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By Caitlyn Horose

I spend a lot of time thinking about issues related to non-profits. I guess it makes sense since I work for three organizations in the sector and volunteer for a handful of others on a fairly regular basis. My Google Reader is filled with blogs about volunteerism, national service, and non-profit management. And lately, a few interesting things have come across my screen. Here are some of my favorites:

The Nonprofit Sector and Community Solutions Act – Did you know that Congress could soon pass a bill that would create a U.S. Council on Nonprofit Organizations and Community Solutions? The Council would look at ways to enhance the relationship between the federal government and nonprofits. The bill also calls for data collection and the creation of an Interagency Working Group on Nonprofit Organizations and the Federal Government that would consider government policy that relates to nonprofits. To learn more about the Act and how it might affect you and your organization, visit http://www.councilofnonprofits.org/nscsact.

Catchafire.org – I’ll just go ahead and say that I don’t quite get it, but there is definitely some buzz out there about this new site that allows volunteers with strong professional skills to connect with nonprofits. The only, umm…catch, is that nonprofits have to pay for the project they want completed. I guess if your organization is looking to redesign its logo, catchafire can make that happen for a much lower price than you’d pay a regular designer. I want someone to try it and tell me how it goes…

The Extraordinaries - This website is also looking to connect virtual volunteers with nonprofit organizations. Building on the concept of “microvolunteering”, visitors to the site can volunteer for a few seconds from their computer or smartphone. Most of the projects involve tagging or cataloging photos – it’s sort of like wasting time looking at photos of “friends of friends” on facebook, but it actually helps out a nonprofit!

Blue Avocado – Ok, so maybe I’m late to the game, but the Blue Avocado blog is my new favorite thing. The articles focus on issues of interest to nonprofit organizations and people that work in the sector. I was particularly struck by Rick Cohen and the “Sacred Cows” series in which he raises questions about some of the unspoken problems with programs and policies that often receive nothing but praise (i.e. The Serve America Act, Teach for America, and L3Cs).

Cities of Service – Ever think that your city would be leading a service initiative and coordinating volunteers? Me neither. But I like it. This new initiative is gaining some interest, though mostly in states with larger cities than we have here in Maine. Maybe we need to think about a “State of Service” movement like our neighbors in Massachusetts are discussing – they are hoping to develop a blueprint of best practices with a goal of improving service in Massachusetts and establishing a state service model for the nation.

There are so many more resources, ideas, and discussions taking place about the nonprofit sector and its role in communities – What have you been hearing about?

Caitlyn Horose is the Development Assistant for Portland Trails and the Chapter Leader of the Maine AmeriCorps Alums. Every six weeks, we’ll see a submission from the Maine AmeriCorps Alum group, one of our newest featured bloggers.

By David Griswold

For what is life, but a brief search to give,
That we may love, and loving, hope to live…

It was three in morning. On the edge of sleep and a dream, I walked slowly through the darkness of the house, lit only by the green glow of clocks, and opened my computer to write down those lines.

I wasn’t sure what they meant, only that they had a meaning I didn’t want to lose.

In the morning, as I started my computer and sat down for breakfast, I pored over those lines with the loud crunch of Raisin Bran resounding in my head. For the past six months prior to this late night revelation, I had been plotting out a year long trip of service, intending to coordinate three hundred and sixty five different volunteer events in three hundred and sixty five different places across the globe. Called “project 360^5″, the hope was that a project like this would help inspire others to see and embrace the endless opportunities to give around them.

As I sat there at the table though, the early morning sunlight pouring in from the windows, it occurred to me then that a giving “project” didn’t make sense. Giving back and volunteering wasn’t something that I could “do” - something that could begin and end - but it was something that I needed to live.

If life was a search - for happiness, for meaning, for connection - then it was a search that I wanted to give back. I believed then, as I do now, that it was only in a sustained giving of myself that the purpose and joy I sought could be found.

In the half-dream of that night, I realized that I had found words for a struggle that had been churning below the surface since I had first left my job at Google in California, hoping to clarify a path and a purpose for my life. There wasn’t an answer to my questions - only a process of answering that I needed to embrace.

Since that time, my goal has been to live mindfully - to live what I think of as a life of “loving action”. To me, this means an unending openness, readiness and desire to give in every moment of every day, and an active seeking of opportunities to learn from others, in hopes of learning better what I can give back to the world.

What began as project 360^5 has today evolved into an initial step in my lifelong search to give. In September, I will be setting out across the globe, volunteering for six months in six different countries, before returning to the States and road-tripping from California to Maine, knitting together weeks of volunteer activities with family, friends and whoever else is willing to open their door.

My sense is that there are all too many people out there who want to get out and volunteer, but who just need a little push to break free from the normal routines of their lives. While the dream remains that this trip might serve as an inspiration for those I’ve never met, my hope is that it might first serve as a spark for my immediate network of friends and family, and ripple outwards from there.

This emphasis on a more personal scope is based on my own experience having seen the difficulty of mobilizing communities through broad outreach campaigns. Though these efforts often prove effective in raising awareness, and are capable of reaching a large audience in a short time, I’ve found that it takes almost always takes a personal connection - often a personal request or story - to motivate someone to make a change in their lives.

Organizing a trip like this and trying to mobilize people around it would be near impossible to do by myself. But by reaching out personally and asking for the help of friends and family, my hope is that they might embrace and extend this project, reaching out to their own networks, and thereby expanding that personalized call to action. My role then is simply to provide the dates and the impetus for organizing a week or so of service, and to suggest ideas and tools (like volunteermaine.org, idealist.org, or allforgood.org) to make this process easier.

Having a blog at the center of all this - a place to share pictures, videos and stories - then allows all those who participate and hear about the project to share in the journey as it unfolds. Each event, each potluck, each can of food donated, each mile traveled - each becomes a piece in a growing mosaic that everyone can feel a part of.

As I travel, and as the network of this trip expands, my hope is to learn from others what giving means to them, and to share stories and resources with all who are contemplating their own “answering”. I know I have not come to close to living fully the vision of love I have set out for myself, and expect that I will only discover how much more room I have to grow as I embark on this journey.

In setting forth for a year, breaking free from the normal flow of my day to day, and intentionally creating a space in my life where giving can enter my heart and mind - my hope is that I may be able to fold these principles of love and giving into my everyday action, sublimating the conscious desire to give into an unconscious and undeniable state of being.

To whatever extent it’s helpful to you, I would love to have you join in this journey, whether that is simply participating in the conversation that unfolds, or finding stops along the way where you’d like to get out and give back. You can learn and read more at asearchtogive.org, where I’ll be blogging the journey come September.

Prior to setting off in September, I’d love to hear your own stories of giving, such that I might learn from you in advance of my own journey, and that we might learn a bit from one another. At the end of the day, we’re here, we only get one now, and we’re all in this together. It all starts with the question - and from there, the answers are endless.

David Griswold is a guest blogger. Follow his journey online at asearchtogive.org.

By Rochelle Runge

In partnership with VolunteerMaine.org, the Maine Commission for Community Service sponsors both this Blog and the VolunteerFare Newsletter, in and effort to provide you with news and information on the sector and relevant educational topics to help further your professional development.

Our newsletter contributors and bloggers aim to target messages that will be helpful to your work and interesting to read. In order to help us focus our energy please take a few minutes to answer this short 7 question survey on VolunteerFare and the Blog. Thank you in advance for your help!

Rochelle Runge is the Public Relations Representative for the Maine Commission for Community Service and a guest blogger.

by Carla Ganiel

I always look forward to seeing Seth Godin’s blog in my google reader. It is full of lessons about marketing that apply to many other areas of organizational management, including the management of volunteers.

Take, for instance, this recent post in which Seth explains what “hygiene” means in the context of marketing:

Not just being clean, of course, but being in an environment in which certain requirements are met. All the farm-fresh groceries in the world won’t make you happy if your kitchen is filled with bugs. A high-paying job that delivers a screaming boss, no job security and a home life fraught with tension isn’t a stable place for most people. Not because the money isn’t there, but because basic “hygiene” needs aren’t being met.

Thanks to Seth, I’m beginning to think about whether the organizations I work with have any hygiene problems that might negatively impact volunteer recruitment and retention. What about your program or organization? Are there any areas you can think of that might need a little cleaning up?

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

Guest Post by Carla Ganiel

It’s been about four months since we launched this blog. Many readers have shared with me that this is the first blog they’ve ever read, and since we’re no longer “new,” I guess this means that those of you who were new to the blogosphere aren’t so new anymore either. In the spirit of expanding our horizons even further, I thought this might be a good time to review a few ways you can participate even more actively in the conversation we are creating here.

Comment. Posting a comment is a quick and easy way to add your voice to the conversation. Simply click on the comment link that appears at the bottom of each post. Ask a question, agree or disagree, or share a new perspective. Don’t be shy. Comments are one of the ways blogs create community. We want to hear from you!

Subscribe. You can have new blog posts delivered right to your email inbox. See the “subscribe” heading in the right-hand column of this blog? Type your email address in the box just below that heading and click “sign up,” and you’ll never have to worry about checking the site for new content again. You’ll get an email as soon as we’ve published a new post. If you read multiple blogs, consider subscribing to them all through an RSS Reader.

Become a Guest Blogger. Write a post of your own and submit it to our editorial board. To find out more about what we’re looking for, read our submission guidelines.

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

Guest Post by Carla Ganiel

Over at Problogger, Suzanne Falter-Barns asks “Have Blogs Killed Conventional Websites?”

Meanwhile, Jason Preston of Blog Business Summit explains why every business should have a blog. Jason says, “If you wrote a blog about the ins and outs of trucking, and people who were interested in trucks (or being a truck driver) could find the answers to their questions and get a sense of your (undoubtedly good) personality, what company do you think they’ll look to first when they need to get hired?”

What about nonprofit organizations? What about volunteer programs?

If you wrote a really interesting blog about the issues your organization or program seeks to address, would it help you attract more volunteers?

Does every volunteer program need a blog?

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

by Christy Monroe

In the three weeks since this blog has launched we’ve seen a diverse snapshot of topics from across the field of volunteer management in Maine. Hot topics, burning issues, scorching successes…we’ve learned from them all.

Blogging is not only an enjoyable conversation among peers, but also an excellent tool for sharing knowledge and adding value to each other’s work. Professional development built around a community of practice gives us the opportunity to advance further than any one person could go by themselves.

Whether reading this blog, commenting, or submitting a guest post you’re in the process of exchanging knowledge for the greater good of our volunteer management community.

Check out this blog post from Michele Martin on blogging for learning. She discusses key points like focusing on the process, adding value, and forming a learning community. She encourages people to share mistakes as well as successes for an optimum learning experience.

And remember that anyone is welcome to share their story or opinion on a volunteer management topic by submitting a guest post to this blog.

Christy Monroe is an AmeriCorps VISTA member at the Maine Commission for Community Service.

Guest Post by Carla Ganiel

In my last post I mentioned that I subscribe to over a hundred blogs. How do I manage all that information without getting overwhelmed? And how do you “subscribe” to a blog, anyway?

When I first started reading blogs, I used to bookmark them the way you would any other website you wanted to return to, but eventually that got to be too much. I found myself checking my favorite blogs several times a day to see if any new content had been posted, while some blogs I forgot to check for weeks at a time. Clearly, the more blogs I tried to keep track of, the less efficient my bookmark approach became.

Then I discovered RSS, short for “Really Simple Syndication,” a tool that lets you know whenever a blog or other website has been updated. Once again, Darren Rowse at Problogger provides an extremely clear and thorough explanation of how this works. To put it simply, blogs publish a feed, to which you can subscribe. Darren writes, “It’s like subscribing to a magazine that is delivered to you periodically but instead of it coming in your physical mail box each month when the magazine is published it is delivered to your ‘RSS Reader’ every time your favorite website updates.”

Darren recommends two free RSS readers for beginners, Google Reader and Bloglines. I use Google Reader and have found it very user friendly. I have it set up as my homepage so that whenever I turn on my computer the first thing I see is a list of new blog posts that have been published by all the blogs to which I subscribe. I don’t read every single post from every single blog subscription. Instead, with Google Reader, I can scan through them quickly, reading the headlines and deciding how to manage the content.

If the headline doesn’t grab my attention, I might just delete the post. If I’m interested in the topic, I might skim it and then delete it. Or I might read the whole thing and visit the blog to leave a comment. If I want to share the post with my friends, I can email it to them right from Google Reader. And if I want to bookmark a particular post for future reference, I can use another great tool, del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site that lets me organize all my links online, access them from any computer in the world, and share them with my friends.

To subscribe to this blog’s feed, click on the orange RSS icon in the right-hand column. You can also subscribe to receive updates whenever comments are made by clicking on the RSS 2.0 link when you leave a comment.

This may seem like overkill if you’re new to blogging. Maybe this is the only blog you read. But blogging has a funny way of snowballing, and you may be surprised at how quickly you find yourself keeping track of more and more blogs. If that’s the case, you may be ready to try out RSS sooner than you think.

In the meantime, there’s another option to help you keep track of updates to this blog. Simply enter your email address in the box in the right-hand column and click “sign up,” and we’ll send you email updates to let you know when we’ve posted something new.

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

Guest Post by Carla Ganiel

I currently subscribe to over a hundred blogs on topics such as nonprofit management, education, business, entertainment, the environment, literature, and politics. I even subscribe to blogs about blogging! But three years ago, I didn’t even know what a blog was.

I know that many of you are new to the concept of blogging, just like I was, and if you’re anything like me, you have an inbox full of email, a desk piled high with books and articles for professional development, not to mention very demanding jobs and personal lives that require time and energy. Do you really have time to read one more thing?

Today I want to tell you why blogging is worth your time as a volunteer manager, but first, let’s cover a few of the basics.

What is a blog? Darren Rowse has answered this question more completely than I could hope to on his own blog, Problogger. According to Darren, “a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.” Archives, like the ones that appear on the right-hand column of this blog, arranged both by subject and date, are a common feature of blogs. But the thing that most distinguishes a blog from an ordinary web page is the capacity to create a truly interactive environment through comments. A blog is not a newsletter, a press release, or some other species of one-way communication tool. Blogs are about dialogue.

Why blog? Blogs allow you to build community and share ideas around a common area of interest. Have you ever gone to a conference and felt that you gained more talking to your peers over coffee between the sessions than you did in the workshops themselves? That’s what blogging is like—those short, incisive little conversations about the things that matter most to you.

I also believe that blogging is a critical piece of professional development, whatever your field. One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, has written a post about why blogging is essential for a good career.

If you’re new to the world of blogging and other social media, Michele Martin’s “Social Media Spiral” is a very useful tool that helps delineate the connections between new media and the older technologies that we are already comfortable with, such as email. Where are you on the spiral?

What does blogging have to do with volunteer management? The stated purpose of this particular blog is to serve as a communications tool for volunteer managers, but beyond that how might volunteer managers use blogs—and other social media for that matter—to advance their work and their professional development?

First, blogging is a way to expand your base of support, whether that is volunteer support or financial support. Second, blogging provides an easy way to communicate quickly and frequently with volunteers, donors and other stakeholders. Third, blogging is a way to build your brand. Ryan Healy used his blog Employee Evolution (another of my personal favorites) to establish himself as an expert on millenials in the workplace. Blogging can do the same for your organization and give you an edge as you seek to recruit volunteers and donors interested in your cause. Finally, as volunteer managers, we often work in isolation and lack an accessible peer network. The Volunteer Maine Blog is a place to establish a network of peers to support you in your work.

Ready to join the conversation? The interactive nature of blogging can be a mixed blessing. In many ways, a blog is only as good as its readers. I hope you’ll join the conversation on this blog by making comments. Try it now. Go to the bottom of this post, click on the comment link and write something. Introduce yourself, share your ideas about how else you think blogging might be a useful tool for volunteer managers. Ask a question. Tell me if you disagree with me, and why.

Ready to go a step further? Check out our submission guidelines and send us a guest post.

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

by Paula Gagnon

Maine has one of the highest volunteer rates in our region and in fact our rate is well above the national average (33% compared to 26.9%). However Maine is a huge state and being able to communicate across this state is a challenge. As Chair of the Maine Commission for Community Service I understand how distance, time and weather contribute to our challenge in communicating and getting together. Each year we cancel at least one meeting of the Commission due to weather and some months making a quorum is a challenge. There are some wonderful things going on in the different regions of our state with managing volunteers and yet until now volunteer managers and non-profits have had no easy way to share best practices or to problem solve as a group. Technology to the rescue!! Now we have this blog!

The purpose of this blog is to create an online community for Maine’s volunteer managers. You can participate by reading, leaving comments, and writing guest posts. The easiest way to keep track of new postings is by subscribing. To do so, simply type your email in the box in the right hand column and click “sign up.” Or, if you are already using an RSS aggregator to subscribe to other blogs, you can subscribe to our feed as well. To leave comments, click on the link at the bottom of this post. See our submission guidelines to submit a guest post of your own.

The practices I have used for volunteer management and the managing of un-paid student interns at the college level have been very similar to the practices I use in managing or supervising a paid staff. In my day job I am a college administrator and work closely with administrators, staff, faculty, adjunct faculty, temporary employees, student employees, and student interns. As Chair of the Maine Commission, I work closely with paid staff and with volunteers. I have a list of requirements that work in both of my worlds.

1. Everyone should have a job description (written) that clearly articulates outcomes and they must be measurable. There is nothing more frustrating for a volunteer than to show up and have to wait while someone finds you something to do!

2. Everyone needs to receive the training or obtain the skills to enable them to be successful. We all see the value in investing in our employees. It’s the same for our volunteer force. The better they are trained the more likely they are to not only be successful but to stay in our organizations and continue volunteering.

3. Everyone needs high quality supervision. We would not think of spending funds to conduct a search for a new employee, invest in training them and then leave them alone to either sink or swim. And yet this happens to volunteers all the time. In some of our organizations the supervision of our volunteer force is assigned to the receptionists or even another volunteer. Volunteers represent a sizable resource in our non-profit sector. In Maine, in 2006 our citizens logged over 42 million hours of volunteering. If we do the math that is a value of approximately 400 million dollars….now that’s a natural resource!

4. Everyone deserves and needs feedback. Supervision of volunteers has to be more than just a work schedule. They need the same kind of performance reviews that our employees do. Volunteers want to know how they are doing and they want to know how to improve. The managers of our volunteer force must have the time allotted in their jobs to conduct these very important feedback sessions if we are to retain our volunteer work force.

5. Everyone needs recognition. The employee of the month philosophy applies to volunteers too. In our own state the Governors Service Awards and the volunteer honor roll give us an opportunity once a year to recognize outstanding service by our volunteers. It’s even better if it is integrated into the culture of your organization.

6. Everyone needs to be informed when they are not doing a good job and volunteers are no different. It is better to professionally “fire” a volunteer with respect and dignity than to let them continue to perform below your organization’s standards. Both the liability of the organization and the future of the volunteer culture are at risk if we do not address poor performance.

Finally, those of us in management positions need training and education so we can manage our workforces effectively. In Maine right now over 60% of those individuals who manage volunteers learn either by self-study or on the job training. It is my hope that this blog, the various partnerships that have developed across our state among non-profits and the work being done to offer volunteer management education will change that statistic.

Paula Gagnon is Vice President and Academic Dean at York County Community College and Chair of the Maine Commission for Community Service.