Monday Motivation

"You become a champion by fighting one more round. When things are tough, you fight one more round."

- James Corbett

Disappointing Volunteer Centre Volunteer Engagement

I recently did a training with a group of volunteer centres and I asked how many of them utilise volunteers in their own operations.

The majority of them did not. And these centres were not alone. It happens a lot.


The reasons these guys had for not engaging volunteers in their own work were jaw dropping when you consider these were Volunteer Centres:

“the roles are too complex”

“we don't have time to train volunteers”

“we know we should have volunteers”

“we have one volunteer"
"we have found volunteers to be unreliable"

These are the very reasons community agencies use to argue why volunteers are not appropriate in their settings. The very agencies that volunteer centres are trying to encourage volunteering in. Volunteer centres refer members of the community to volunteer in agencies -but not their own operations? They offer training in how to engage volunteers but cannot do it themselves. 

What sort of example are these centres setting if they cannot involve volunteers in their own operations? A CEO of one centre said to me: "we have a volunteer who works four days a week. Yet we say to agencies that volunteers must not work for them for more than two days a week. Its a bit naughty isnt it?" Naughty?

I know most volunteer centres are struggling to fulfil their mandates. Involving and engaging volunteers in their work may allow them to do more toward succeeding. Engaging more volunteers who can achieve more for the Centre will also set a good example.

The very institutions charged with promoting volunteerism should be the ones who engage volunteers first.


What do you think?

Alaska Bound

I am in Anchorage July and would love to do a day of training while I am there. Anyone from Alaska know anybody up there who may be interested?

Sabotage

I started my Wednesday morning National Conference for Volunteering and Service) session with pressure. Cindy from Atlanta brought a friend to the workshop today and told me that I had to be good because her reputation was on the line! What about mine?!

The topic was one of my favourites: How Volunteer Managers Sabotage their Programs. It has been updated slightly recently. The session is quite different to how I first ran it but still as relevant- and as helpful to people.

We had 180- handout packets for the 165 registered. We ran out and had six people still wanting them. (I think we must have had almost 200 actual attendees). Running a workshop in the cozy room was interesting...group work was tricky as the groups tried to squeeze themselves around the room. People were very patient and contributed very well to create an amazing learning atmosphere.

Thanks everyone.

Men in Volunteer Management

Across the world, whenever there is a conference, workshop or meeting about volunteering, there are usually about 90% women and 10% men.  Sometimes it is 100% women. Except if it is an emergency services meeting or sports.
Why?

Gwen is doing some research to find out why? She is pictured here interviewing me at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service.

What are your theories?

NCVS On Generation Service Project

100 kids from New Orleans helped create seed packages to start community gardens in Birmingham, Al devastated by disasters today. I was so impressed with the leaders from the on-generation advisory committee...astounding.

Volunteer Management Toolkit

A brand new workshop is always a learning curve. The Volunteer Management Toolkit was being presented by me for the second time.

I knew I was distracted by it when I left my Credit card and flash drive in the Kinkos store as I printed off stuff for my workshop. They were there two hours later when I returned. Phew!

Thank you to the 185 people who squeezed into a room for the North American debut of this workshop- please let me know what you think? 

In the past we have had a room monitor who helps with tasks like this. Not sure if they are not doing that this year or I didnt get one. It meant I was more frenetic than normal!

I welcomed people and ran around giving out  groovy coloured sticky notes pieces of paper.
based on the length of time in community engagement/volunteer management:

• Green -under 1 year
• Blue 1-5 years
• Pink 6-9 years 
• Purple over 10 years

Interestingly, we had lots of green and pink but not as many blues and purples in the room.

We talked about the key tools you need. The piece of coloured paper was used for a couple of interactive exercises.

I was fascinated at how many people have much work to do on their very first tool (message me for what that tool is). A lot of work. Good luck guys. Am happy to come and help your agency work through things like:

• Knowing where you are going with your community engagement strategies
• Identifying and meeting meet agency goals (strategic & operational) 
•  managing change
• Knowing needed skill sets of agency

We engaged people in lots of adult education opportunities with people mixing into pairs, triplets groups and mega groups. 

In the end we identified THE tools for a volunteer program by voting. The information re these tools will be typed up soon. 

Thanks for everyone who came up and gave me feedback on the session. There is not a formal evaluation of every session at NCVS this year. Some workshops are being audited - mine was not one of them. Sorry, I dont like that. How do you keep quality control at this learning event and how do I learn as a presenter? Especially as this was my second time presenting this session.

Only two people tweeted using the session hashtag #voltools Why does NCVS insist in hashtags on every session..does anyone use them????????


Next workshop tomorrow morning at 830am: How to Sabotage Your Volunteer Program.

Looking for?

comments please!
If you have read The Cowling Report, feel free to leave even just a one or two word comment. Keeps me connected!
Interestingly, I am being impatient. The total number of comments goes up very month-- but I am wanting more!
Thank you

NCVS Conference Opening

I have been in New Orleans for three days and today was the National Conference on Volunteering and Service opening. Having been involved intensively with the pre conference Symposium for Advanced Volunteer Engagement, I already feel well and truly in conference mode!

I must admit I really enjoyed the opening.

The opening was held in a mostly darkened room which meant seeing other people or taking photos was not easy.  There were four large screens which projected movies and elements from the stage. We started with some terrific music and we kept coming back to terrific music. Well done on this. I tweeted at one point that I felt like dancing. Other people remained still- not sure if shy or overawed at being in a darkened room with 3000 people. Applause however was loud throughout and at times standing ovations.

The theme: Champions of Service.

I thought the music was great and there were some terrific stories about volunteerism in New Orleans.  My favourite was about the musicians neighbourhood in New Orleans planned by Harry Connick jr and Branford Marsallis is on track for 70 houses in an area ruined by Hurricane Katrina. These houses are built largely  by volunteers. I saw the project last time I was in New Orleans and was impressed. I have to be honest, I had never heard of Branford Marsallis (I am  not a huge jazz music follower) but I loved, loved, loved his audio visual presentation. The project is astounding.

I liked what the Mayor of New Orleans Mitch Landrieu had to say along the lines of "give more, get more". He was short to the point and full of the right energy! Thanks mayor.

Also interesting for me was the question Chad Pregracke posed: -Why do we  know all about the lives of  celebrities but not these phenomenal amazing service projects". How nice would it be for Who magazine to feature some of our unsung volunteer heros!!! People loved him and his example of cleaning up the rivers of the USA!

My first criticism of the opening session was that while there were some heart warming and fun stories of volunteering, there were too many for me. The audience lives those stories. We dont need to be told volunteering is wonderful again and again. We know it and believe it already. See my concluding comments below.

The weirdest part of the opening was that Michelle Nunn and Robert Velasco, II,  Acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service whilst on stage together were placed at two podiums  at some distance from each other. It kind of felt like there was some sort of gap between them.

Of course what is weirder is that no one can get the to the question on everyone's lips: why did Patrick Covington, the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service step down from the role after 16 months on May 27? At that time, he said he was  taking an “opportunity in the nonprofit community” without saying where his next gig would be. The resignation came after such a short time in the role, in the midst of turmoil over CNCS's budget and a week before their joint National Conference with Points of Light. Strange timing. For everyone who keeps asking me: I dont know why he has gone but its very odd. There is not even a press release about it from CNCS. Anyone able to illuminate?

Michelle shared a nice story about a little girl Riley Hebberd who saw that the kids in African refugee camps didnt have toys. She gave her own toys to them, persuaded her school friends and has now started a foundation that sends toys to Africa. This is proof that young kids "get volunteering". I am sorry, in the back of mind came the nagging question: "do the kids want/like the toys they get?" and "how can we get the kids out of refugee camps instead of sending toys".  I dont like being cynical but having lived in Africa and having worked with some well intentioned  but inappropriate donations, I wonder. Then the other part of me said "does it matter?". Surely some good can be blessed in some way?

That was a good lead in to the presentation by the founder of Kaboom  Darell Hammond who builds children's playgrounds.

The Target gift was very much appreciated and it was nice to chat to some of them! They looked amazing in their bright red t shirts saying "thank you for your service". Great touch. I think I want to give mine to Riley Hebberd's toy program.

Theres always a lot of politics at the NCVS opening (this was my tenth). Robert Rosenthal of Volunteer Match (picture right) noted, however, in a Tweet that "90 mins in, I think I can count Obama references at #NCVS opening session on one... finger?".

As is usual with the NCVS Conference opening.....tooo long with too many talking heads...I d cut a few out (but who of course?)  One person said to me that they counted 20 speakers in the two hour session. One of the segments included a 25 minute chat between "political consultants" James Carville and Mary Matalin. There were some gems in their discussion but it felt way too long for an opening session. Post podcasts on line and we can check them out.

The whole show ended with Roots of Music playing again.

Overall rating for the NCVS Opening Session: 8.5 out of 10.

What did you think? Comments welcome below:-

Volunteer Management Skills

Sue Hine who writes the blog Management 4 Volunteers says: "Your excellent blogs of May 24 and June 6 have reminded me of the cartoon drawn up at the first Aus Retreat for Advanced Management, Canberra 2005 (see below).  Worth resurrecting I think"

Sue, you are right. Here is a volunteer manager top to toe:

• Close to sainthood
• visionary
• Big ears = good listener
• Ability to sniff out new opportunity
• Passion
• Hidden talents
• Conflict Resolution
• Dynamic
• Fast Action

Thanks Sue!