Category Archives: Volunteering

Some Volunteers Are Better Than Other Volunteers

June 24, 2009 – 8:22 am

Well the National Conference on Volunteering and Service seemed to have a lot of buzz. From Michele Obama’s keynote address to Jon Bon Jovi performing for the crowd, I may have found the answer to my question from the Council on Foundations conference asking where are all the rock stars?

The session I spoke at looked at how government, philanthropy and the private sector could collaborate and featured Sonal Shah of the White House Office of Social Innovation, who’s quite the rock star herself.

Sitting on the panel, I wasn’t able to take notes on what all the panelists had to say (who included myself, Shah, Michelle Nunn of Points of Light Institute and MacArthur Antigua of Public Allies). So I’ll focus on just my remarks below. But I do want to note that Shah pointed out that her office is made up of just four people and their job is to “leverage the available information.” Regular readers know that this is a concept close to my heart (see here and here), so it was nice to hear Shah address the issue.

I kicked off my remarks by quoting Tactical Philanthropy reader Greg Baldwin, the CEO of VolunteerMatch, who on Monday had responded to the series of questions I asked readers to address in relation to my panel.

Greg wrote:

I think to get underneath the questions you need a clear vision for how government and the nonprofit sector differ. What are their unique roles in society? With that you can begin a discussion of how can they work together.

I then suggested that all of the talk about the “blurring of the sectors” might be misguided. In fact, I think that when we talk about the sectors blurring, we are actually simply noticing that all of the sectors generate a blend of public and private benefit. But in order for the various sectors to work together, I think it is important that we pay more attention to understanding the distinction between sectors so that we can understand the roles and responsibilities of each group.

But at the same time I highlighted the fact that people are not sectors. People live simultaneously as private individuals and members of the public. Organizations in all sectors need to recognize that employees and stakeholders want to play a fulfilling role that speaks to their private needs and interest in public well being.

We also looked at the capacity needs if nonprofits are to effectively deploy the efforts of volunteers. In a remark that seemed to get traction on Twitter, I suggested that “capacity building” was overused as a phrase and that we need to focus on building robust organizations. During my comments I quoted Tactical Philanthropy reader Robert Egger of DC Central Kitchen, who responded to Monday’s post when he wrote:

There seems to be a big push for numbers (lots of volunteers) without two important discussions: “what do we want them to achieve (more painted shelter walls)?”, and “how will an already strapped nonprofit sector manage all these well intentioned volunteers?” Without capacity support, which seems to also be missing from this dialogue, it will be VERY difficult for any group to really focus all this energy.

This led to an almost heretical conversation for a volunteering conference when Ms. Shah said it was OK if not everyone who wanted to volunteer found a spot and I channeled Jacob Harold’s “Elephants in the Philanthropic Room” and suggested that “some volunteers are better than other volunteers.”

Overall it was great to see so much excitement and buzz at the conference.

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Information Sharing, Philanthropy | Comments (9)

National Conference on Volunteering and Service

June 22, 2009 – 8:16 am

The National Conference on Volunteering and Service is getting a lot of buzz this week in San Francisco. Michele Obama is the keynote speaker and Maria Schriver, the first lady of California is speaking as well.

What’s interesting to me is that there are a number of sessions on the relationship between philanthropy and services. Kari Dunn Saratovsky of the Case Foundation is organizing some of these sessions and she writes today about the philanthropy/service connection.

There’s been a lot of buzz this year about a renewed opportunity for collaboration between philanthropy and government. At the conference, I’ll be speaking on a panel along with Sonal Shah, director of the White House Office of Social Innovation & Civic Participation as well as representatives from Public Allies and the Points of Light Institute. We’ll have a conversation about the potential for collaboration, but I’ll be keeping in mind the comment made after the Council on Foundations conference by Kristin Ivie (also from the Case Foundation), when she wrote, “As with any partnership, we know that working with Uncle Sam may not always be sunshine and lollipops…”

I’ve been given some sample questions that we’ll be discussing for the panel and I’d like to post them here to solicit your input. Your answers will help me formulate my own thoughts and I may very well quote some of your responses as I did when I solicited input for my panel at the Center for Effective Philanthropy conference. Remember, the session is tomorrow afternoon, so get your answers in fast. Thanks!

  • What stands in the way and what opens the path to fully realize the vision for service and civic engagement?
  • How can interests of government and philanthropy be better aligned? What’s the low hanging fruit for aligning philanthropic resources with the provisions of the Kennedy-Hatch Serve America Act or the Social Innovation Fund specifically?
  • What is the mechanism for achieving maximum impact with scarce resources? How do we go from conversation about this alignment to strategic philanthropy/investments?
  • What does a merged strategy mean for the sector’s short-term and long-term goals? What do we lose? What do we gain?
  • Are we taking advantage of social innovation as we look toward the future? Do things like social media and other innovative tools change our paradigm for understanding what works or how to best leverage resources? Is our view of philanthropy taking into account the democratization of philanthropy? Self-organizing? The information revolution?
  • Does this work ensure that the endgame means changes in the lives of the most vulnerable in our society? Do our investments ensure participation from diverse groups and do so in equitable, accessible ways? How do we measure success for children, families, and communities?

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets | Comments (7)

Millennials as Social Citizens

April 29, 2008 – 9:00 am

The Millennials are coming!!

Millennials (or Generation Y), the generation coming of age in the new millennium, have been derided as having “helicopter parents” being “boomerang kids”, having an excessive sense of self-worth and generally being a pain in the butt in the corporate world.

But they are also volunteering like mad.

USA Today reports that they volunteer more than any previous generation and the Wall Street Journal reports today that corporations are finding that one of the best ways to attract them as employees is to offer them paid time off to volunteer.

The Millennials are the children of the Baby Boomers, the generation that I argue is fueling a Second Great Wave of Philanthropy. They don’t have the assets yet to be a force in philanthropy on the donation side (although Resource Generation is already organizing those that do), but the way that they will interact with and view the nonprofit sector is being defined right now.

You can read about this group on the excellent Future Leaders in Philanthropy blog (co-founded by my sister who no longer writes for it). And now you can follow the role of Millennials as “social citizens” at the aptly named Social Citizens blog.

Authored by Kari Dunn of the Case Foundation and Allison Fine, an author and experienced blogger, Social Citizens is a blog discussion focused around the Social Citizens paper that Fine wrote for the Case Foundation. In a recent blog post Fine talks about the blog:

The release of Social Citizens BETA today is very exciting for what it isn’t – and what it is. Late last year, Kari Dunn and Ben Binswanger of The Case Foundation asked me to write a paper for the Foundation about the emergence of Millennials, 15-29 year olds, as activists. They wanted to know more about how these young people are using all of their widgets and gadgets for causes.

And that’s when we talked about what the paper isn’t.

We decided to go beyond a simply litany of the ways that young people are using blogs, social networks, and videos to share information about their favorite causes. We wanted to go a step further and ask harder “so what” questions. What does it mean to Millennials to have the ability to become an advocate for their cause instantly, broadly, inexpensively, and what does their ability to do so mean for the rest of us?

The Foundation provided me with an opportunity to cast a wide net across the real of Millennial activism; from Facebook to the Red Campaign, from the presidential campaign trail to the human devastation in Darfur, from Gossip Girls to Invisible Children, a documentary about the difficult lives of the children of Uganda. I followed the trail of email, blogs, YouTube videos, websites, donations, Tweets, and IMs around the country and even across the globe. I interviewed over thirty people, read many articles, papers, books, and websites, and examined the data on who is doing what for causes. And what I found was astounding for its scope, scale, and idealistic intentions.

Marnie Webb, a key informant in the paper, asked, “What, if anything, does all of the clicking, blogging, and “friending” add up to in the end?” And my answer is, “Far more than I imagined, far greater than I had hoped.”

Millennials are doing more than pinging and poking and sharing information about causes. They are radically altering the very notion of what it means to be an active citizen in the process, and that’s why we’re calling them Social Citizens.

This is definitely going to be a blog to watch.

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Giving Blogs, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Youth | Comments (0)

VolunteerMatch and the Social Capital Markets

March 11, 2008 – 8:27 am

Greg Baldwin, president of VolunteerMatch, read my article about the social capital markets of 2033 and sent me an email:

I enjoyed your recent article in the Financial Times. I’m surprised our paths haven’t crossed yet.

I don’t know how much you know about VolunteerMatch, but we’ve decided not to wait around until 2033 for philanthropy to figure out it is time for some fresh thinking.

We are working on a growth capital project that is right up your alley.

He attached a “prospectus” for VolunteerMatch’s $10 million “Growth Capitalization Offering” (a prospectus is the word for a booklet describing a for-profit investment offer such as a new IPO):

The purpose of this offering is to expand and enhance VolunteerMatch’s capacity to engage a broad base of volunteers with diverse social purpose agencies throughout the United States, and to build a sustainable enterprise capable of delivering that mission indefinitely.

Units offered in conjunction with this prospectus represent a perpetual interest in VolunteerMatch. That interest is strictly philanthropic, with no provision for cash returns at any time. The investment is intended to: (1) bring material social and economic benefit to communities throughout the country, (2) support broad based civic engagement of millions of Americans, and (3) deliver a significant Social Return on Investment (SROI) in the form of valuable volunteer effort against tasks deemed valuable both by volunteers and the agencies that need them. Investments in these units may be tax deductible.

(1) As of the date of this offering, 10 units ($2,500,000) have been reserved under previous agreement with The Atlantic Philanthropies. $1,350,000 of this total is contingent upon a successful match of a minimum of 6 units ($1,500,000).

(2) Expenses associated with this offering have been pre-paid by VolunteerMatch, with the generous support of the Surdna Foundation. Proceeds will not be used for offering expenses.

(3) In the event of over-subscription, VolunteerMatch may, at its discretion, increase the offering by up to 10 additional units ($2,500,000).

The prospectus then goes on over 45 pages to lay out relevant financial data, the story of the organization, the issue they are focused on, why their solution addresses the relevant needs, the impact they’ve had to date, their competition (their word not mine), their growth plans, their capital needs to fund that growth, risks, and a explanation of how the growth capital funds will be accounted for.

I’m intrigued by the phrase in the summary, “Units offered in conjunction with this prospectus represent a perpetual interest in VolunteerMatch.” At the end of the day, I think that this “perpetual interest” is more a framing of the donation rather than any kind of legal distinction from a regular donation. But I wonder if there might be ways that donor/investors might receive some kind of “ownership” rights in recognition of their support. I do not mean financial returns. If you were to gain a “perpetual interest” in a nonprofit you cared deeply about, what rights and responsibilities would you like that interest to represent?

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropy | Comments (6)

Not Just “Grant” Making

November 29, 2007 – 12:07 pm

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Amy Sample Ward. Amy is a Communications and Learning Associate at the Meyer Memorial Trust. She authors MMT’s New Media Blog as well as a personal blog devoted to nonprofit technology.

By Amy Sample Ward

As the holiday season is now in full swing and many organizations are launching online donation campaigns, I have been thinking more and more about how closely my personal views of “giving” have formed my professional ones.

Working in a large private foundation means that I am all too familiar with large amounts of initial inquiries and grant applications flooding in every month.  Previously, I worked in nonprofits, though, and am also very familiar with the kinds of Christmas lists small, grassroots organizations can really think up.

Whenever conversation turns to philanthropy and how we teach philanthropy to our children, as it does often this time of year (especially in the blogosphere, like on Beth’s blog), I chime in with the argument that not all giving equals money and that not all organizations really need money as much as other things.  For example, a domestic violence shelter may have enough funds and in-kind agreements to maintain its kitchen consistently, but doesn’t have enough volunteers to help with tutoring and child care in the evening when dinner is being prepared.  There are many alternatives to donating money, be it time, skills, knowledge, community, or even man power.

So, how does that view of philanthropy in my own life change that of my professional life at a foundation? I don’t think that our responsibility is to just dole out the cash—we have a whole lot more to offer!  As a foundation, we have program officers and other staff with terrific skills and knowledge that range from grant writing and strategic planning to mission and vision planning, technology and communications skills to engagement and outreach tactics.  There are many nonprofits that apply for grants and are declined. They could still desperately need and grow from training or other outreach and support in the other areas I mentioned above.

As grantmakers, we need to accept a broader role than just “grant” makers.  We need to step up to provide knowledge, skills, and resources when it is really in all of our best interests to do so; after all, those nonprofits are fulfilling needed services in our communities and that’s why they applied for the grant in the first place!  Contributing all that we can as an organization is the best way to align with our own missions to serve nonprofits and our communities as best as possible.

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Foundations, Grantmaking, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy | Comments (4)

Volunteers Who Do Not Show

November 29, 2007 – 11:52 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Chrissy Weeks. Chrissy is a paralegal at the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation (“AVLF”) and President of the Georgia Association of Paralegals.

By Chrissy Weeks

“The world is run by those who show up!” This is not my quote I got it from somewhere and have to admit I am not sure where. But I start with this quote because I am frustrated by those who do not show up being the ones who suddenly want to voice their opinions.

I coordinate hundreds of volunteers each year for both the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation and the Georgia Association of Paralegals. The vast majority of our volunteers are WONDERFUL. They take on unpleasant projects with grace and a smile. They simply do what they are needed to do and report back to us. They are why we exist and why we are able to serve the population that we serve.

Ok now that I have covered my butt – back to the point. I have people sign up for things and then they do not show up! One “volunteer” had the audacity to say “oh, I didn’t realize me not showing up (or even bothering to call you and tell you I was not coming) was a problem”. I had another person tell me that she was confused and was not sure if she was needed. How confusing is: be at this address at 10am. This same “volunteer” then proceeded to tell me that I was not coordinating things very well. Good Lord! People! Butter my butt and call me a biscuit I do not know what else to do but pick you up and take you to things myself.

Well of course it is a problem if you do not show! I now know to pad my volunteers b/c I would rather have too many volunteers. But if too many volunteers simply flake out and think that their participation does not matter for any given event then I am in real trouble. It makes me look bad. When in reality it should be the “volunteer” who looks bad. I dream of posting a volunteer black list. But I am a southerner and still have a few manors left ;) So I don’t post it. But I do keep that list in my head.

So if you are one of these people who does not show up and who does not call, just know that it does make an impact. And you are on my list! The world will not be run by you b/c you are not the one to show up!

So how do y’all deal with volunteers who do not show? Am I the only one who has this problem (I really hope not)? Do you have some sort of screening process for your volunteers? (we do but it obviously is not water tight).

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy | Comments (16)