One of the strategies I admire most about the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program (VLMP), where I work, is the involvement of volunteers in every level of the organization. Not only are volunteers responsible for the core tasks of our mission but we try to optimize volunteer participation in administration and management.

Before I describe some of the ways volunteers help extend our capacity, I want to ask what roles do volunteers play in administering your programs? And what strategy would you use to create new volunteer positions? Please post a reply below.

At the VLMP we have 800 volunteers scattered throughout Maine keeping an eye on the health of their lakes. In order to manage those volunteers with limited resources the VLMP has split up the state into 20 regions each with a Regional Coordinator, who is also a volunteer. The Regional Coordinators are responsible for organizing volunteers, scheduling training workshops, and tracking down reports from volunteers. Recently we have had Regional Coordinators also ask for additional tasks, such as training other volunteers. We also have Data Coordinators for each region that are responsible for computer entry of the data.

Our volunteer Board of Directors, volunteer sub-committees, and others who volunteer to do parts of my job round out the picture.

As other blog posts have mentioned, the retiring baby boomers will potentially be a great pool of new and skilled volunteers. They will be looking for more self-directed volunteer opportunities and a sense of ownership in the organizations they belong to. Organizations can benefit from the experience of these volunteers and extend their capacity by engaging them in program administration and management. There may be challenges as well from redefining responsibilities for volunteers to rethinking the role of staff from directing volunteers to enabling and supporting volunteers.

Limited resources and growing number of skilled volunteers can lead to creative new approaches for engaging volunteers. I look forward to sharing our ideas here to optimize our mission effectiveness and strengthen the volunteer experience.

Jim Entwood is a Program Coordinator with the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program and a guest blogger.

I’m one of those people you’ve been hearing about for months—one of the members of Generation X who was inspired enough by our now president-elect to volunteer for a political campaign for the first time in my life. It all started when my politically savvy friend Sarah and I went to New Hampshire last winter to canvas before the primary there. It ended with me sitting in my town office doing poll watching on election day.

I suppose I should make some sort of disclaimer at this point about my political beliefs not being the beliefs of Volunteer Maine or its partners, and now that that’s out of the way, a little background: I have been registered as an independent (technically “unenrolled” in Maine) since I was eighteen years old. This year I registered as a democrat so that I could vote for Barack Obama in the democratic caucus.

This means I’m new blood, the sort of inspired and energetic new democrat whose energy the party might want to tap, right?

Except this is what happened when I tried to volunteer back in September: I called my local party headquarters and arranged a time to come in. The person I spoke with asked me if there was anything in particular I wanted to do. I really wanted to canvas, but mostly I wanted to do whatever was most needed by the campaign, so I said I’d do anything. I showed up to volunteer on a Thursday night and was promptly put to work making calls for a local candidate who wasn’t even from my district.

It was less than inspiring.

A week later, I got a call from the Obama campaign and was asked to volunteer specifically for that campaign, whose headquarters were more than a 90 minute drive from my house. I said yes. I showed up to volunteer and was promptly assigned to make calls for a senate contender instead. By this time I was slightly disillusioned and very irritated. I politely explained that I had driven an hour and a half to make phone calls for Barack Obama. I said I would happily do that, but that if it wasn’t needed, I’d be going home to do something else.

Of course they put me to work making calls for Obama after that, and I had a great time volunteering. But I can’t help wondering, what if I hadn’t spoken up? I would have finished my shift, but I would most certainly not have bothered trying to volunteer again. All of my excitement and energy and skills would have been completely wasted, and you can bet I wouldn’t have considered volunteering during future election cycles.

So here’s what I learned. You know those incredible volunteers you have who will do anything you ask them to do, even the crummiest jobs? Don’t take that for granted. And don’t assume that just because they agree to do it, they’re having a good time. Find out why people want to be involved, what part of your mission they connect to, what inspires them, and give them a little taste of that once in awhile, even if you can’t give it to them all the time.

I wonder if other people like me had similar experiences this fall. I wonder whether the Democratic Party took advantage of an opportunity to engage new members, or whether the upwelling of volunteer support generated by the Obama campaign was a once in a generation opportunity squandered because of inattentive management. I guess we’ll find out four years from now.

Carla Ganiel specializes in strategy consulting for nonprofit organizations and is a featured blogger.

“For five years I have traveled across the country with a mixture of awe and admiration at seeing how your work is saving lives, ensuring futures, defeating despair and restoring hope for Americans who have no other place to turn,” Eisner said in a farewell message to staff and grantees. “As a result of our work together, today national service has improved more lives, grown stronger and more secure, expanded its base of bipartisan support, and built a culture of impact and accountability in a way that offers a solid foundation for continued growth.”

Eisner shared similar thoughts yesterday in a wide-ranging farewell address to hundreds of students and civic leaders at Georgetown University. In the speech, Eisner described an “incredible moment” of need and opportunity stemming from the economic downturn that is putting more Americans at risk and the growing cross-sector momentum for citizen problem-solving. (Speech and video in national service newsroom)

“America today is facing a set of crises that also represent a true opportunity to innovate in a way that bets on American citizens to be a part of solutions in ways that are both new and that hearken back to our earliest traditions,” said Eisner. “The need is dire, our resources are scarce, our service and volunteering infrastructure is ready our youth are ready, and Americans of all ages are waiting to be asked. This is an incredible moment, and we must seize it.”

Eisner said the economic downturn means more Americans will be struggling to make ends meet at the same time nonprofits could face precipitous drops in giving. He worried the decline could have its hardest impact on America’s youth – with 13 million children already living in poverty, 3 million who go to bed hungry, 15 million who need a mentor, and one-third who drop out of school each year.

A large scale mobilization of volunteers could have an especially profound impact on the high school dropout crisis. Eisner challenged national, state, and city leaders to call on millions of Americans to invest an hour a week for a year to tutor or mentor a child and urged the incoming Administration to make such a call to service to all Americans.

Eisner pointed to research and examples he’s seen first hand of volunteer programs with dramatic impacts that include raising literacy rates, decreasing risky behaviors, and keeping kids in school and on track for success in life. “Getting more people to stand up and say “I care” may offer the single most effective intervention Americans have to tackle some of our toughest challenges, he said.

Corporation Board Chair and former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith said that the momentum behind service is also stronger than ever among elected officials. He cited proposed expansions of national service by both Presidential candidates, President-elect Obama’s comprehensive service agenda, several bipartisan national service bills recently introduced in Congress, and the increased investment by Governors and mayors in volunteering to meet local needs.

Goldsmith called on lawmakers to consider investing in the infrastructure of volunteering and service as part of the upcoming stimulus package in addition to physical infrastructure projects like bridges and highways. He emphasized that service represents a low-cost, high return way to accelerate the entrepreneurialism of the social sector to meet the surge of demand the economic downturn will create.

Both Goldsmith and Eisner said the Corporation is ready to grow and better positioned to take on an expanded role than any time in its history, with well-run programs, a strong network of state service commissions, portfolios of thousands of results-driven grantees that include some of America’s most innovative and entrepreneurial organizations, key partnerships in the nonprofit and corporate sector, a high-performing workforce, and a widespread culture of impact and accountability. “The Corporation for National and Community Service has never been stronger, more efficient, more accountable and better positioned than it is today,” Eisner said… For more information about David Eisner and the The Corporation for National and Community Service visit www.nationalservice.gov.

On the heels of last week’s historic election of Barack Obama as America’s 44th president, I thought it apt to share a bit of Obama’s plan for community service. It is an exciting time to realize that we have the potential for a wide range of volunteer efforts here in Maine and beyond. It will be interesting to watch the growth and impact of community service and the non-profit sector over the next four years. A great topic for discussion, no doubt. . .

Obama’s Plan (source: www.barackobama.com):

Enable All Americans to Serve to Meet the Nation’s Challenges

•Expand Corporation for National and Community Service: Obama and Biden will expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 slots today to 250,000 and they will focus this expansion on addressing the great challenges facing the nation. They will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on underserved schools; a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps to conduct weatherization and renewable energy projects; a Veterans Corps to assist veterans at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters; and a Homeland Security Corps to help communities plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies.
•Engage Retiring Americans in Service on a Large Scale: Older Americans have a wide range of skills and knowledge to contribute. Obama and Biden will expand and improve programs that connect individuals over the age of 55 to quality volunteer opportunities.
•Expand the Peace Corps: Obama and Biden will double the Peace Corps to 16,000 by 2011. They will work with the leaders of other countries to build an international network of overseas volunteers so that Americans work side-by-side with volunteers from other countries.
•Show the World the Best Face of America: Obama and Biden will set up an America’s Voice Initiative to send Americans who are fluent speakers of local languages to expand our public diplomacy. They also will extend opportunities for older individuals such as teachers, engineers, and doctors to serve overseas.

Integrate Service into Learning

•Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation’s Schools: Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. They will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama and Biden will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.
•Expand YouthBuild Program: Obama and Biden will expand the YouthBuild program, which gives disadvantaged young people the chance to complete their high school education, learn valuable skills and build affordable housing in their communities. They will grow the program so that 50,000 low-income young people a year a chance to learn construction job skills and complete high school.
•Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.
•Promote College Serve-Study: Obama and Biden will ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities instead of jobs in dining halls and libraries.

Invest in the Nonprofit Sector

•Social Investment Fund Network: Obama and Biden will create a Social Investment Fund Network to use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding to improve local innovation, test the impact of new ideas and expand successful programs to scale.
•Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will a create an agency within the Corporation for National and Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.
Source: www.barackobama.com

Julie D. Mulkern is the current Development Director for WinterKids and a featured blogger.

Many of you have read the article in October’s Volunteer Fare about LD 2202 (please refer to the October article if you’d like background about LD 2202). The response has been requests for how to get the ball rolling in your own communities, a kind of “How-To” manual.

While I’m not aware of any towns in Maine that have adopted an ordinance that puts LD 2202 in practice, quite a few are starting to have conversations around it. There are many towns in other states that have been successful, so I’ll share what I found out during my research.

Please remember that if you work for an agency that depends upon municipal funding, you should check with your Executive Director before proceeding with efforts to get ordinances passed.

Step 1: Educate, educate, educate!
• Do you have volunteers over the age of 60 that could benefit from this ordinance? Share what you know with them, and work on building a strong base of support.
• Educate people in your agency. Encourage their advocacy in their own communities.
• Educate your community. Talk to your selectmen, your town manager, your budget committee, your social services committee.

When you are working on educating people about LD 2202, it might be helpful to put together a fact sheet that you can hand out, with the following information:
• Statistical data and explain your rationale for the article.
• How many seniors are paying Real Estate Taxes in your community?
• Approximately how many seniors would be eligible for your program?
• How will your Town’s senior property tax relief compare to neighboring towns?

Step 2: Be prepared!
There will be a variety of people with many questions. Here are a few (and answers if I have them):
• How many people will benefit?
• What will be the cost?
• Who will pay for the program? There is no state funding, but towns often set money in their budgets to offset tax abatements, or fund social assistance programs. The beauty of a town budget is that residents can choose what they want to pay for.
• Why should it be limited to only those over 60? Some will feel it is discriminatory, based on age. The amendment was designed, however, to encourage and assist older adults in maintaining their independence at home as long as possible. You can also answer this question with another question…why should those older adults be taxed for services they don’t use, such as school funding?

There will be different questions from each town, and probably different questions at each town meeting, as well.

Step 3: Get the support that you need on your side.
• Select boards in each town. Arrange to work with residents of the town to gain the support of town leaders.
• Opponents of selectpersons. Make sure this is “bipartisan”, rather than politics. Focus on the issue, not personalities.
• Media. Submit an article to your local paper, and have materials for reporters to refer to in their stories, as well. This is especially important if reporters are covering meetings.
• Budget Committee…often, the Select boards follow all the recommendations of the Budget Committee.
• What people will speak up to defend it?
• Who will oppose the article and why?

Step 4: Craft the article or ordinance.
How are articles usually written? Obtain the help of an experienced town leader to help you write your article. Will you leave it open to broad interpretation at a later date, or will you include all the details, such as what type of volunteer service counts, who may benefit from the program, what will the benefit be, how will the program be administered, how often may people benefit from the program? Be prepared to help guide the answers to these details so a win-win situation is created for both volunteers and municipalities.

Step 5: Get the article on the warrant for the town meeting. Dates are very important here, as towns vary widely for holding town meetings. What are the closing dates for an article to make the warrant? Do you need the support in advance of townspeople, as indicated by signatures on a petition?

Step 6: Obtain support for your article. This is different from obtaining support for the idea. Now, you have a concrete article you are asking folks to be supportive of. This
support for the is critical. Without strong support your article may not pass. This can be the most difficult step because it not only involves politics, but also involves money. You can, however, delegate much of this work.
• Ask volunteers to call supporters and give them the dates and times for all public hearings.
• Have seniors who can not attend the meetings write letters of support for the article and bring the letters to town meeting.
• Get the local press actively involved with the article. Create a human interest story. People like to hear stories about why the article is so important and who it will assist.
• Write an explanation of the article in your monthly newsletter.
• Speak about the article at your local Senior group meetings.
• Get as much positive press as possible.
• Get your article on your local cable station.
• Offer transportation to meetings. (Car pools, vans etc.)

Step 7: Attend Town meetings and select board meetings where the article is being discussed. Remember, however, that if you are speaking outside your own town of residence, you will have to ask permission to speak.

Hopefully, these steps will help you initiate passage of LD 2202 ordinances in towns throughout Maine. While helping older adults stay in their homes, this is also an unusual opportunity to place volunteerism in the spotlight, recognizing the important work volunteers do in their communities.

Trudy Hamilton is Volunteer Manager at Seniors Plus and is a featured blogger.

When someone walks through your door, are you open and ready to recruit a potential volunteer? Sometimes spontaneity can be the spark that starts a new volunteer on a road to service. Recently I was staffing the front desk here at the Maine State Museum and a gentleman came in with his membership card. He asked whom he should speak with about volunteering since he had been deliberating about it for a while. I immediately smiled and welcomed him, explaining our needs and how he could get on board. He made it easy to recruit because he had already thought about helping but other people can be enlisted if the recruiter shows an “on the spot” passion for the project or program. It isn’t necessary to be frantic or try to “hard sell” someone, just be aware of times when a few well-chosen words could make an impact.

Look for times such as standing in grocery lines to strike up a brief conversation, “I’d much rather spend my time helping at the hospital/museum/animal shelter (or wherever).” You might not get any response or you might get a negative one but there’s a chance you might catch someone’s interest. It’s a risk but if you bring in a potential volunteer for your organization or program, it’s time well spent. You would have spent the time standing in line anyway. When I am walking through the galleries I will often mention to visitors that we couldn’t accomplish what we do without the help of volunteers. This has a dual result – it gives credit to the current volunteers and also helps others think about being part of what we do. Don’t be afraid to talk up your program, you never know who might be listening – it could be your next best volunteer!

Kris Weeks Oliveri is a guest blogger and the Coordinator of Volunteers at the Maine State Museum in Augusta.

‘Coaching’ - training in how to deal with emotional problems and interpersonal relationships

‘Mentoring’ - the task of acting as a mentor to somebody, especially a junior colleague; or the system of appointing mentors (a senior or experienced person in a company or organization who gives guidance and training to a junior colleague)

The first and foremost difference one sees between coaching and mentoring is that coaching involves ‘emotions’ and is more in tuned to how a person feels. Mentoring on the other hand can be seen as mechanical or ‘going through the motions’ of simply training someone.

As a Manager of volunteers, it is important to understand as much as possible the different personalities involved in the management process. Volunteers do what they do for different reasons and while this doesn’t seem important, it should be considered. It would be a dangerous generalization to assume that all volunteers do what they do because of an ‘emotional’ attachment to the organization to which they are devoting their time. Determining a volunteer’s reason for volunteering will assist a manager in assessing how much to ‘coach’ and how much to ‘mentor’. Certainly, there are times where both coaching and mentoring go hand in hand and are effective tools for helping a volunteer realizing their greatest potential. In fact, you as a manager may find a volunteer who can serve as a representative of your organization to meet needs that your staff is unable to meet, such as recruitment and fundraising.

Coaching is a skill that is not often valued as an efficient method of getting the job done. However, any recipient of skilled coaching, whether staff or volunteer, will remember the manager who took the time to acknowledge their feelings, concerns and ideas. The recipient of good coaching will express they realized greater potential within themselves because a manager took the time to listen, acknowledge and encourage.

Ann Swain is the Director of the Senior Companion Program and a featured blogger.

Unsung Heroes Get Applause

While most of us know of organizations that use volunteers, very few of us know which of those organizations actually have an official Manager of Volunteers. November 1st is designated as International Volunteer Managers Day as a way to recognize the work they do to ensure that volunteers are recruited to fill real needs, that they are properly supervised, recognized and rewarded.

If you are a Manager of Volunteers who is feeling underappreciated, lift a glass to yourself on this day to recognize the work that you do, often quietly in the background, to ensure the smooth functioning of the volunteer program in your organization. We know you are there! We know the work you do and we celebrate you!

As a promise to yourself to honor all you do, take a moment to read a Blog, or find an article on a subject you need to learn more about, or buy a book on managing volunteers that will increase your sense of professionalism, and know that the work you do matters. Happy International Volunteer Managers Day!

Anne Schink is the Project INVEST Coordinator for the Maine Commission for Community Service and a featured blogger.

As knowledge of the Bangor Humane Society spreads throughout our communities and Maine, I find more and more people approaching me with interests in volunteering. It’s great to not have to worry about recruitment because we have enough interest, but I am faced with another challenge that I often struggle with. What do you tell those individuals with great intentions that might not be the right fit for an organization such as ours?

Working with animals and the public is very different from a lot of other types of volunteer work. There is a certain level of physical condition one must be in to ensure safety when lifting bags of pet food and litter, as well as walking dogs whose manners leave something to be desired. When I ask most of my applicants why they are interested in volunteering for the Bangor Humane Society, the most common response is “Because I love animals.” A wonderful reason, but not always enough. There are many heartbreaks that come with involvement in animal welfare – animal abuse and neglect, disease and euthanasia are not easy to deal with. I find even when I explain these things, and sometimes more bluntly than I probably should, most still don’t understand until they’ve been here. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue aside from the fact that while a few will talk with me about it, most just stop volunteering and I never hear from them again. As a volunteer coordinator with many other responsibilities and with open scheduling, I don’t often notice they have not been here for some time. Should I still follow up even if its been a month or more?

I’d love to hear some feedback if others have this same obstacle. There are some people you just know will burn out quickly and may leave with a sour taste in their mouth when finding the reality of what we’re faced with as a shelter is completely overwhelming and not what they expected. Do you evaluate volunteers for compassion fatigue? If so, how do you do it? I try to touch base with my volunteers, but don’t always have the opportunity to connect with them on a weekly basis. Perhaps an email or mailed survey at different points during their volunteer careers?

Danielle Arbour is the Volunteer and Events Coordinator at the Bangor Humane Society and a featured blogger.

You bet it will!

And do we as Commissioners, Volunteer Managers, elected or appointed officials in State Government or community leaders have any moral, ethical and support responsibilities given the current economic situations?

Absolutely and without question!

If we do not play increasingly participatory and involved roles, the critically important volunteer work force in this country will falter. If that scenario becomes “main stream”, it will take decades to recover, long after economic stabilization makes its impact.

Two words that must dominate the volunteer’s world today are leadership and coordination. Those two commodities, combined with enhanced volunteer training and management, form the quintessential platform for maintenance and growth despite the economic downturns that are effecting all segments of our society from Main Street to Wall Street.

In between those two streets are countless hundreds of non-profits whose very existence depends upon the unselfish contributions of millions of volunteers from high school students to those in their eighth and ninth decades. Economic factors for just Main “Streeters” - higher gas and food prices, lower and more expensive health care services, mortgage and housing challenges, education costs, and just the basic necessities of life – have a decided impact on both volunteers and those organizations who so desperately need volunteers to survive.

Although we cannot provide massive economic stimulation packages, those of us who enlist, train, manage, coordinate and energize volunteers have an urgent mandate to step back, reexamine, restructure (if necessary and appropriate) to insure that each and every volunteer is fully involved and invested in his or her volunteer task.

In essence, those who control the destiny of not only their own organization, but also those individuals or entities, whether in the public or private sectors, who are charged with protecting the lives of others now have new responsibilities when volunteers play participating roles in these devastating economic months and years ahead.

It is not OK to pass the responsibilities to others; those in top leadership positions must assume command. Particularly in these uncertain times when the well being of our citizenry is more than at stake and when we count on the continued involvement of volunteers, strong participatory leadership and well-structured coordination are of paramount importance.

There is no question that cutbacks, realignments, restructuring and resetting of priorities will be constantly in play during, at least, the next year. In my judgment, it is extremely important to involve volunteer leadership in the communication circles and, in some cases, in the final decision making discussions, particularly when the participation of volunteers is concerned. Seeking the advice, guidance and council of volunteers not only strengthens an outcome, but also it provides one of the critical elements of continued volunteer allegiance and support.

As we all are aware, the professional expertise of many of the newly retired volunteer force is much more that just the strengths, attitudes and experiences that most non-profits and governmental agencies need as financial curtailments force retrenchment and an realignment of priorities.

Over the past six months, and particularly since the Wall Street debacle and the resulting negative philanthropic impact for non-profits and the significant public sector budget reductions, the role of the volunteer becomes even more omnipotent.

All of us in leadership positions, at least in the non-profit sector, need to step back, reexamine our organizations, determine what is essential, what can be cut or postponed and insure that our strategic and business plans of action are error proof. For those organizations who depend on volunteers for success and societal impact, need not to keep volunteers are arm’s length, but embraced as family.

In my nearly 50 years in the business of working with volunteers, I look back to my experiences in the seventies, the late eighties and other economic trying periods. Many of us capitalized on the down times to insure that we were sensitive to the concerns, frustrations and hardships of our volunteer force and included them in our planning and decision-making processes.

Today’s economic slide, which some economists call the “Artic chill”, leaves all other downturns in the dust. None of us have all the right answers on what will happen next, but it will not be the same as yesterday. We will be blessed , however, that for generations there will be a growing volunteer force that will need nurturing

Therefore, you bet that we need to be concerned and proactive in the treatment and servicing of our family of volunteers!

Noble Smith is a Commissioner serving on the Maine Commission for Community Service and a featured blogger.