your original goals entirely. After all, people will want to join to make a difference. Instead, use your efforts to further recruitment – Advertise your meetings, successes and where you need help via newsletters; press releases; signage; etc.
- Laura Wilson, at UMaine Cooperative Extension, did a survey on email versus paper newsletters. She found that people prefer to have that paper in their hands; emails are much easier to ignore and you run the risk of missing potential members because you don’t have their email addresses.
- Have Fun! Serious projects are always more successful when those working on them are enjoying each other’s company. Think about having an event specifically not related to work.

Readers, what other suggestions or considerations can you offer for increasing membership?

Bessie Wright is an AmeriCorps member serving with the Maine Conservation Corps.

by Penny Kern

I found this great site by Shar McBee, who posts short articles on volunteerism and gives permission to reprint them.

The one I downloaded was called “How to Delegate: The 3 L’s”. To summarize, because you can download the entire article yourself, if you’d like:

Look for Good People - You don’t want people to be growling through their tasks. You want people who will gleefully participate. Pay attention at meetings. Stand off to the side and see who is energetic in one direction or another and who just wants to get through with it.

Listen to Them - Learn what people need from you before you try to delegate to them. By listening first, you learn what they like to do and what they want to do. Then delegate things to them that they like and want to do.

Let them Shine - Give credit to others.

On Shar McBee’s website, she has this quote that I love - “Your job is not to get people to perform. Your job is to make it possible for them to succeed.”

Great stuff out there.

Penny Kern is a retired volunteer manager from Aroostook County.

by Jodi Freedman

We have all heard the stories about doctors making the worst patients. Apparently, this cliche crosses professions. Lately, I have found that I am not the volunteer that I would like to be! We have all had the experience of volunteers who don’t make it in when they have said they will. Or the volunteer who is late for their time. I know how frustrating this is for staff and for volunteer managers who are expecting the volunteer. Yet, with a full time job and a family, it is sometimes hard to make it to our volunteer commitments. It is not that I am not excited to volunteer. It is not that I don’t value the organization or the staff who are counting on me. It is just simply a lack of time! Perhaps I need to be better at saying no! I find myself agreeing to volunteer and then dragging myself to the set volunteer appointment. I always enjoy the experience and come away glad that I went, but it is a constant inner struggle to get myself there. For example, there is the time that I am supposed to spend in my daughter’s first grade class. It seems that when I do manage to sneak out of work for an hour, she is thrilled to have me there. More often than not, though, I can’t get away. Luckily, her teacher knows how busy I am and has agreed to go along with my “show up when you can” plan for volunteering. So, last blog, I spoke about firing volunteers. Have I become the type of volunteer that should be fired? I certainly hope not, but I am curious to hear your responses.

Jodi Freedman is a Major Gifts Specialist at the Maine Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.

by Christy Monroe

No matter what line of work you are in …meetings happen. Managers of volunteer programs are no exception. Efficient and successful meetings might not be on the top of your wish list, but I’d wager that improved time management and successful results are contenders.

Recently, I had the privilege to be part of a Great Meetings workshop by Dee Kelsey, an accomplished trainer, facilitator, and author. Throughout the day she challenged our group with questions and offered tips on overcoming meeting mishaps as a facilitator and as a participant.

One of my favorite parts of the workshop was a discussion around the question, “Should we have a meeting?” As simple as it sounds, how many times have you found yourself in a less-than-worthwhile meeting situation, checking your watch and the path to the door for your best escape route?

The point that Dee made is that unless interactive communication is needed in order to achieve a clear objective, a meeting is not necessarily the action needed. For example, team-building or sharing of information is often mistaken as an excuse for a meeting.

Let’s take a poll:
What would make you feel more bonded with your co-workers as a team?

a) Monday morning team meetings in the conference room

b) A scheduled social or team-building activity like a volleyball or baseball game, a team picnic, or working together at a hands-on community service project

Meetings need clear outcomes that justify their purpose. Taking on the roll of facilitator requires planning, preparation, and practice. Dee has lots of tips and tools to offer novice to expert meeting leaders from her years of experience in training and facilitation with organizations like Hewlett Packard, L.L.Bean, Bates College, and the Nature Conservancy.

Great Meetings! Great Results,written by Dee Kelsey and Pam Plumb, is a worthwhile resource for anyone who regularly attends or facilitates meetings.

Meetings happen, but with some practical tips and tools great results will happen too.

Christy Monroe is the Training VISTA at the Maine Commission for Community Service.

by Christy Monroe

I’m going to go out on a limb here in assuming that you are reading this blog because you’re a manager of volunteers or you’re interested in the management of volunteers. The question is- have you have utilized Volunteer Maine as Maine’s FREE online resource for volunteer recruitment and management? Are your agency’s volunteer opportunities listed?

Three reasons why you should consider (or re-consider) registering your agency and volunteer opportunities:
• Each month over 11,000 unique visitors check out the site and volunteer listings
• You can post one-time and ongoing volunteer opportunities, as well as recruit board and committee members and request in-kind donations
• Your volunteers can track their hours on the site

Maybe you’ve tried to register in the past, but you felt overwhelmed or unprepared. You’ll find resources like the Agency Registration Worksheet and the Volunteer Opportunity Worksheet to help you prepare before starting the registration process, along with instructions and helpful tips.

Perhaps your agency listing is outdated or you’ve lost your password-no worries. Personalized problem solving, trouble shooting, and technical assistance is enthusiastically offered by our Volunteer Maine AmeriCorps VISTA members and by Aroostook County RSVP! Give them a ring or send a quick email, and they’ll be happy to help.

We’d love to hear from some of the 600+ agencies statewide who are actively using Volunteer Maine or from volunteers who are familiar with this site. How have you found this resource to be most helpful? What tips do you have for other would-be users?

Aroostook County RSVP, Contact Kevin Giles and Carl Olsen 207-764-6184

Volunteer Maine VISTAs:

Joel Biron, 207-795-4010
Seniors Plus of Lewiston
jbiron@seniorsplus.org

Wendy Cattell, 207-985-3359
United Way of York County
wcattell@buildcommunity.org

Meredith Eaton, 207-941-2800
United Way of Eastern Maine
meredithe@unitedwayem.org

Jeremy Hammond, 207-782-3554
Good Shepherd Food Bank
jhammond@gsfb.org

Sarah McLuer, 207-443-9752
United Way of MidCoast Maine
VISTA@uwmcm.org

Kala Stenehjem, 207-874-1000×312
United Way of Greater Portland
kstenehjem@unitedwaygp.org

Christy Monroe is the Training VISTA at the Maine Commission for Community Service.

Guest Post by Carla Ganiel

Julie Mulkern sent me this Risk Management Quiz, along with a corresponding Answer Key, to include in her recent post, but I couldn’t figure out how to include Microsoft Word documents when publishing a blog post. Thanks to minds more tech-savvy than my own, I think I’ve got it figured out. Have a look at Julie’s resources and test your knowledge of risk management.

Carla Ganiel is a nonprofit management consultant from Tremont, Maine.

by Margaret Puckett

For years I had a magnet I kept on a file cabinet right next to my desk. The message it conveyed was one I found myself referring to on a fairly regular basis. It said “When you are up to your ears in alligators, it’s sometimes hard to remember you were supposed to drain the swamp.” Somewhere along the way the magnet was lost, but the words still echo in my mind.

I accepted my current position at St. Joseph Hospital not knowing a thing about volunteer management in a healthcare facility and facing a projected Joint Commission Accreditation Inspection in six months. The person who had filled the position for more than ten years had departed and was replaced by another individual who had purged the files during her approximately three month tenure. The place had been running on auto-pilot with no coordinator for about two months when I began. Most institutional knowledge was lost and documentation was virtually non-existent. It took me over three months just to figure out who all the volunteers were! Sound familiar? I think most of us have faced similar challenges at one time or another. But one thing the experience did for me was to reaffirm my belief in the importance of documentation.

Now, almost six years later, I finally feel I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on what I am doing. I’ve learned so much and I now have multiple systems in place to help me juggle the many tasks associated with my job. Above all, almost everything is finally organized. It’s comforting to know that whoever follows me will have the benefit of all this knowledge – but will they?

How can we help ensure the continuity and continued success of our volunteer programs? In the U.S. Army we called them S.O.P’s, or Standard Operating Procedures. In healthcare I’ve learned we call them Procedural Journals. Whatever name they go by, their purpose is the same: documentation of not only what we do every day, but also why we do it, and just as importantly how we do it.

“Oh”, you say, “I don’t have time to write all of that stuff down.” Up to your ears in alligators you say? Believe me… I know just what you mean. I have a whole list of proposed procedural journals I haven’t even begun to write yet. But I have found the time to write some, and those have been enormously helpful documents. Taking the time to develop procedural journals yields many benefits beyond just documentation. It helps us focus on just why we do things, evaluating our success or failures and gets us thinking about the possibility that there may be an even better way to accomplish a task. These documents help us to establish standards for what we do, and provide the additional benefit of being great tools for use in training others.

Facing all those alligators everyday is daunting task, but sometimes we all need to stop and remember to expend some effort in trying to drain that swamp.

Margaret Puckett is Volunteer Services Coordinator at Saint Joseph Hospital in Bangor, Maine.

An Advanced Institute on Volunteer Management will be offered May 31-June 2 in conjunction with the 2008 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in Atlanta, Georgia. The institute will offer experienced volunteer managers the opportunity to learn from the best-known experts in the world, including Rick Lynch, Linda Graff, Steve McCurley, and Martin J. Cowling.

The Institute covers topics ranging from ethics to leadership, from risk management to team-building and includes large-group forums, hands-on workshops, and small support circles that provide personalized input into your professional development planning.

Guest Post by Julie D. Mulkern

Although not one of the more enjoyable aspects of our jobs, risk management should be a near-daily term in the management of volunteer programs. Though we may not always have a salient risk management “issue” at hand, it is crucial that we—as volunteer managers—keep our finger on the pulse of risk management for our organizations.

I have been managing volunteers for nearly 10 years in three different non-profits. Whether matching mentors with at-risk youth, recruiting volunteer drivers for cancer patients, or incorporating volunteers into a psychiatric setting, all of these scenarios required thoughtful risk management policies and procedures. As such, the topic has always been of keen interest to me.

Effective risk management begins when programs have good policies and procedures in place to clarify volunteer expectations and establish standards of behavior. Written policies are essential to eliminate risk, clarify rules and expectations, increase the effectiveness of programs, guide newcomers to the organization, provide standards of conduct, and delineate responsibilities and boundaries. Written policies create an equal playing field for all involved.

Volunteer programs should always develop written position descriptions for each volunteer role within the organization. Volunteers supplement, not supplant. Volunteer position descriptions should always be markedly different than employee position descriptions (i.e. Fair Labor Standards Act). In addition, the program should include a structured procedure for screening & selecting volunteers. Following your HR department’s procedures as closely as possible is a good rule of thumb. A volunteer is as valued as a staff person and should be screened and selected in the same manner.

Programs should also provide ongoing training for volunteer competence and supervision/evaluation to monitor performance; volunteers do appreciate it! On the back end, ensure a plan for improving performance and rewarding the work of both the volunteer and the program.

Below is a list of risk management NEED TO DOS and NICE TO DOS for your volunteer program. Some are not so apparent, so read on!

NEED to dos
• ALWAYS have the volunteer sign a confidentiality agreement (annually).
• ALWAYS follow the EOE and non-discrimination policy of your organization to commit to diversity in the volunteer workforce.
• ALWAYS seek signed consent from the volunteer to do a background check.
• ALWAYS check a volunteer’s criminal background and the sex offender registry (free) if he/she is working with children.
• ALWAYS create a position description for each position a volunteer holds in the organization.
• For every written policy, make sure you ALWAYS follow through with the procedure. If you say you do it, make sure you can prove that you do indeed do it.
• ALWAYS seek parental/guardian signature for volunteers under 18.
• Minors should ALWAYS be limited to the number of hours they volunteer weekly (i.e. Child Labor Laws).
• Make sure each volunteer understands your organization’s liability coverage. Volunteers must be on duty & acting in good faith in order to be covered.

NICE to dos
• Create a database for documenting all volunteers and their hours. Use this as a return on investment tool for your program (value of a volunteer hour = $18.77/hour).
• Provide a volunteer handbook to all volunteers in addition to the orientation materials.
• If you do not have the budget for criminal record checks, do all the background checks that are free of charge. You will often deter unwanted volunteers simply by asking “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” directly on the application.
• Provide a mechanism by which volunteers are afforded the opportunity to provide feedback and evaluate the program & organization.

Remember, risk management should be a continual process within your program.

Julie D. Mulkern is the Manager of Volunteer Resources & Development at Spring Harbor Hospital, an inpatient psychiatric hospital in Westbrook, Maine. Julie can be reached at mulkej@springharbor.org or 207.761.2314.

by Penny Kern

I subscribe to an e-Newsletter called CharityChannel and one of the articles caught my eye and I saved it - March 28, 2007. When we started this blog, I emailed the author, Scott Martin, and asked permission to use parts of one of his pieces for a topic of discussion and he agreed.

The piece was on THE PARTICIPATIVE REVOLUTION and it was about changes organizations are going to have to make to attract and keep volunteers today.

He quoted Judith E. Glaser’s books “Creating We” and “The DNA of Leadership”, (both books I just have to order - they sound great), on the language most organizations and companies use that is turning off today’s volunteers. I never noticed it before but, now that I’ve read his piece, I see these words everywhere and they DO make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I just thought it was I, but I guess not.

Martin blames “scarcity” for the tight hold most staff people have on the organizations because we all live in a world of needing more - more people, more funding, more security. He said, “Perhaps this is one reason why nonprofits, which you would think would be models of democracy, are so often closed systems, resistant to change and risk averse.” Could be, right?

The paragraph is entitled “Language and Unintended Messages.” This hit home particularly because I, too, worked for the Girl Scouts and have seen this for myself. A CEO of a Girl Scout council took their 4-page recruitment brochure and counted 84 words like “must,” “mandatory,” or “required.” She said that in their zeal to promote the health and safety of girls, they had unknowingly used command-and-control language that implicitly communicated that they did not trust volunteers to make their own decisions in the best interests of the girls. When they further examined their organizational practices and training curricula, they realized they had assumed that the behavior of the volunteers and staff could be controlled through the use of rulemaking, mandatory, training, rigid boundary-setting and organizational authority distributed through a positional hierarchy. Over time, these practices had begun to generate unintended consequences in the organization’s culture.

What kinds of messages, intended and unintended, are you sending out to volunteers? Try a simple experiment. Review your volunteer manual. What words predominate? Are you using a vocabulary of control or one of empowerment?

Words of Control: No, Not, Can’t, Never, Must, Ought, Shouldn’t, Required, Mandatory, Prohibited, Grounds for Dismissal, Chain of Command.

Words of Empowerment: Yes, May, Can, Welcomed, Encouraged, Invited, Empowered, Authorized, Collaboration, We, Us

He continues his discussion with a paragraph or two on trust and distrust. “At the heart of the issue of organizational culture is a question of trust. Can other people be trusted most of the time or can you never be too careful? Are volunteers basically good people who want to contribute to the greater good? Or are they walking time bombs that need to be closely monitored and controlled?

It’s a great article - I’d be happy to share the entire piece with anyone, if you’d like. Scott Martin has managed small nonprofits, a United Way, a national service programs and a state office of volunteerism in his 15-years of professional work. He lives in New Jersey and is currently a consultant providing training and one-on-one assistance to volunteer programs on topics related to engaging Baby Boomers in volunteerism.

Penny Kern is a retired volunteer manager from Aroostook County.