Tag…I am it
Peggy Hoffman started a bit of a meme challenge regarding volunteerism to coincide with the Great Idea’s Conference. This isn’t just a “throw something against the wall and see if it sticks” concept because there was a caveat: the volunteer job can’t involve committee work, long-term commitments or “gobs of time”. As a result of Peggy’s post, I was pulled into the conversation by Kiki L’Italien who issued a challenge to me to build on the ideas and suggest my own.
I am not totally with Kiki on her post; I do actively seek out volunteer opportunities and have already served on ASAE’s Professional Development council and their Social Media Task Force since becomming a contributing member of ASAE. However, since my membership has lapsed due to my financial and employment circumstances I guess they count but only in a past-tense kind of way. Currently I am involved in the Open Source world and somehow found myself (ok I admit it, I stepped up) as the volunteer project manager for the Drupal Open Learning project. So I think I can draw some inspiration from the FOSS world largely from my Drupal and WordPress experience.
Why can’t volunteer opportunities be actually related to contribution as opposed to title? I have created WordPress themes and plugins and given them back to the community. If my countless hours of coding don’t amount to something I don’t know what does. I think association need to take a cue from that type of situation. How can members give their time to something without it being sanctioned by the association? How can they lower the bar to make it easy to contribute as opposed to a bureaucratic decision that requires sign-off and approval? When I worked for an association I continually heard about protecting the brand and legal liability. My thoughts? Get over it. Make it easy to contribute and people will. Put up barriers and people will contribute anyway…but they will want recognition and ownership of their contributions…Notice the problem?
Anyway, enough of my soapbox, I think the idea is that it has to be easy and open. With that in mind I would take Kiki’s idea’s – which are all really solid – and add my own:
- Guest blogger – absolutely! Let’s call it a subect matter expert and then it transcends a single medium. Authority in a subject matter area is key – social media, training and development, component relations, marketing, etc. Let’s face it, as association execs you may know stuff, but your members probably know more.
- Informal advisor – why not line up your best contributors and use them as formal/informal sounding boards. Again, you may have good ideas, but members who have been around a while may be able to shed a whole new light on why it may or may not work.
- Item writer – granted this isn’t original but the one thing that I loved about my work at PMI was the fact that we gave our certified members the opportunity to help develop the certification exams of the future. They’d give a day of their time – generally coinciding with one of our events and in return they would gain recognition and some sort of non-monetary remuneration. Professionals love being involved in helping shape their field.
- Twitter contributor. It seems like Twitter has gained a ton of traction in the association community. Why not acknowledge the contribution of members who are actively engaged in events by contributing to the Twitter-stream. Even better, establish a hastag(#) for your even then you know exactly who and how they are contributing. I believe that every little bit counts.
- My last Great Idea is actually another simple one. Why not make all of the associations content easy to share (e.g. ShareThis, AddThis or something similar) and make it easy for members to share the content with their colleagues? Is it truly volunteerism? In my mind, if you aren’t getting paid to do something and it’s contributing to the betterment of something or someone else, you are volunteering your time. Going back to my original theme, make it easy for all members to get involved and I think you are going to be satisfied with the results – provided that you have content worth sharing.
There are plenty of ideas out there if you put some thought into it. Perhaps the ultimate ideas is not to overthink it and just go for it. I’d love to hear from some folks who I think have better ideas than I do:
Jeff Cobb – @missiontolearn
Jamie Notter – @jamienotter
Chris Busse – @busse
Frank Fortin
Rick Johnston – @rjohnston
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My name is Dave Sabol and I work at the intersection of technology, online learning and knowledge management. Associated Knowledge is my way of capturing the insight that I gain as I navigate my way through the world of social media and open source technology.
Great post! Now I feel recharged and creative…let’s see if that translates to better (I’d settle for consistent) blog writing for me.
Your post made me think of another recent thought topic. Because of the economy, I’ve been in several discussions about what associations are doing to assist members who find themselves in-between jobs or in financial straits. You have been so valuable with your volunteer efforts in the past, what are your associations (or former associations) doing for you now? What should they be doing? …just thinking here…
Right on Kiki, let me collect my thoughts and I will use it for my follow-up post. Maybe what I needed was a to add some new perspectives to get me inspired and thinking critically again. You were just what the doctor ordered. Let’s keep this thread going and see where it leads us.
It seems to me that one of the largest issues that Associations deal with in terms of volunteerism is the issue of recognition. It makes it EASIER for us to recognize our volunteers when we know who they are and what they did. OK – that makes sense…
Now, chuck that idea out the window. No, I’m not saying we should chuck our manners (Judith Martin would be very upset with me) but why have associations created such a culture in which everyone must be recognized and rewarded for being a part of the group?
If we were to create an association culture in which everyone was a contributor (ie: volunteer) and therefor everyone a recipient of those contributions, then everyone would also be “recognizing and thanking” those contributors. I get far more out of my volunteer experiences when I am thanked by another peer than when I am thanked by the organization (staff) in which I volunteer.
If you break down those reward and recognition barriers, perhaps you help to develop a new way of volunteering? Just a thought…
Jamie you raise some really interesting points. I agree that the idea of volunteerism also brings with it the idea of entitlement. Not sure why they go hand-in-hand but in my experience (both as a volunteer and as an association staffer who worked with volunteers). I don’t know that you will ever get around that though as volunteers are – generally speaking – dues paying members who are passionate about the association, want to make a difference and have time and talent that they are willing to contribute. That’s some significant horsepower for large and small associations alike if managed properly. Fundamentally, we need to address the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) aspect of the equation and determine someway to make it more broadly appealing.
When I was at PMI our membership was approaching 300,000 but our volunteer ranks – at all levels: chapters, virtual communities, board, board committees, event planning and action teams, etc. – were probably only 10% of that number, maybe even less. That either means that those who were active volunteers were clearly different than the broader member or as an association volunteer opportunities weren’t broadly accessible and/or available. I suspect that we aren’t alone in that fact.
I like you idea about creating an association culture built around volunteerism thereby creating a “virtuous cycle” of giving and receiving that would be available to/for all. However, I think the devil may lie in the details on it at least conceptually.
1. How would you manage it? How would you parcel out tasks and see to it that they were being accomplished.
2. How would you ensure that everyone was contributing? It’s a Utopian idea to have a culture based on/for volunteerism but just as you would have those that would contribute well above and beyond the norm, you would also have those that did far less – or even nothing. That could potentially serve as a disincentive and throw the who system into disarray.
3. How would you address the WIIFM question? Again, I love the idea of a volunteer-driven and inspired association, but it sounds like the association itself is the only one to really benefit – less staff resources expended, more work done. How do we make it truly beneficial for the members?
I think your idea has a ton of merit but I think there are a lot of issues that need to be thought through to make them work. Definitely food for thought.
Dave – good questions. Here’s what I think:
1. I don’t think you can just turn all of your members into contributing volunteers overnight. But I think that the “volunteer” process should begin before or during initial membership. Why not make participation a requirement and outline a number of ways that a member can contribute – and again – keeping in mind all of the things mentioned already. For instance – in ASAE’s case – submitting sample materials to the website is to me one of the easiest ways to “contribute” to everyone’s membership experience.
In some cases – tasks would have to be parceled or ad hoc opportunities created with short-term expectations. From my experience a volunteer “assigned” to a project doesn’t necessarily prove to be more productive than someone who isn’t. We often get great input from members who sit-in on committee meetings they are not members of. Perhaps the creation of more free-flowing structures to allow a more fluid volunteer experience. I agree there needs to be someone that takes ownership of a project but beyond that – why does there need to be a “committee”?
I think there will always be people who step up to accomplish something and they don’t always do it to get a pat on the back from the org staff but rather from their peers.
An organization exists to benefit its members – any benefit it receives is for its members.
2. I don’t think you can prove or assure participation. Using ASAE as an example – there a hundreds who share wisdom on the listservs, others who submit samples, and still others who volunteer in specific roles. Aren’t they all contributors towards everyone’s membership experience? They don’t give a listserv contributor award – yet people still contribute. That IS the WIIFM.
On the other hand – an extreme example – we have a chapter that requires x number of hours of volunteer time per year from each member. If they don’t have the time – they pay a cash penalty. Needless to say – they have a large volunteer pool.
3. The hard part about any of this is changing a culture. I doubt anyone JOINS an organization to get recognition. They may do things for recognition but I haven’t seen a lot of studies done on who the best “recognizer” is. The traditional model pretty much makes it the org staff or leadership – and that’s it. I say – get your recognition from everyone who benefits from your input. I am generally thanked for my listserv contributions, my sessions and my samples (mixed with a bunch of follow-up questions!) I am not a member to serve the organization, but rather to serve the community.
Great conversation! I zoned in on your original posting para 3 “Why can’t volunteer opportunities be actually related to contribution as opposed to title? …” because that is a great starting question for unraveling the traditional volunteer model and rebuilding it – particularly when we’re figuring out how to engage multiple generations in a changing climate. Way too many syllables in that sentence. Let’s meet members where they are and where they are headed.