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By Patrice Keegan

Recent developments like the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, President Obama’s United We Serve campaign and the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s iParticipate initiative are elevating volunteerism in powerful ways that not too long ago would have seemed like wishful thinking. And a growing part of the national conversation is about cultivating volunteer leaders who have the energy to serve and ideas for how to make a difference.

Volunteer leaders come in many flavors. The model I know best is the “Hands On” approach practiced by Boston Cares and dozens of other volunteer centers affiliated with the national Hands On Network. “Hands On” volunteering is deceptively straightforward and, as I have observed throughout my years at Boston Cares, capable of delivering powerful results.

At the heart of the Hands On approach are: 1) nonprofits and schools with needs that can be filled by a team of volunteers, 2) volunteers who are eager to serve in a group, and 3) an experienced volunteer willing to take responsibility for managing the team.

Here’s how it works with Boston Cares. We continuously recruit new volunteers, introduce them to our programs through a one hour orientation, and then provide access to a roster of service projects in which they can immediately participate. Because most require no advance training or special skills and ongoing commitment is not required, volunteers are free to explore a range of opportunities at their own pace. While some only dabble here and there, others discover an enthusiasm and even passion for issues, organizations or communities with which they’d been previously unfamiliar.

We’ve developed our service projects, both one time and ongoing occurrences, in concert with partner nonprofits and schools that are okay with the fact that volunteers are not making a commitment to return. They know Boston Cares teams are reliable and that our volunteers are motivated. By providing them a meaningful service experience, some volunteers will, indeed, return; sometimes through Boston Cares or sometimes directly through the agency. Our partners also value that our model absorbs a significant amount of volunteer management infrastructure; especially appealing to those with no staff for volunteer coordination.

Key to everything coming together is the volunteer leader. No service project is added to our roster until a volunteer has agreed to lead it. Leaders are in touch with the nonprofit liaison in advance to go over project details, they communicate with volunteers as needed prior to the project, serve as a liaison between the nonprofit and volunteers on the day of service and ensure that certain documentation is completed for the project. Because of volunteer leaders, we now annually mobilize over 20,000 volunteers to serve at almost 200 nonprofits and schools.

Anyone who has completed at least three Boston Cares service projects is eligible to become a volunteer project leader. This involves three hours of training, usually in a small group. Ongoing support is available through our staff lead and via an online resource center, periodic refreshers and peer-to-peer learning from other volunteer leaders. We also offer specialized trainings for things like working with youth volunteers, corporate teams, and large scale service days.

When I first learned of this so-called Hands On approach to volunteering, I admit, I was skeptical. Wasn’t this really just volunteering-lite? Shouldn’t we be promoting commitment? Could episodic volunteering really produce meaningful results? I needn’t have worried. Eighty percent of our volunteers report their commitment has increased, with many also citing examples of deepened civic engagement and philanthropic giving. Further, the community impacts are myriad; from improving employment prospects by helping non-traditional adult learners pass the GED, to reducing the carbon footprint through environmental stewardship, to building self-esteem for people with cognitive disabilities through athletic coaching.

While this article is linked to the Hands On model we practice at Boston Cares, variations on the theme are out there. With the national emphasis on volunteerism growing as rapidly as it is, volunteer team leader approaches can go a long way to achieving scale and generating great value for the volunteers, community partners and beneficiaries, alike.

Patrice Keegan is the Executive Director of Boston Cares and a presenter at the Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism.

By Shannon Brown

After four years of schoolwork, community service projects and other extracurricular activities, I graduated from Providence College in May 2009. While the vast majority of my friends, roommates, and peers headed home to wait out the economic crisis and attempt to find jobs, I packed my car the day after graduation, loaded down with both tank tops and sweatshirts, and prepared my four hour journey from Connecticut to Maine.

For the past four and a half months, I have had the distinct pleasure of acting as the AmeriCorps “Watershed Steward Intern” for the Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed (“Friends”). As a Public and Community Service Studies major, I had an extensive background in public service and work with various non-profit organizations- throughout college, I always figured that I’d volunteer for AmeriCorps at some point in my life. I assumed that being an AmeriCorps volunteer would grant me a great experience and look great for on my resume, as well as offering the added bonus of reducing some of my student loans. Perhaps best of all (though not if you asked my mother) was the opportunity to live anywhere BUT Montville, Connecticut, my hometown. Basically, I was interested in meeting new people, working for a non-profit, and shouldering some good ol’ fashioned responsibility.

What I have gained in my more than four months of experience living and working in Augusta, Maine is more than I ever thought possible. I have met wonderfully kind people, have become well-acquainted with a beautiful area of the state, and most importantly, have learned a tremendous amount of important skills that I plan on taking with me. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been exposed to virtually all areas of a nonprofit organization. My experience working for the Friends gave me the opportunity to see the marketing of the organization, the networking used to accomplish goals, how to fundraise and appeal to donors. With the Friends, I was in charge of a staff of sixteen Courtesy Boat Inspectors, got to paint t-shirts with kids at local summer camps, and dressed up (more than once) as our mascot, Spotter the Otter. For all of my friends that returned home after graduation and attempted to find the first true “career” job out of college, I say to them- you missed out! If only everyone could have had as good of a time as I have had this summer in Maine, working for AmeriCorps and the Friends.

Best of all, though, the Friends has given me a future. When my term with AmeriCorps is completed on October 1, I have decided to stay in the Augusta area. I have made wonderful contacts with local community leaders, have found a fantastic place to live, and have been on job interviews for positions that I could see myself doing. The central Maine community in which I’ve been a part for the past four months has embraced me as a new friend, and I am sticking around to see this budding friendship into fruition. AmeriCorps is the perfect first step for life after college, and I have been blessed to have had such a wonderful opportunity.

Shannon Brown is an AmeriCorps members serving with Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed and a guest blogger.

By Martin J Cowling

In a few weeks time, the Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism will convene under the theme: Compassion-Action-Change.

As I prepare my presentations for the conference, I have been reflecting on these three words and particularly the word: Compassion. What is its meaning? What does it mean for our not for profits? For our communities? Our nations?

In Nick Hornby’s 2001 novel “How to Be Good”, he tells of a character who decides to be “good” to the utmost extent. His goodness becomes sickening and suffocating. This is not the sort of compassion we are looking for.

What is the compassion we are looking for?

Compassion is not a term we often hear in business or government. Even in the not for profit sector, it is not always welcome. The word seems to cut across much of how we are told that we “should” behave in these fields. We are told that we are supposed to be “tough, unyielding, undeterred, competitive and focused.” As a result, compassion, for many sounds like a soft or as passive word.

Compassion is the human emotion prompted by the pain of others. The feeling often gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another’s suffering and therefore ultimately to altruism. The basis of compassion is therefore: “Do to others what you would have them do to you.”

This is a value therefore that is fundamental to our societies. Far from being a passive word, compassion implies strength, courage and determination to act. It is definitely neither a sickening or suffocating term.

There are many many volunteers across the globe who show compassion through their own lives.

I was recently visiting a couple who have taken in children into their home. Children abandoned by parents who are unable to care for them. This couple opened up their home and their lives to children who need love, care, good modeling and an education.

In the severe fires that swept Australia in early 2009, volunteers took in and protected Koalas that had been burnt by the fires. In New Orleans volunteers took in the cats and dogs that were stranded in that city.

Compassion drives “Doctors Without Borders” volunteers in Africa operate on people impacted by natural disasters and war, often under the most terrible of conditions. These examples are compassion in action.

When people come to us to volunteer, motivated by the compassion they feel to a person/people/cause or issue, how do we deal with this?

Do they find an organization motivated by compassion? Or do they experience something which undermines that compassion. When people hear about your board meetings, attend your internal meetings or read your internal emails, memos and notices, do they see an organization that’s very soul is one of compassion?

Do they find organizations that help people live out this compassion that they feel? I was working with a charitable organization where one volunteer said to me “I wish we treated each other as well so we treat the clients”. That’s an indictment on that not for profit and its culture.

Do incoming volunteers find organizations that reward compassion? In most volunteer based organizations we reward the volunteers for the number of hours, they complete or how many years they have served. Do we ever reward volunteers on how they live out the values of our organization? Is the “Volunteer of the Year” chosen because they turned up a lot or because their life exemplifies the values wee are seeking?

Our volunteer involving organizations were generally started by people with compassion. How do we maintain that compassion in the future legions of people who follow? Three simple ways?
1. Lets talk about our values including the compassion of the founders
2. Let us deliver our services with those values
3. Let us reward these values

I would be interested in your feedback on how you do this and how we can support each other to do this.

Martin J Cowling is the CEO of People First -Total Solutions and the Keynote Speaker at the 2009 Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism.

By Penny Kern

I have been out of the volunteer management field now for about 2 years. I’ve been cleaning out some of my old books, papers, etc. and ran across this terrific book. I really didn’t get time to implement any of the suggestions before I retired. Since it’s my turn to write for the blog, I thought this would be a good time to revisit these great ideas and share them with you. Maybe you will find them useful.

First – the book is called “Gung Ho! Turn on the People In Any Organization” by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. ISBN 0-688-15428-X in case you are interested. It’s written for business organizations but it works for volunteer organizations also. Well, I think it would work.

You need to read the entire book but I’ll highlight the three Guideposts they list:
Guidepost 1 – The Spirit of the Squirrel – WORTHWHILE WORK
Knowing we make the world a better place. This means that it’s not the work but the understanding that every task is of vital importance. Everyone works toward a shared goal. Goal sharing means buy-in, not announcing. Trust and putting team members first lead to support for the goals. Values guide all plans, decisions and actions. Goals are for the future and values are for now. Goals are set. Values are lived.
Guidepost 2 – The Way of the Beaver – IN CONTROL OF ACHIEVING THE GOAL
A playing field with clearly marked territory – goal and values define the playing field and rules of the game. Leaders decide what positions team members play but then get off the field and let the players move the ball. Thoughts, feelings, needs, and dreams are respected, listened to and acted upon. The Golden Rule of Management – Value individuals as persons. Able but challenged. Gung Ho requires a stretch: work that demands people’s best and allows them to learn and move ahead into uncharted territiory.
Guidepost 3 – The Gift of the Goose – CHEERING EACH OTHER ON
Active or passive, congratulations must be TRUE. You can’t overdo TRUE congratulations – Timely, Responsive, Unconditional, Enthusiastic. No score, no game, and cheer the progress – stop focusing on problems and the guilty person and start looking for those responsible for things gone right. `E=mc2 – enthusiasm equals mission times cash and congratulations.
The book is full of great ideas. I hope you get a chance to read it and decide for yourself if you can use it.

By Penny Kern is a retired manager of volunteers and a featured blogger.

By Ann Swain

I’m sure most remember where they were when they heard the first plane and then the second had crashed into the World Trade Center Towers in New York City; then a plane into the Pentagon and finally a plane crashing into a field in Pennsylvania. I don’t know what your first thoughts were but my husband and I were not aware of what was happening right away since we were on a plane that morning. We found out later, although not confirmed, that the plane we were on, larger in size, full of fuel and flying across country out of Atlanta was also a target. Our oldest son was working for the airline company we were flying that day. As soon as the second plane went into the Tower in NYC, our son’s supervisor escorted him to a ‘quiet room’ to inform him our plane was possibly targeted and off course. Needless to say, our outcome was much different than those that day who did not make it. Our landing was an interesting experience and the hours that followed were difficult but survivable. We were fortunate in that we were able to stay in a hotel in Memphis Tennessee but others went to shelters. When we arrived at the hotel, people were very quiet saying only what was necessary. A very tiny, seasoned by age housekeeper stood in the hall near our room quietly talking to two airline pilots who stood speechless and crying. She physically stood chest high to them and yet, she was a gentle giant at that moment, giving them comforting, consoling words. They didn’t move while she spoke but held their arms around her and continued to cry.

We were told there were no rental cars available although we drove out of the rental car lot the next morning in a rental car. We had offers from friends of friends of friends to drive us home all the way to Montana or offers to take us into their home until we could fly. We heard story after story of strangers taking people into their homes. We heard of a gas station giving gas to travelers who were driving from Seattle, Washington for a daughter’s wedding in South Carolina. After arriving in Montana and assuming we would never see my luggage which we had to leave in Memphis on the plane, we received a call from an airport employee 1 ½ hours from our home who was offering to bring my luggage to me. It wasn’t a requirement of that person’s job to bring the luggage; he was offering to do so on his own time.
We watched the hundreds of people who flocked to New York to volunteer; carefully searching through the rubble of the World Trade Center. Several months after the tragedy we watched at ‘Ground Zero’ with our three sons as workers busily cleared the area. At the small church where the makeshift walkway had been built around it for viewing the site, volunteers still stood waiting to assist in any way possible. Crumpled window blinds from the World Trade Center buildings hung from the top of the scarred tree in the church cemetery sounding like wind chimes in the breeze. Many tears continued to be shed as we walked along the fence of the church with pictures and memorabilia tucked into small spaces.

I had not really wanted to see the site but our three grown sons thought it was important so we went as a family. We huddled together that afternoon and talked about how so many people came together after the tragedy to do what they thought was the only gift they could give to so many they would never know. They gave of their time, their strength and their heart. Isn’t that what volunteering is all about? Even if it’s not in the face of tragedy, the true gift of a volunteer cannot be bought. In the case of the volunteers who worked in various capacities specifically relating to the 9/11 tragedy, their life will never be the same. When you remember the loss of this day, remember those who have given so much of themselves following this tragic day in our history.

Ann Swain is a featured blogger and the Director of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Senior Companion Program. To find out how you can remember those that were lost through service click here.

By Lori Tsuruda

This seems like a tired aphorism, but it has some truth to it in terms of increasing corporate philanthropy and volunteerism via corporate partnerships.

When developing mutually beneficial relationships, it’s about who you know well enough to develop a mutually beneficial relationship and not about how many contacts and friends you have in LinkedIn and Facebook. (I strongly suspect that most people who have 400+ connections do not count all these connections as people they know well enough to ask to make a significant effort or do a selfless favor for them.)

Beyond knowing what we need/seek, we need to understand what THEY need/seek and directly address this in our proposals so they will take action. In fact, we should shape and angle the entire proposal to balance their needs with ours.

We used to rely on word of mouth and newspaper research to learn what they need–Remember the Tess McGill character played by Melanie Griffith in Working Girl?–but now we also have the internet to access information many choose to share publically. When one blogs, for example, s/he give us information and insight into what s/he cares about as well as pet peeves.

For example, I learned from a lapsed donor’s blog posts that he supports high leverage, smart approaches (not unsurprising since he is a venture capitalist, but a repeated theme one can’t miss), so I tailored a recent pitch to emphasize People Making a Difference (PMD) programs that exemplify those qualities and asked him for both financial support and referrals to charities he works with that need assistance with volunteer recruitment and/or management.

When it comes to my board-level volunteers, it is challenging to get them to think in this manner when most are not natural networkers or professional business “rainmakers,” but we actively work on this as part of every board planning effort since we all recognize that we cannot accomplish everything without more help from people beyond the board. This is a huge motivator in itself, but we also make sure to share success stories involving new and developing relationships that arise from this process and have gone so far as to describe the process and share the talking points that lead to success.

Lori Tsuruda is the Founder & Executive Director of People Making a Difference (PMD) and a presenter at the 2009 Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism.

By Carla Ganiel

Heather Banester Bassett’s recent post on the benefits of volunteering for job seekers got me thinking about how to reach the unemployed or underemployed. One of the first pieces of advice for job seekers in this age of social media is to create or update your profile on LinkedIn. Having had my own LinkedIn profile for at least a couple of years, and having woefully neglected it for most of that time, I wondered whether there might be a way to use the site to identify possible volunteers.

I logged into my profile and started looking around. One feature that is new since the last time I visited is the “What are you working on now?” question that appears under your photo and job title. I typed in, “Carla is writing a post for the Volunteer Maine blog.” You, however, could use this space to advertise your need for a volunteer to help with your marketing plan.

Alas, beyond this I couldn’t figure out any way to easily search out people who might be looking for volunteer opportunities or to advertise them to my contacts. Wouldn’t it be nice, for example, if the developers of LinkedIn would add a little check-box under “contact settings” where people could indicate an interest in volunteer or pro bono projects?

Of course, it’s possible that my lack of familiarity with the site is the reason I couldn’t figure out how to use it more effectively for this purpose. Who else out there is on LinkedIn? If you have any suggestions, let me know. In the meantime, I’m going to commit to finding ways to make better use of my own profile. Or at least I’m going to try, provided that I don’t get distracted taking quizzes on facebook instead.

Carla Ganiel is a Commissioner on the Maine Commission for Community Service board and a featured blogger.