September 12, 2019
Oh dear, what can the matter be?
When the underground voices surface, when the words start adding up and the themes become clear, and when there is a crescendo of concern – we are way behind taking notice.
The voices have been around for years: there are board members and trustees of not-for-profit organisations that are just not performing as best they could.
We are talking about governance, all those important legal rules set to ensure public confidence in what we are doing, and in conforming to the regulations for reporting to government and Charities Services. They keep pressing on us, loading up our anxieties, when we would sooner be attending to matters of our mission.
Well – many of us started as the three-or-four person committee with a good idea. We weren’t registered as a charity, we were not an incorporated society. We just wanted to get moving with our big idea.
Which grew into bigger things, which took up more of our time, which needed some proper funding and maybe a paid manager. So we formalise, become one of the 27,000+ organisations registered as a charity. And fall into line with everything that goes with that. Not our cup of tea at all, but you have to do it.
And then we discover:
- We don’t really understand our role in strategic development, and what we should be doing to push the organisation’s mission.
- We really need a chairperson who knows how to run meetings efficiently, and a proper secretary for taking minutes, and a treasurer who knows about spreadsheets and basic accounting.
- And recruiting people from the business sector doesn’t always work out in our favour.
- Some board members seem to be there just to add something noble to their CV.
- They don’t really understand what volunteering is about and why it is important for our organisation. Nobody is sticking up for volunteers – forgetting that Board members and Trustees are also volunteers.
- The board needs to move into the next generation of organisation development, instead of being ruled by the people who can’t move with the times.
Enough. More than enough!
It’s not hard to find solutions. There is information galore available to introduce board members and trustees to models of best practice.
The starting place has to be Community Net and the raft of easy-to-read, accessible topics, from the fundamentals of developing governance capability to running meetings and working out policies and procedures. And don’t overlook the Qualities of an effective charity to illustrate what makes your organisation work well.
But maybe what you really want is to check out your organisation’s current performance, its strengths and weaknesses against the accepted benchmarks. That’s where NZ Navigator Trust can set you straight.
Want to know more about volunteering best practice? Go to Volunteering New Zealand’s self-assessment tool InvolveMe. This will get you thinking, and into action.
Or if it is legal stuff you need to check out, your local Community Law office should be able to help.
All this looks like extra work and responsibilities, and maybe you need some outside help. The experts are out there – consultants with experience to guide you on your way. Yes, at a cost, but a price that has to be worth it in the end, for the organisation and for service delivery and what all that stands for.
Non-profit organisations may not have shareholders breathing down their necks for cash dividends, but they do have a constituency and responsibilities to their communities to deliver the goods promised in their mission. Let’s make sure we can live up to their expectations.
_________________
And if this info is not enough, try this report: https://www.centreforsocialimpact.org.nz/media/1507/what-is-the-future-for-ngo-governance.pdf
June 20, 2018
Pressing Government Buttons
What is
Over the past thirty years you, dear government, and the community and voluntary sector, have created a vast amorphous collocation of organisations. We call them variously these days: non-government organisations (NGOs) or non-profit organisations (NPOs) or non-profit institutions (NPIs). We might as well call them non-entities for the way many of them keep struggling to stay afloat, to do the work expected of them, and to be so little acknowledged and appreciated for what they can accomplish.
You’ve done a lot to lift the game to your liking, like making organisations to be more responsible in reporting outputs and financial accountability. You’ve also introduced hoops to jump through in health and safety regulations, in applying for charitable status, and what that means. No shouting for my cause, for example, and de-registration if I dare.
You’ve turned organisations into quasi-businesses, into state service delivery agencies. On the cheap. Except this means organisations have to employ more professional staff, and that costs more, and the organisation mission starts to read ‘meeting contract obligations’ and not ‘serving the people, meeting their needs’. Somehow, though you do not spell this out, you seem to expect volunteer goodwill to take up the slack.
And while you draw large national organisations ever closer inside your tent, and attract others to do your bidding, you forget the breadth and depth of the community and voluntary sector, its diversity, its presence in every city and suburb, in every rural town and settlement. You forget that a nation does not thrive on government and business sectors alone: He Tangata! He Tangata! He Tangata! – people are important too. Civil Society matters as much as your focus on economic growth. In so many different ways. Civil society groups, clubs, associations and organisations promote, develop, and maintain community well-being. They pick up pieces and people that do not fit your service norms; they fulfil leisure and artistic interests, engage people in social activities and sport; they lead the way into community development driven by community interests.
Of the 100,000+ NPOs in Aotearoa New Zealand 90% do not employ paid staff. That’s right. These organisations are led by and supported by volunteers. They create their own purposes and activities. They give their time and skills willingly, and community well-being is testimony to their achievements.
What you are missing
- Volunteering may sit alongside NGO and NFP sectors, but is not always an integral part. Formalisation of NGOs and their business has sidelined volunteer contributions. In big organisations volunteers risk becoming adjuncts, the nice-to-have people to fill the gaps, plug the holes left by funding shortfalls. That’s how volunteers get used, patronised and limited to tasks that deny the organisation of volunteer skills and experience that would enhance services and outcomes.
- Volunteering is not the same as Amateur. Volunteers are not there to supplement or replace paid staff. Volunteers complement the work of professional staff. They offer a distinctive value, they give something of themselves in ways that paid staff can not because they are perceived as being paid to do a job. Volunteers in emergency services put themselves on the line; volunteers in social services work with the most vulnerable people and challenging circumstances in our communities. There are more volunteers putting time and energy into environment and conservation projects than any official office.
- Volunteers have a long history as the innovators and creative forces for change. Think women’s suffrage movement, the origins of organisations for disabled children, the numerous support groups for a range of health conditions, the movements that created Women’s Refuge and Rape Crisis organisations. Today there is a raft of organisations working to alleviate conditions of poverty. Food re-cycling, community gardens, groups supporting victims of family violence and people with mental health problems are all active because of volunteer initiatives.
- Volunteering has to be part of the solution to the kind of society we want. Turning community and voluntary organisations into “state service delivery agents” is not the way to go. Like I said before: civil society matters as much as the government and business sectors. There are no limits to what both formal and informal volunteers can achieve, as we know from history. And history will also show the perils of overlooking the strengths of an active Civil Society.
- Volunteering benefits everyone. The individual volunteer gains in health and well-being, develops skills and community connections which spill over to strengthening social networks across our communities. Volunteers learn quickly how to work collaboratively and in partnership with others, attracting additional skills and talents to their collective endeavours. That’s the best way to create the social capital every community needs.
- Volunteers contribute to a strong and resilient democracy. That’s why a thriving Civil Society is so relevant. Civil Society and volunteering can complement the work of government, but we also need to ensure those fundamentals of democracy are retained: our individual and collective rights, and our liberal society. You should be really concerned when research on New Zealanders’ views on democracy indicates a ‘democratic deficit’: “It’s an undemocratic reality when all the power is in the hands of government, when the voice of the sector is not valued, nor respected.”
- Volunteers count, in more ways than numbers, the hours they work and the putative $ value they contribute to GDP. Such aggregation tells you nothing about the nature of volunteer work, and the qualitative outcomes they can achieve. Nor are these figures an accurate accounting – they are only as good as the recording system used. There are reports too, of many people not recognising or recording their community activities as volunteering.
- Volunteering is a “quintessential part of our culture”. There are plenty of such aphorisms, to be spouted at events to acknowledge the work of volunteers. Salt of the earth. Backbone of our communities – or, in this year’s National Volunteer Week logo: The Heart of Our Community. Yes, these are the generic references, but you should never forget that whether the Salt, the Backbone or the Heart, volunteers are individuals, people contributing to the greater good of our communities and to our national well-being. Do not, ever, take volunteers for granted.
- Listen to what volunteers are saying and honour them for what they believe and do:
Volunteering is as important to society as sunshine
When you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in. Because volunteering is what ‘community’ is all about – sharing our talents.
Belief in the goodness of people, and the possibility of organising our economy and society around values that drive our communities: generosity, collaboration, trust and compassion.
Volunteer work is as non-negotiable as brushing your teeth. You just do it.
Being part of the community isn’t something that you tack on to life – it’s a really important part of life.
Volunteering gets into your blood. Like you can’t live without it.
And yes, this week is National Volunteer Week. But please remember – volunteering is a year round endeavour. It is a daily enterprise in all parts of New Zealand. We are worth noticing for what we contribute to national life and to local communities.
November 30, 2017
International Volunteer Day 2017
All hail to volunteers on this day. May you enjoy being feted in various ways, and feel real warmth in the thanks and appreciation that is showered on you. Of course, I would like to think you get the respect you deserve throughout the year, and not all at once.
For the past seven years I have paid tribute to volunteers and volunteering through this blog, and railed against the platitudes of ‘couldn’t manage without you’ and ‘you help us make a difference’ and ‘volunteers are the life-blood of our organisation’.
I have also written about the benefits of volunteering – to national economy, to social well-being, and to all the community-based organisations offering services around people and animals and the environment and all the rest of human activity. And of course I have bleated and challenged and pounded the table on best practice in leading volunteers – to the point where I begin to repeat myself. Now it is time to bring a full stop to my blogging, and this post is my last.
For this IVDay I give thanks and appreciation to volunteers for what I learned from them, and for what I gained in my time as a manager and leader of volunteers.
I did not ‘own’ volunteers or refer to them as ‘my’ volunteers. I was not their best buddy, and never a ‘nanny-manager’. But the office door was ever open, to say hello and thank you, to be the support when volunteer work wasn’t going well and to listen when there were grievances that were getting in the way of their work. I loved the recruitment process of discovering new talent, new enthusiasms, and helping the shy and nervous to blossom.
Working with volunteers affirmed my faith in human nature. Their energy and commitment and their collective action showed me how community spirit is still alive and well. They gave freely without expectation of reward – and then discovered all the intangibles that make volunteer work a reward in itself.
To volunteers I have worked with, and to those all over who contribute so much to social well-being I give my sincere appreciation in a paraphrase of an oft-quoted saying: “I have forgotten much of what you said and did, forgotten names and perhaps what you looked like, but I still remember how great it was to work alongside you.”
Ten years ago I wrote the short personal essay which follows. For me it reveals fundamental lesson – I wonder if it rings bells for other leaders, managers, coordinators of volunteers?
My Season for Hugs
I left paid employment as a manager of volunteers some two years ago. Didn’t miss the work routines a jot, nor the morning and evening lemming-rush of commuters. There were a few regrets for the loss of warm relationships with people in my workplace, but these passed as I became re-tyred and got a new life as far as I wanted to travel. Until there was a call to fill the vacuum created by my successor’s extended sick leave. I had to go back, because the organisation was not yet ready to cope with leaderless volunteers.
What I do not foresee is the welcome I receive on my return. There are greetings and smiles close to cheers from the paid staff. There is a big bear-hug from bear-like Brian who has been a stalwart volunteer forever. I am spied by Jane and Stephanie whom I met first as diffident and anxious volunteer applicants. They are now accomplished in their supportive roles with clients, love their work and are well-liked by staff. There are cries of delight and acclamations at seeing me again, and more close hugging. Later in the day another Jane, who wears shyness wrapped round her like a muffler, becomes more animated than I have known before: she too is pleased I have returned.
I know how rapidly the waters close over the departure of a staff member, no matter how well respected. I’ve spent much of my life in community volunteering, social working and counselling and never paid much attention to my inter-personal contribution in the roles I have undertaken, despite knowing about its impact in communication and relationships. This welcome from staff and volunteers is over-the-top, I think. Then I remember one of the quotes I used to jot down from books I have read, the sentences that leap off the page, representing perhaps small coinage in the currency of my life at the time. In Brazzaville Beach William Boyd writes “You are the last person to understand the effect you have on other people”. Now I know this truth. I am honoured and humbled in the way I have been greeted in my brief return to the workplace. I wish I could unravel the code of the effect I have on others, so that I may not always be the last to know.
………………………..
International Volunteer Day is an annual event held on December 5. The global theme for 2017 is “Volunteers Act First. Here. Everywhere.” – recognising volunteer efforts around the world, as well as a tribute to the support volunteers provide in times of instability, disasters or humanitarian crises. The banner photos are showing off New Zealand Emergency Services.
October 25, 2017
The Great Big Shout-Out
On November 5 we will celebrate International Volunteer Managers’ Day, as we have done in various ways since 1999. This year a global effort is attracting pledges for action from leaders of volunteer programmes from north and south, east and west. There is also an opportunity for bloggers to share perspectives and ideas about being a voice. Here is my contribution.
I’m going to shout out about how the role of leading volunteers and managing a volunteer programme is where personal interests and attributes, professional standing and political commitment are rolled into one.
The Personal
It has become a truism that you need to be a ‘people person’ to lead volunteers. You like working with people and communities. You are good at building supportive relationships and developing people’s skills and confidence. Communication is everything in leading volunteers, from public speaking and facilitating group meetings to writing newsletters and the intimacies of 1:1 conversations. You know a lot about your community and its resources, and the value of networking. You are pretty self-aware, of your human frailties as well as your strengths. You recognise the importance of seeking out further training and support from your peers, or a mentor.
The Professional
There’s a set of professional standards you have set yourself, even if they are not written down. In the old-fashioned meaning of ‘professional’ you can declare what your values and beliefs are and these are demonstrably evident in your behaviour. That’s the essence of ‘being professional’.
You learn quickly about the knowledge base for leading volunteers: the processes for recruitment, training and placement, the level of support required and how to maintain their involvement. It is not an exclusive body of knowledge like the professions of medicine and law, but you know if you don’t get these things right then neither volunteers nor your organisation will be happy, and you could be missing out on meeting objectives and fulfilling organisation purposes. You know about ethical principles too, about privacy and confidentiality, as well as compliance with all the legal obligations placed on the sector. All the commitment to Professional Ethics in Volunteer Management is laid out for you here.
The Political
We may not be successful yet in establishing strong professional associations for strengthening the status of our role. Nor do we hold collective power to bargain for better pay and conditions of work. But that’s where Being the Voice and becoming political comes in.
To be effective as a leader of volunteers, in managing volunteer programmes, you need to get active – on several fronts. You need to shout out about the nature of volunteering and its significant contribution within organisations and to communities and society at large. You need to make sure organisation executives and the Board (volunteers themselves) ‘get’ volunteering. That means being strategic in building relationships and communicating effectively and often with all parts of the organisation. There may be misconceptions that need to be broken down, to avoid the divisive professional / amateur distinction between paid staff and volunteers for example.
And you do not need to go it alone. Volunteers can be encouraged to speak up about their interests, to present their case to senior management. (Of course they could have been invited in the first place, as a means to engage with the volunteer workforce and to enable their integration into the organisation.)
Another important strategic step is to join with other leaders as peers, for a learning opportunity and for mutual support. Meeting with others also encourages debate and collaboration on common issues. That’s where you could go public, as an independent group speaking about the relevance of the leadership role and the value of volunteers. Social media, opinion pieces, community newsletters – there’s plenty of opportunity to make the public voice of volunteer managers heard loud and clear.
There you have it, a tautology that says the Personal is the Professional is the Political. Of course this may not be you right now, but that’s where you can be heading, with your beliefs, your standards and your power. Let’s make sure our Voice is heard.
August 20, 2017
Democracy in Practice
Election fever is gripping many New Zealanders at present. It’s our triennial opportunity to have a say on the sort of government we want, to chew over the range of policies on offer, to consider the calibre of potential parliamentary representatives.
This time round there is a deal of uncertainty about the outcome: a restlessness with current government, changes in leadership all round, and a new party working its way into the competition. The resurgence of interest in a General Election and voting this year is something I have not seen for more than three decades. No party is touting ‘Time for a Change’ as its slogan, but there is a significant shift in the wind.
The restlessness is not articulated. It’s a feeling like we, the community and our organisations, are sick of picking up the pieces the government is ignoring – impoverished kids going to school without food or adequate clothing, a housing crisis and homelessness, mental health services in disarray, domestic violence, pay equity for women. We are sick of doing protest marches, presenting petitions and making submissions to Select Committees that are never heeded. The people’s voice, that cornerstone of democracy, is being ignored. When we feel excluded from management of our collective affairs we do not bother to speak up about them: no wonder there is a decline in voter turnout – we are getting turned off democracy.
But this time round there are a number of writers and researchers spelling out what needs to change and how:
- The 21st century demands a different kind of government: more transparent, more fluid, more open to the direct participation of citizens, more strongly protected against vested interests. (http://www.goodsociety.nz/events/)
- Arguments for a basic income “could help build community in an age of individualism”.
- Victoria University (Wellington) held a week-long series of meetings on key issues facing democracy, attracting a significant representation from other generations, as well as students.
- Or this from a newspaper columnist: Kiwis deserve better than the rubbish policy ideas from our MPs. For too long now we’ve lived with incrementalism: small policy changes designed to avoid rocking the boat too much. … We could use some bold plans. Let’s hope the so-called ideas get better before election day.
It looks like there is an awakening, and not something spurred along by a bunch of political journalists who think they can steer voter opinion.
Of course election campaigns are also a big draw-card for volunteers, attracted by the opportunity to support a cause they believe in – just as they are motivated to join community organisations. Volunteers are the door-knockers and the leaflet-droppers, the people who stand at community market stalls, who put up the hoardings, who put out the chairs in the church halls and prepare the cups of tea. It’s great to see the enthusiasm and the dedication to the cause, whatever the political stripe. It’s another part of civil society, the linchpin of a democracy.
Civil society is the sum of all those associations, organisations and community collectives that foster our social well-being, our sense of belonging. Through their involvement in elections people are declaring in their own way what they want for themselves and their country. And using your right to vote could be the most important volunteer action you can ever make.
The truly distinctive feature of modern life – the one with which we lose touch at our peril – is neither the unattached individual nor the unconstrained state. It is what comes between them: society. More precisely, civil society. Tony Judt, When the Facts Change, p301
I shall be out of the country when the votes are counted, trusting an online submission (sent from an Asian outpost) will be included. Whatever the result, it’s the participation that matters, more important than who to vote for. That’s what democracy is all about.
July 24, 2017
Finding Your Feet
So – you’ve got your dream job, managing a volunteer programme. You are all get up and go, until you discover it’s a pretty complex role and all your previous experience and training really was not enough. And sometimes you get tripped up and stumble with what is expected of you.
That’s tough, and you need to find time to figure out what you need and how to get your feet strong on the ground. Will the organisation give you some back-up, and support (with funding) to attend a worthwhile training programme, or to attend a relevant workshop or conference? No such luck if professional development is not included in the organisation’s employment policies, or if the organisation is a small-size community-led operation with minimal funding.
That’s when you need to start thinking about mentoring, that relationship process that will support you to up your skills, to find confidence and generally reach for your goals on your own terms, on your own feet, in your own time.
This mentoring thing is not a new invention. These days it is widely adopted by business and all sorts of organisations – sports, schools and universities, the arts, professions, start-up business projects, social enterprise. It’s a kind of coaching, a sort of on-the-job training, a form of supervision (clinical and administrative) – perhaps an amalgam of all the above. Mentoring has found favour over other terms which imply authoritative oversight. If it’s good enough for all those other occupations, why not for managers of volunteers?
When you look at this image it’s pretty much like what you do as a manager of volunteers: you want to sustain volunteer motivation, you are setting goals for them, giving advice and direction, and you are coaching and supporting them in their roles. Just what you are wishing for too?
So how do you find a mentor? Of course there are people who make mentoring a professional career. If that is beyond your means help could be on hand at your local Volunteer Centre. Try them, tell them what you are looking for, and see what they can come up with.
What can you expect from a mentor? A trusting relationship with somebody who listens, but doesn’t tell you what you ought to be doing. It’s amazing what you can learn just by talking out loud. Somebody who can challenge your ideas and attitudes, yet remain supportive while you figure out what will work best for you. Somebody who knows about good resources, as options to explore, not as imperatives.
As an alternative to 1:1 mentoring you could join a Peer Mentoring group in your own locality. Leaders of volunteers get together to find solutions to common issues, to support colleagues in working through what needs to happen, and to identify training needs, swapping notes and resources on best practice and policy procedures. Peer mentoring is thus a more purposeful form of networking. And a Peer Group could also operate as a professional committee to promote volunteering and the importance of management of volunteers within their network.
Peer groups work best when there is a regular facilitator or external leader, but a rotating facilitator can also help participants practice leadership skills.
Now a word for the people who have worked so hard to make the grade of an experienced programme manager and leader of volunteers: can you put up your hand to be a mentor for others? You’ve learned so much, you know the ropes, you’ve been around the traps – why not help others to get a grip on the ground of managing volunteers?
June 25, 2017
The Week that Was (2017)
New Zealand’s National Volunteer Week finished up on Saturday, a week-long shout out, partying, praise and awards for volunteers. If you have not seen enough of the events, the press releases, videos and social media interaction there is a grand collection on Volunteering New Zealand’s FB page.
It’s the one week of the year that volunteers get public notice and due recognition – and even the Prime Minister chimed in this year at the function hosted by the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector. Though if an organisation knows what is best for it there will be plenty of regular in-house appreciation for volunteer work throughout the year.
The theme for the week celebrated volunteering as a way of life that builds communities; that enables sharing your time, energy and skills; and that creates friendships and happiness. And you can have a lot of laughs along the way – volunteering has to be fun!
Yes, there were lots of numbers quoted in the public declarations – numbers of volunteers and their monetary value. Yes the platitudes about ‘making a difference’ and ‘we couldn’t manage without you’ were still paraded in the press releases. And a grand opinion piece in the Dominion Post about benefits of volunteering was undermined by the accompanying image of ‘Volunteers Needed!’
But it was evident that more effort is going into genuine recognition for the work achieved by volunteers. For example:
- Handing out high fives for generally keeping the country ticking
- Listing the benefits newcomer and migrant volunteers bring to organisations
- “The more we continue to grow this spirit of helping others, the stronger our communities will become “
- “Volunteers create connected communities by bringing families together”
- “Volunteers help us to do more, and in return for their hard work and efforts they are able to step forward, act on the issues that affect them and take ownership of changes they want for themselves and their community”
- “We’re [working on] ways to improve our volunteer experiences, including improved communication, ensuring greater diversity among our people, more accessible clinical training and better fatigue management”
- Sport brings communities together through parent volunteers who organise and manage teams, coordinate transport to ensure kids get to and from games and training sessions, cutting up the half-time oranges or washing the team shirts. Others contribute as coach, referee or umpire, by drawing up rosters, being part of committees or organising fundraisers.
The best tribute to volunteering around New Zealand is found here, starting off in Taranaki and including photos and extra stories (filtered through all the ads and inserts of online newspaper publishing). ‘Volunteer efforts help keep New Zealand communities afloat’ the headline says.
It seems churlish now, after all the good news stories, to ask what happens when volunteers do not enjoy the experience of living, laughing and sharing in their work. They leave, give up volunteering in disillusionment. They can damage an organisation’s reputation in an instant, through casual remarks to friends and neighbours. And they may miss out forever the opportunity to belong to a community, creating a sense of well-being and a strong Civil Society.
And that’s why well-organised and respected professional management of volunteers are as important to organisations as the volunteers. Right?
May 22, 2017
Under Pressure
Queen’s song Under Pressure came out in 1981, recorded in collaboration with David Bowie. It’s got a rhythm and words that echo the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall. Remember these music and movie hits? Sort of dystopian nihilism, speaking a kind of truth about power and injustice:
It’s the terror of knowing What this world is about Watching some good friends Screaming ‘Let me out!’.... Pressure on people – people on streets.......
Thirty-five years later we could be screaming even louder for inequalities of income, homelessness, the cost of housing, polluted waterways and environmental threats to indigenous flora and fauna. There’s a long list of pressures on our quality of life.
And no ending to pressures on non-profit organisations:
- funding shortfalls and contract compliance;
- a shortage of qualified paid staff, and a fall-off in volunteer numbers;
- a significant rise in demand for services;
- limitations on speaking out to government; and
- time pressures – deadlines to meet, reporting requirements, events to organise.
What is really coming into focus is the social disarray in our communities.
Government responses over the past month range from denial of a crisis in housing (“there has always been a homeless population”), or in mental health (“look, we’ve increased funding by 18% over the past few years”; and claiming that a community submission came from “left-wing anti-government protesters”). Two new government agencies established for ‘social investment’ and ‘vulnerable children’ look more like data-processing enterprises than innovative service providers.
Ambulance services need double-crewing of trained paramedics, as well as volunteer support. “Why on earth is such an essential service centred around the begging bowl?” asks one executive. “Providing emergency help to seriously ill or injured people”, says a newspaper editorial, “is one of the core duties of the state”. The role of the state is a debate that is sorely needed.
When it comes to the environment the government recently redefined optimal water quality to gloss over the parlous state of our rivers and lakes. Our 100% Pure image went down the drain a long time ago. No government department is more constrained than Conservation, to the extent that it relies on volunteers to protect wildlife and the environment.
So how can the non-profit sector push back against these pressures?
Those organisations providing services under government contracts are particularly constrained from speaking out. Social housing agencies, for example, are virtual servants of government. But if they are representing a community, or focused on a need for services then isn’t speaking out a fundamental tenet of democracy? ‘Shooting the messenger’ is political point-scoring of a dangerous kind, particularly in this election year. We need government agencies and communities to work together in true partnerships, not behind barriers of bureaucracy or prejudice.
Instead of following the trend to become models of modern business practice, non-profit organisations could be developing alternative models appropriate for their mission, in tune with the interests and needs of their community. That will mean being adaptable and inclusive, being solution-focused and not solution-limited, like putting boundaries on service provision.
Achieving this end will undoubtedly involve volunteers. And to involve volunteers will mean understanding the nature of volunteering and what it can offer, so their contribution can be properly appreciated. It will mean developing innovative recruitment strategies that indicate what volunteer work entails, why it is important and valued, and what can be gained in the process. Please, abandon notices that cry ‘Volunteers wanted, or needed’.
In a few weeks New Zealand will resound with National Volunteer Week, an opportunity to showcase what volunteers really do, to demonstrate to Government how volunteers are a force to reckon with, and most of all to celebrate and acknowledge the power of volunteering.
Take heart, take notice, and Live, Laugh, Share – Volunteer from June 18, helping to build stronger more vibrant communities. That is the push-back that will safeguard the work of organisations and the communities they serve.
April 22, 2017
Community & Voluntary Sector: What Do We Mean?
The collective noun of Community & Voluntary Sector is widely used. The words trip of the tongue whenever we want to make a point of how important the sector is, or to argue the significance of volunteer contribution to organisations and communities. Or to point out that this or that organisation is getting a raw deal.
Trouble is, ‘community’ invokes anything from my local neighbourhood, to a particular set of organisations or particular groups of people, and then links with the broader term of Civil Society. It’s a blanket word used so loosely we risk drowning the distinctions – and the voices – that are collectively represented in ‘community’.
You can read all about the facts and values of ‘community’ in Raymond Plant’s Community and Ideology: an Essay in Applied Philosophy (1974). (OK, it’s an oldie but still a goodie.) Plant argues there is no overall definition of community because there is always a value element implicit in using the word: when we talk about what a community is we are also inferring what a community ought to be like, and we may be talking about several different forms of community at the same time. Forty years later we can add ‘networks’ to the meaning of ‘community’, and ‘online communities’ and even global ones.
The Community & Voluntary Sector is also beset with a number of non-titles, like NGOs, NPIs, NFPs, or it is an also-ran as Third (and sometimes Fourth) Sector. Then there is the legal status of organisations: registered charity, incorporated society, or simply a non-entity, a neighbourhood group that organises an informal street clean-up. Or you can categorise organisations by their field of activity, and there are twelve fields according to New Zealand definitions for the John Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (2009). You could also say organisations contracted to provide services on behalf of government are yet another category, one that tends to dominate conversations about the sector.
I wish we could find another way of expressing a ‘community’ voice that does not lump us all in together, obscuring all the myriad services and groups catering for human diversity and their interests.
Now think about ‘voluntary’, another word used loosely, and then some. Yes, there is a fundamental applied definition of ‘work that is freely given without expectation of reward’, but then count all the different ways of volunteering, the different sectors of interest – and vested interests – and the diversity of volunteers and their motivations. No wonder we run up against people and organisations that do not ‘get’ volunteering, that do not understand the word’s real meaning.
Volunteering is both a verb and a philosophic concept. Our beliefs about people and our community relationships will flavour the sort of volunteering we undertake and why we volunteer. Yet too often organisations engaging volunteers have not thought beyond ‘unpaid labour’. There’s a lot more behind ‘working for free’ than donating one’s time.
Consider the different forms of volunteering:
- Volunteering can be both formal (engaged with an organisation) and informal (helping people outside family obligations).
- Volunteering can be regular or episodic, short- or long-term.
- Volunteering can be undertaken as part of Corporate Social Responsibility by employees.
- Volunteering includes activism for social or political change.
- Volunteering as obligation, a civic duty.
And the roles undertaken by volunteers:
- Governance
- Personal support, befriending
- Team leadership
- Event organisation and participation (including fundraising)
- Administration, from reception and clerical input to accounting
- Pro bono professional services
- Research
- Exploring new approaches to service delivery – innovation
Or the drivers for volunteers:
- Supporting a cause
- A desire to connect, to belong in a community, to be useful
- Gaining work experience (for Interns and unemployed people)
So next time a report is issued on numbers of volunteers, the hours they contribute and the $ value of their contribution to the organisation (or to GDP), start asking a few questions about what the volunteers are working at, and what they achieve. Think about just what sort of difference they make, and exactly why ‘you could not manage without them’.
And then do some hard thinking about how you talk about ‘community and voluntary sector’. Is its purpose to contribute to GDP, or to social well-being and community cohesion – to be part of a strong Civil Society? Or is this sector largely the ambulance-at-the-bottom-of-the-cliff of economic and social inequity?
March 25, 2017
Lessons from Volunteers
A few days ago I got a call from Matthew, one of those volunteer types who like to put up their hand for the next best thing. He had landed the job of recruiting a team of volunteers for a city-wide fund-raising effort and scheduling them into a roster for the day. Not a problem he thought – just ring around the people on the list handed to him – slot them in at their preferred time, perhaps do a bit of juggling with where they wanted to go. Piece of cake. And a nice way to support an organisation he respected.
Except a lot of people did not answer his calls, even after several messages. ‘Should I keep on trying to contact them?’ he asked. Of course my question in reply was ‘What sort of briefing were you given when you took up this job?’ Not much. ‘What did you understand you were asked to do?’ Just ring around a few people. ‘No outline of how to run a conversation?’ Zilch. … And so on.
Matthew was not very happy.
Neither was Gina, who volunteered for a branch of a national organisation that had a high reputation in the community. She really wanted to get involved in this work, took up the intensive training, got fired up to give it a go. Loved the work and being involved with people in the community, but hugely disappointed and disillusioned with the organisation. Problem was the other volunteers had all been involved for some years, and they were a very cliquey group. Not at all inclusive when it came to newcomers. And the team leader, the local manager of this branch, was in cahoots with them. You’d go to a meeting and they would spend half the time gossiping about local issues, and even the cases they had been working on. No direction from the manager, no meaningful support, and little guidance when you needed it. Gina stuck it out for a year or so but was pleased to move on to new employment in a different town. She was going to be more cautious about volunteering in the future.
Jess’s problem was somewhat similar. Her volunteering involved supporting families in the community, taking up heaps of time and rather a lot of travel when there were meetings arranged with various agencies. That was OK, really, but Jess was missing the organisation support she had got from volunteering stints with other organisations. Yes, there was an occasional group email with a generic thank-you message, and a list of instructions on what still needed to be done. And yes, there was also a compulsory fortnightly team meeting to attend. But instead of a forum for discussion of ideas and sharing concerns, the manager would go through a list of what Jess and her colleagues were doing wrong. All rather dispiriting. Jess checked out what other people were thinking and feeling and they supported her idea to challenge the manager at their next meeting.
It wasn’t going to be a formal complaint, just setting out what volunteers would appreciate in support and recognition for the work they were doing. Jess was not unaccustomed to laying out facts and examples, but she did not expect the hostile response from the manager. There was no discussion, just a personal attack that made Jess out to be ungrateful, lacking understanding of the organisation and its mission, and totally off the wall in her comments. The other volunteers stayed silent.
Jess has not done any formal volunteering since.
Fortunately I don’t think the experiences of Matthew, Gina and Jess happen frequently, but they are reminders of the real importance of
- Clear instructions for volunteer tasks via a role description
- Ensuring an inclusive process for new volunteers
- Managers of volunteers understanding ethical boundaries and their leadership role
- Genuine recognition and appreciation of volunteer work
- Listening to volunteers and their ideas for improvements in the programme
When we listen carefully volunteers can always teach us a thing or two.
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