Have we gone too far?

On Wednesday, I spoke with the Advanced Volunteer Managers Networking Group of the Northwest Volunteer Administrators Association in Portland, Oregon. 


I was looking at the question: "have we gone too far'. In the last decade volunteering has become more organized, more structured and more sophisticated. 

We now have a position where I believe 40% of agencies are way behind the game in terms of volunteer management. This is based on my work providing training and consultancy to agencies and undertaking Volunteer Program Assessments. One third are on the way to "getting it right", a very small number are indeed there.  Some are poised in the verge of taking steps "too far" and are in danger of creating volunteer programs that are too organized, too structured and too controlled. 


The question I posed was how do we balance professionalization & the spirit of volunteering?


I suggested four broad strategies to tackle this balance:

1. Becoming Wholistic Volunteer Managers
2. Identifying the Real Risks in our programs (ie not being too cautious or too complacent)
3. Viewing Volunteers as Customers giving us their most precious resource: time
4. Being real about the protections we need on our programs

The group identified ten actions that we could do to achieve these (notes will be added here soon regarding these).


I asked participants to identify which action(s) they were going to take and make a commitment to starting them in two months. I also asked them to pair up to find an "accountability buddy" to check in with their progress. (I have done this a few times and today, one of the participants fed back while they liked meeting another volunteer manager they did not having them check up on her.).


My average score for the training was 9.1 out of ten. One person gave me 30 out of ten which we rounded to 10 out of 10 (Thank you to that person).


Pictured here with me are Carie Bauer of Oregon Volunteers and Victoria Eggleston, Volunteer Coordinator for the City of Tualation, Oregon

Completely Unqualified Trainer? You're Hired.

I recently got an invitation to a Social Media webinar.  Being a resourceful Gen Xer I immediately googled the presenter:-

• They had a web page but was dull and out of date
• They were not on Linked in
• They did not have a Facebook page
• They didn't have a Myspace or Hi5
• Flickr? No. Yelp? No.
• Blog? No
• Had they advised agencies on how to use Social Media? No

Their entire Social Media presence was four weeks on Twitter; 19 tweets and 11 followers.

My Question is: what makes Social Media so easy that anyone thinks they can teach on it? I feel cheeky sometimes teaching on it. I am still learning a lot about what makes it tick and work. I certainly know what  doesn't work!

This is my beef with a lot of things in the community sector. Because we are tight with dollars (we don't have any), we get people who are not qualified to train and teach our staff.

When I fly a plane, I want someone as a pilot who has been taught by pilots.
When I have surgery, has the doctor been taught by someone who knew medicine?
Yet in the community sector it seems the attitude is: "if you are a cheap or free trainer, we will hire you, regardless of skill, knowledge or commitment to the sector".

Two years ago, we lost a contract to another company. No big deal. That's business. I was disappointed but not devastated. The other company put a bid in that was much cheaper than ours. What made my blood boil, is that at the very first training session, the trainers stood up and said "this is the first time we have ever trained". Period. Neither had ever trained before. Wait for it -theres more. They then said "be patient we have never worked in this field".  Some of the attendees were furious but others shrugged their shoulders and said "its cheap!"

A woman said to me "I wish we could get you for training but you are outside our budget. I said "whats your current training like?" She said (and I quote): "Its complete and utter Cr*p. That's why I would like your company but we will never change".

Now, before I am accused of sour grapes, let me tell you I am very happy with the amount of work I get. I would like more, of course! That's not my motivation for this post. I also hasten to say that 93% of clients tell me we are excellent value for money and we have done a number of deals to deliver free training to people.  I am genuinely distressed at the wastage and loss of potential. When the overwhelming feedback we get at our company is "this is the best training I have ever been to", that says more about the state of training than it does about our work (no offence to my brilliant trainers).

Poor training costs money! Two examples:

• we applied to write some training materials but didn't get the contract as we were undercut 33% on price. The difference was the other group had never worked in the community sector and didn't know the field. The materials they produced were so bad that the client hired us to review and re write them having paid the first contractor as well
• we were asked to come in an "untrain" and then "re-train"  a community group after another trainer had given a staff group a terrible presentation. Firstly, it very was dull. The presentation came alive when the facilitator gave such wrong information that a "riot" occurred. Some staff walked out and some stayed and argued. The management shut the training down

 I would like to encourage agencies to build in a sensible budget for training. When applying for project funding, include the staff development costs in it. and I would like to encourage  request demand agencies not engage bad trainers!

Off to tweet about this blog!