Doing Less with Less

The launch of SAVE started with an excellent challenging presentation by Jan Masaoka, Executive Director, California Nonprofit Association and Editor, Blue Avocado.

She challenged us to think about how do we get attention for volunteering, volunteerism and volunteer management.

Jan started by saying we need to disagree more at these events and challenged the group to do so. Impressively, she was not defensive when three people challenged some of her points.



A few points that struck me:

• Lets stop trying to do more with less- why not accept we can do less with less. Doing more with less is ultimately unsustainable. Do we aim to do so much less that we do everything with nothing?
• We have been trying for twenty years to change the attitudes of our organizations to volunteering and volunteer managers. time to stop. Time to ind external ways to bring change?
• Can we start giving awards to the Foundations that ask no questions about volunteering and volunteers to highlight the absence of volunteers in people's consciousness?
• The focus on National (and stipended) service has undermined volunteering.
• Volunteer managers job is not to keep volunteers happy. That limits our work.
• Why do we not talk about the lack of diversity in North American volunteering at these conferences. 
• When we talk about diversity, we automatically assume diversity is a good thing when it may not suit all organizations. 
• She hates the phrase Philanthropy used for volunteering. 

I found her to be an excellent presenter and she certainly got me and others thinking. Thank you Jan.

National Conference Chicago -Here we come!

It is three weeks until the US National Conference for Volunteering and Service in Chicago, Illinois. This will be my eleventh conference- have been there every year since 2002. It is one of the highlights of my calendar and I never get much sleep at it, trying to catch up with everybody while Tweeting and live blogging!!! Let us connect in some way. I am not having a display table this year as they have, frankly, got too pricey for me but you will find me in the Exhibit Hall a lot.

I have recently posted on May 17 on the NCVS Blog: Concentrate on People, Not Problems. Check it out and let me know what you think!

I am volunteering to present three sessions at the Conference:

• Sunday June 17- Global Lesson for Fostering Vol. Engagement -as part of the Summit on Advanced Volunteer Engagement(SAVE) 
• Monday June 18 Essential Leadership Skills   also part of SAVE
• Tuesday June 19 Volunteer Management Toolkit - Session is sold out. Surprise, surprise- we had 185 people attend it last year. Shout out if you are attending it. Boring Hashtag: #NCVS2848 Last year's was better: #voltools Am going to use both.

Last year's Blog Posts:

• NCVS Grand Opening
• Meeting People at NCVS
• My Session Report: Volunteer Management Toolkit

See you soon!!

Friday Facts: whos reimbursing Volunteers?

In the Global Volunteer Management Survey, agencies were asked what benefits they provided for their volunteers. The total number of volunteers covered by the survey was 1,103,163 from 23 countries.

The results are listed below.

A few interesting points:

• the biggest was  reimbursement of travel or phone expenses (55.5%)- this means almost half of volunteers do not get one of those benefits
• parking (54.3%) came next
• free meals or drinks were provided to almost half of all volunteers
• 3.5 per cent of agencies pay their volunteers a regular cash allowance
• clothing on the job is  important with  43 per cent of volunteers being allowed to wear casual clothes and 19% getting a uniform
• 27 per cent of the volunteers are funded to do training or development
• a small number get additional benefits like club memberships, childcare and massages

Over a fifth of respondents chose the other category and saw the following as benefits:

• Social Events (2 per cent). One repondent noted that the agency provided socila events as a benefit but volunteers were expecetd to pay for them!
• References (1 per cent)
• insurance coverage which 1 per cent of agencies saw as a benefit (not an essential!)
• one Uk agency said they were not allowed to give benefits
• one said "Just being a part of our organization!" 
• one per cent said things like:  "self fulfilment", "Personal growth opportunities while supporting a cause they believe in"

What do you offer your volunteers - and why?

Wednesday World Changers: Australian Volunteers

Aussie volunteers, like those in many other countries change lives and the world. National Volunteer Week from May 14 to May 20  2012 is a time when we can pay tribute to volunteerism. (USA, Canada, UK NZ all have National Volunteer week too- at different dates).







The theme of this year's week is:  'Volunteers ' Every One Counts'

I am curious to know what people think of this year's theme and poster (seeing last year it was not very popular!).

Promotional material for the week is now available www.nationalvolunteerweek.com.au  and the hashtag for tweeting about it is:  #NVW12

Thank you to our Aussie volunteers!

Volunteer Australia Conference Reportback

400 people attended the Volunteering Australia conference on the Gold Coast. The number was down from their original 600 target. Whether the numbers were down because of the high cost, change of date and venue, the recession or the program we will never know.

We do know that about 1000 people read my blog post on the high cost of the Conference and not one person disagreed with my comments. Volunteering Australia sadly ignored the blog post which is I would suggest a poor response to such a large group of their constituents and poor social media strategy.

We do know that Conference keynote speaker Michael Kirby was his usual brilliant self and that The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP launched  the long awaited national volunteer strategy for Australia. I will comment on the strategy next week.

 We also know that the hashtag #VolAus11 has over 800 twitter comments from over 130 participants. They included:

RT @neridagill: RT @creativewire: Recruiting volunteers is not about 'asking for a favour', it's about giving yr volunteers something meaningful #volaus11


Congrats to Cary and the team at Volunteering Australia on a very successful and beneficial conference. You should be very proud! #volaus11


RT @CreativeWire: The not-for-profit market is 7 times larger than the mining sector in Australia #volaus11


Awesome->RT @ProBonoNews: 'Many of the leaders in volunteering are corporate groups' says Vol Aust of their research #volaus11


Conference attendees,  my readers and I would love your feedback. Please leave some comments. You can be anonymous or open.

What are we rewarding?

Attendees at my training know I make fun of some of the stereotypes that the sectors use ti celebrating their volunteers. I read one this week ....and please, please do not hear me belittling the amazing volunteers in the community.


One of the awards went to a woman who contributes many hours to volunteering: organising events, supervising and providing opportunities to disadvantaged, worked on challenges, broke a Guinness Book of Records record, supporting the community parade, does street fundraising, sells cookies/biscuits, organises and enables people to go on camps. 


Daunting isnt it? Who else can aspire to this?

Another  works ‘behind the scenes’ without supervision. Thats an interesting message. 

When we are rewarding volunteers for their efforts, the number one thing we want as volunteers is to be personally thanked. How are you doing that? How can we celebrate volunteering without sounding daunting?

Friday Facts: Aussie Volunteer Conference Reactions

There are suggestions that the Volunteering Australia conference set to operate in a few weeks has failed to meet target. It is been suggested that there are about 300 attendees compared to 600 last year. True, there may be a rush of last minute attendees but numbers do appear down.

No doubt the very recent change of date and venue, which I have previously blogged about may be a factor. Listening to people, across Australia I am hearing a range of reasons why numbers are down:

1. The price of close to $950 for a volunteer conference is very high. The mutterings about the cost have now risen to a crescendo. Add to the cost, accommodation which is not included ($250 to $450 depending on how you organise it), airfares $200 to $500, meals (up to $150), transfers etc etc and you are looking at over $2000. By contrast, you could have flown to New Zealand, paid for accommodation,  attended the NZ conference, eaten well and spent half of that
2. The economy is making not for profits extra careful
3. The lack of significant or sufficient quality volunteer management workshops or plenaries
4. The late addition of this conference into a crowded 2011 calendar
5. What is perceived as the on going disconnect of Volunteering Australia from the rest of the volunteering world in Australia
6. The poor decision to charge volunteer presenters full fee, even when they are presenting, stopped some from submitting papers

One wants the peak body to succeed and do well. These disappointing numbers at the conference reduce their income from the event and will impact negatively on their ability to provide support for volunteering across the country. Hopefully in reflecting and evaluating, some constructive changes will be made.

Wednesday World Changers: International Volunteer Manager's Day

It is just seven weeks to go until International Volunteer Managers Day 2011 on 5^th November!

International Volunteer Managers Day is celebrated on November 5 and seeks to recognise the important work which those who lead volunteers make in the process of effective volunteering. IVMDay offers volunteer management professionals an opportunity to 'celebrate through educating' others about the work they do. The Day is supported by many groups around the world. Most of the National Volunteer Networks are supporters. I say most because Volunteering Australia continues to actively refuse to support the day which is disappointing.

Did you know about the day? If not find out more here: http://www.volunteermanagersday.org/

• Follow the day on Twitter and promote it by mentioning @IVMday in your tweets.

• Get in touch to tell the IVMD Team what you have planned for 2011 and they’ll promote it on their website

• ‘Like’ the International Volunteer Managers Day page on Facebook and post your plans there too.

A small group of volunteers have worked to build the day up which has taken off in many cities, states/provinces and countries around the world.  Thank you to those people. 


 They are seeking new blood to join the committee and take International Volunteer Managers Day forward into the future. If interested, please send the committee an email outlining a bit of information about you, what you like about the Day and what one change or development you’d like to implement to take it to new heights.

I will keep you updated by what I know.