Build Your Jobs Around Your Volunteers: How To Offer A Great Volunteer Experience (3 of 6)

Meeting People at their Highest Level of Contribution


On a beautiful, mid-western morning in Spring, I was enjoying breakfast with my friend, Jay Hein. At the time, Jay was the Executive Director of Civil Society Programs at the Hudson Institute, a ‘think tank’ and public policy research organization in the U.S. I had a lot of respect for his position and experience, thus valued any opportunity to glean a bit of wisdom. A dilemma I was facing at the time was with the number of talented and well-connected people who were leaving the congregation of the church where we both attended, and in which we were highly invested. We had heard the stories of some of these people and had noticed a similarity that would almost be funny - if it weren’t so damn serious. They were bored. Not with the sermon....not with the people or the classes.....But as educated and intellectual men and women, there was simply no appropriate outlet for their talents.

Now, if you know Jay, you understand that when he speaks, you listen. He spent the last two years at the White House as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Without question, he’s a smart guy. On that sunny morning at our small breakfast table, Jay defined the problem that had plagued me for months, “Chris,” he said, “we’ve got to meet people at their highest level of contribution.”

With that phrase, “highest level of contribution,” my perspective changed. Rather than try and shape a volunteer around the ill-fitting form of a “need”, fit the “need” to the shape of the volunteer. This way, volunteers find that they are acting out of who they are, and the sense of “becoming” that we’ve spoke of before begins to take place.

Ok, so let’s just pause here for a moment of realism. There are essential roles in every organization that simply need to be filled. We need those roles to enable programs and projects to happen. Volunteers make what we do possible. In fact, in a Whitepaper prepared by LBG Associates “Can Corporate Giving Support The Bottom Line,” the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is cited as estimating that the amount of time Americans spent serving their communities in 2004 may be valued in excess of $58 trillion. We need volunteers if we’re ever going to accomplish our goals. If they’re not feeling challenged enough, if they’re “bored,” we just need to clarify our expectations, specify roles and job descriptions, and provide the support they need to do the jobs we need. Right?

Actually, um....no.

Admittedly, certain types of organizations do need volunteers simply to fill allotted roles. These usually boast a large administrative support staff with access to high numbers of eager volunteers. For example the Vancouver Winter Olympics is in need of some 30,000 volunteers and have received 50,000 applications from around the world. The Toronto International Film Festival, regularly turns hopefuls away who want to give their time. Situations like these aren’t directly applicable to our discussion because of their unique nature. Our focus is on the normative; the long-term struggle.

This “long-term struggle” is where many NPOs are stuck. We want something that works, but we’re not sure where to start. Creating a volunteer experience that meets people at their highest level of contribution takes concentrated effort. It means stepping back and, like most of the elements of “creating a great volunteer experience,” it means reevaluating the basic functions of your program. At times this process can be a challenge, but just wait - the payoff is more than worth it.

The first step is automation (Automatic Volunteer Management: How to Offer A Great Volunteer Experience). This is the method we discussed a few weeks ago. It welcomes people to a “First Stage Experience” where they self-select ‘in’ if they feel a personal connection. We did this by meeting people “where they were at.” We never asked them to be someone other than themselves. At this point, the highest level of contribution had nothing to do with skills, talent, experience or availability. It had everything to do with value. “Do you see the value here? Do you believe in what you can bring to this?” This is the first stage of “realized worth.”

As people connected with the value of the opportunity we were offering them, and returned on a repeated basis, we began to spend more time getting to know them. We wanted to know who they were. We asked questions about their lives, and why they were regularly making the 1/2 hour trip to spend their afternoons with us. We spent some time telling them more about us, the work, and what we believed was important about what we were trying to accomplish. With these questions we began to understand who we could become together. Of course, we eventually got around to discussing what they did for a living, their experience and background, their skills and connections. These ‘doing’ questions always followed ‘being’ questions.

This is the essential departure point between the Realized Worth approach to volunteerism and the typical ‘need bodies to do tasks’ mentality of volunteer management. As we understood who our volunteers were, it became natural and effective to build our positions around the unique talents, life-skills, passions and abilities of each one.

John McKnight of Northwestern University founded an approach known as Asset-Based Community Development and Asset Mapping. He believes that absolutely everyone has something to contribute. These contributions can be arranged into a map of assets. I enthusiastically endorse McKnight’s approach; it is sustainability at its finest. Everyone has a ‘highest level of contribution’, whether you work at the Whitehouse, or you’re illiterate and living in subsidized housing.

Margarite is a beautiful friend of mine. A middle-aged women with a formidable physique and a personality to match, she has lived a colorful and difficult life. Upon our first meeting at the Sunday Suppers in Halifax, I was warned to be careful of her. As if the weekly crowd’s collective fear of crossing her wasn’t enough, her strong street “cred” and even stronger connections virtually flashed a “warning” sign over her head. The second time we met, she marched up to me with a greasy mess of governement-issued papers in one outstretched hand. She announced what the papers were for: I was to document the 1200 hours of community service that she had been ordered to perform. She stated that she planned to serve all 1200 with me at the Sunday Suppers and not only that - I could pick her up on the my way to the City each week and she would help me set up before our guests arrived. Despite my confusion, I agreed. I figured I would speak later to whoever had ‘okayed’ all of this. Turns out no one had - she just decided.

Margarite and I grew to be friends over those 1200 hours of community service. While she was no less trouble than I had been warned to expect, she also proved to have more to give than I dared to predict. Within a year she had move from helping orient new volunteers (in her own unique style), to actually playing supervisory roles with a number of community projects. In one of my finest moments of brilliance (or insanity) I decided to put some of her ‘street smarts’ to use with the people who regularly came in to ask for financial assistance. It was often difficult to decide whether or not the stories of hardship and need were legitimate - a middle class status could render a person a bit naive. Margarite, well, she knew what she was talking about. She had her own stories of winning over the gullible hearts of the financially blessed. So, when the requests came in I happily asked them to wait a sec while I grabbed “the person in charge of that.” Many times, when they saw Margarite walking over they would roll their eyes and shuffle away mumbling something akin to, “forget it.” They knew Margarite could speak their language, and they had heard that she was unassailable in her ability to identify a legitimate request. When we could not offer assistance, she offered alternative solutions for late rent or power bills. More often than not, she would request a higher amount than the individual thought they could ask for because she knew the whole situation.

It was a delight to see Margarite acting at her highest level of contribution. Even Jay Hein, with his education, skills and intelligence, could not do what Margarite did at the Sunday Suppers. Had I never taken the opportunity to get to know Margarite, I wouldn’t have been able to see that she was capable of the roles we ended up giving her. But who she was became clear to us over time and we were able to fit our needs to Margarite’s specific shape. Other needs were fit to other volunteers, based on their unique talents, life skills and passions.

At times the volunteers that come to your organization will easily line up with the current needs. Other times, probably more often than not, the expeditious method for moving the cause forward will not be so direct. It will take the effort to meet people at their highest level of contribution. Pay attention to who your people are, give them a chance to discover the value of the opportunity offered, and maximize the skills, connections and experience they bring. Your priority may simply be to get a job done, and that’s your prerogative. But if you’re after something more, if you want to see your cause succeed in more substantial ways than getting through the day, try meeting people at their highest level of contribution. It’s a vital step on a rewarding path.