volunteers – Page 11 – The Healthy Non-Profit

John’s puppies provide perspective for non-profit organizations

July 20, 2012 erik organizational development, volunteers

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking more closely at a recent post from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applying his organizational development messages to the non-profit community.

Today, we’re focusing on a post that John titled: “Puppy Perspective“. In that post, he describes two different perspectives that he and his wife have on the exact same occurrence. The event in question has to deal with John’s dogs and the daily arrival of their mail carrier. While John’s post is cute and fun to read, you should really click over and read it for yourself because John’s dogs tell an important story about one of the biggest challenges every non-profit organization faces.

“Perspective” is a funning thing. It can sometimes feel like one of those circus fun house mirrors.

Think about how many different stakeholder groups your organization has:

Executive director
Fundraising professionals
Program staff
Clients
Donors
Board volunteers
Fundraising volunteers
Program volunteers
New prospective or incoming board volunteers
Prospective new donors

OMG . . . the list could go on and on, and John’s post “Puppy Perspective” very clearly shows us how common it is for different groups to have very different perspectives on the same thing.

This phenomenon means that building consensus around important decisions can sometimes feel like “Mission Impossible”.

When looking back at some of the organizations I’ve worked with on planning, implementing and evaluating an annual campaign, I now clearly see how different perspectives made implementing change difficult. To illustrate this point, the following is a short list of stakeholders and what I am sure they were thinking as they listened to me talk about running an annual campaign:

Staff — Ugh, this is so necessary, but this sounds like a lot of work and there is no time.
Board members & fundraising volunteers — Sitting down in-person with a donor and asking for money? That sounds scary!
Donors — OMG, another fundraiser? How many more times will they come back and ask for money?
Program staff — Why can’t people just give money and leave us to our important work? Outcomes measurement is so hard and takes time away from actual program time.

Everyone has a different perspective, and this makes getting something done very difficult. This is why non-profit executive directors must be highly skilled at driving change. When they aren’t good at getting everyone on the same page, then nothing happens and the non-profit organization dies a slow death.

Our friends at the Change Management Learning Center offer some interesting tutorials, training, and books that you might find helpful when developing your case and leading change.

Are you regularly on a different page than your board volunteers? If so, how do you manage that and close the gap? Has your agency’s fundraising staff found themselves at odds with program staff? How have you eliminated those silos and facilitated peace throughout your kingdom? Please use the comment box to share a story or an approach that has worked for you. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
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Marketing your organization’s volunteer program

June 28, 2012 DonorDreams volunteers

This morning I woke up to a very nice email in my inbox from Helene Schmidt. She had read the three-part blog series on non-profit degrees and certifications, liked what she read, asked me to read an article that Onlinecollege.org recent published titled “12 Reasons Community Service Should Be Required in Schools” and share it with the DonorDreams online community.

So, I did read the article and can honestly say it is very good. As you can see, I’ve already shared the link in the first paragraph and you should totally go read it.

I didn’t decided to share this post on “why volunteerism should be required in school” because I agree with the policy position. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m not for it. I’m not against it. However, I do think that making volunteerism “required” feels antithetical to the entire idea of volunteerism.

The reason I am sharing this article is because after reading it I thought, “Wow! These are all great selling points for any non-profit organization’s volunteer program.”

You might want to incorporate some of the “12 reasons” offered in the Onlinecollege.org article in your volunteer marketing materials.

Speaking of volunteer program marketing materials . . . you do have marketing materials for your volunteer program, right?

Uh-oh. Well, if you are like many of the organizations with whom I’ve worked, then you have volunteer opportunities and not-so-actively “hope” volunteers walk through your doors. Many of the programs I’ve seen lack structure such as:

volunteer coordinator
written volunteer plan
written volunteer job descriptions
orientation and training opportunities
evaluation opportunities

I just haven’t seen many agencies actively marketing their volunteer program. Perhaps, your agency is different; however, have you looked closely at who and who you are marketing your volunteer opportunities?

I’ve read a lot recently about how the retiring Baby Boom generation is looking for volunteer opportunities. I’ve also read a lot about how the Millennial generation is really into volunteerism.

It doesn’t take a marketing professional to conclude that what motivates a 20-something-year-old to volunteer is probably very different from what motivates a Baby Boomer. So, targeting your marketing message might increase your effectiveness and bring many more volunteers through your agency’s front doors.

If the recent economy has your non-profit organization turning to volunteers to fill gaps and get things done, then you will need to do more than cross your fingers and hope volunteers find you. You need to invest in a volunteer program.

One such investment will be in how you market your volunteer opportunities. The article that I shared at the beginning of this post provides 12 great selling points that you might want to share with young people. Click here if you want to read more about how to more effectively market your volunteer opportunities to Baby Boomers.

Does your agency have a volunteer program? If so, what investments have you recently made and have they paid off? How do you market these opportunities and recruit volunteer? Please use the comment box to share your experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Fundraising questions to ask donors and anticipate from them

June 21, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, volunteers

Last week we started a series of blog posts focused on the art of asking questions, and this theme has carried over into this week. So far, we’ve looked at questions that executive directors should be asking themselves and their boards. We’ve also looked at questions board members should be ask of themselves and their fellow board volunteers. Yesterday, we looked at various questions you need to ask prospective board members before asking them to join your board. Today, we’re ending this series of posts by looking at 1) powerful questions that donors should be asking the non-profit agencies they support and 2) questions non-profits should be asking their supporters.

Questions that donors have of you

Over the last 15 years, I have been part of countless solicitation teams and answered more questions than I care to recall at this time of the morning. While those questions tend to be all over the place thanks in part to “unique circumstances,” there are commonly asked questions that many donors seem to ask after they’ve been asked to consider making a charitable contribution.

What will my contribution help accomplish?
Specifically, how will my contribution make a difference in your clients’ lives?
How financial stable is your organization?
There are so many worthy causes that keep asking for support. Why should I support you?
How much of my contribution directly supports programming and how much will underwrite administrative and fundraising expenses?
Tell me more about your fee structure and why are you charging your clients what you’re charging them? How do you know that is the right amount? Why not more?

The list of FAQs is much larger, but these are just questions that I recall answering over and over again. If you want a more comprehensive list of questions, you may want to read Harvey McKinnon’s book “The 11 Questions Every Donor Asks: And the Answers All Donors Crave“.

Why is it important to know what burning questions to expect? I think there are two HUGE reasons:

If you do a better job “anticipating” these questions and build those answers into your case for support and solicitation presentation, I predict that your annual campaign numbers will start climbing.
There is a long list of fears that get in the way of people volunteering to help your agency with fundraising. One of the top reasons is their fear of not being able to answer questions. Addressing FAQs as part of your annual campaign training program will improve volunteer confidence, reduce the amount of avoidance behavior during the campaign, and result in better solicitations (and hopeful result in better fundraising numbers).

Questions that you should have of donors

As I said earlier, I’ve been on many fundraising solicitation teams, and I’ve seen many things throughout the years. Too often, I’ve seen volunteers rush through the solicitation, get a commitment, and quickly downshift into chit-chat of a personal nature. It is almost as if the volunteer solicitor is non-verbally saying “Phew! Thank goodness that is over.”

I don’t believe there is anything wrong with chit-chat after the solicitation is completed. In fact, there is all sorts of important personal information that could and should be harvested from that conversation, captured on a contact report form, and entered into the donor database. However, most volunteer solicitors don’t receive training on what those conversations should look like.

While it would be easy to use that post-solicitation time to talk about family and personal things, it think the following questions might be more useful in developing a deeper philanthropic relationship with your donors:

If you only had one year to live, what would be most important to you to accomplish?
What are the issues, injustices, principles or causes in this world that get you riled up?
If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
What accomplishment or legacy would have ultimate significance to you?
In philanthropic terms, if you had unlimited resources, what would you set out to do?

While it is important to know the names of a donor’s spouse and children as well as where they went to school or go to church, I think it is far more important to understand a donor’s passions, dreams, and desires. Knowing and understanding these things puts you in a position of helping them achieve big things. I believe this is one of the biggest differences between transactional fundraising and donor-centered fundraising™.

I believe these types of questions can transform how a donor views you and your organization . . . FROM fundraising vulture TO philanthropic dream-maker.

Please take a minute this morning to share a commonly asked question that you hear donors asking your volunteer solicitors in the comment box below. Or share with this online community one or two questions that you like to ask donors that helps you better understand their philanthropic hopes and dreams. We can all learn from each other and it is just 60 seconds out of your day. Please?

Here’s to your health!

Questions you need to get answered before asking people to join your board

June 20, 2012 DonorDreams Board development, volunteers

Last week we started a series of blog posts focused on the art of asking questions, and this theme has carried over into this week. So far, we’ve looked at questions that executive directors should be asking themselves and their boards. We’ve also looked at questions board members should be ask of themselves and their fellow board volunteers. Today, we’re continuing this series of posts by looking at powerful questions that need to be asked of prospective new board members before they are asked to join your board of directors.

If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a million times when it comes to non-profit board organizations’ board recruitment processes:

a bunch of people who look and sound alike sitting around a table;
pulling names of people out of the air (or out of their iPhone) based upon who might say ‘YES’ to serving on the board;
sitting down with a prospective new board volunteer and “arm twisting;”
telling the prospective new board volunteer a series of half-truths (e.g. it is only one meeting per month, do whatever you can to help, etc); and,
not following the written board recruitment procedures in the agency’s board development plan.

I like to think of board development as a process by which you need to decide who is going to be in the foxhole (aka the trenches) with you for the mother of all wars. (A bit dramatic? Probably, but work with me here.)

You don’t need a boardroom full of warm bodies because an eight person board is no different from a 20 person board if no one understands their roles and responsibilities and everyone is disengaged. If you find yourself nodding your head at this statement, then you understand that your board development process needs to ask more questions and do more listening than it does talking, selling, and arm twisting.

Finding answers to the following questions BEFORE asking someone to join your board of directors will save you months (probably years) of difficulty:

Do they “realistically” have the time to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities as members of your board of directors? (Heck, do they understand those fiduciary responsibilities?)
What inspires them about your mission that they are willing to jump in a foxhole with you? How have they demonstrated that passion in the past?
What gaps do they help fill on your board of directors (e.g. gender, occupational, age, ethnicity, social network, various fundraising skill sets, etc)?
Does their vision for the agency align well with the organizations current vision and strategic goals?
Are they willing to give AND are they willing to get? And do they really do they have a clear picture of what that means?
What are some of the key values they hold near and dear to their heart and how does that align with the agency’s core values?
Does the prospective board member’s personality mesh well with the existing group of board members?

You can get answers to these questions in a number of different ways. For example, get to know the prospective volunteer by either engaging them in other projects first or by building your board development process around the simple principle of “Getting to Know You. Getting to Know All About You.” You can also populate your board development committee with people who are knowledgable enough to answer some of these questions about people in their networks. Finally, you can go out and talk to people who know them well.

This isn’t rocket science, but looking at how some non-profit organizations go about recruiting new board members you might think that it is.

By the way, as you start asking more questions as part of your board development process, you should probably know that those prospective board volunteers have lots of questions of their own. Our friend, Joanne Fritz at about.com, does a nice job of outlining many of those questions in a blog post titled “Before You Serve on a Nonprofit Board“. I suggest that you click over and read what she has to say. You might want to build your board development process around answering those questions, too.

What does your board development process look like? How do your board development volunteers go about getting answers to key questions? What are some of the key questions to which you seek answers? Please use the comment box below to share some of your thoughts.

Tomorrow we will finish this long blog series with a post focusing on questions donors should be asking of the non-profit organizations they support. Please join the conversation.

Here’s to your health!

What won’t non-profits do to excite their board volunteers?

May 17, 2012 DonorDreams Board development, leadership, organizational development, Planning, volunteers

I ran across an awesome article while “Googling around” the other day. It was titled “Nine Keys for Reinvigorating Board Leadership,” and it was written by Paul Connolly, a Senior Vice President of TCC Group. While digesting this article, my mind first turned to those executive directors who I’ve seen in the last decade that actively try to disengage their board volunteers. After mentally traveling down that road (ugh … and it is an ugly road), I got more positive in my thinking and focused on all of the crazy things I’ve witnessed in the name of “board engagement”.

The following are just a few quick things I’ve seen over the years:

Of course, many organizations have turned to the good old fashion “mission moment” as part of their board meeting agenda.
How many “board retreats” have I seen organized all in the name of “engagement”? Ugh … too many!
One organization I worked with decided that social opportunities such as “Happy Hour” should be a part of their engagement solution.
I’ve heard some boards talk about putting together a mentoring program that hooks new board members up with tenured ones.
One organization I know even rented a trolley, loaded up its board volunteers and donors, and drove it from site-to-site as part of a facilities tour strategy focused on getting key stakeholders re-engaged in mission.
Oh yeah. You can’t forget about the “big conference” strategy where the executive director takes a board member (or a few) to one of those big inspirational conferences. When everyone returns, those board members are asked to “make a presentation” back to their fellow board members about what they learned. Hopefully, sparks of excitement ignite interest and activity.

Oh, the things I’ve seen. I could go on and on and on. I doubt that there isn’t anything an executive director, who actually wants an engaged board, would do to achieve this goal. Of course, when this topic of conversation usually comes up, there is an overwhelming desire to bypass “strategy” and go right to “tactics”

When I read the article by Paul Connolly, I had a moment of clarity because he didn’t go right to tactics. He focused on the following nine strategies:

Encourage board members to tell each other what motivates them to serve.
Educate board members about the organization and their responsibilities.
Hold the board accountable for its own performance and conduct a candid board assessment.
Compel the board to continually plan for the future and focus on results.
Infuse board meetings with more meaning.
Add some new board members and graduate some existing ones.
Nurture future leadership.
Develop a synergistic board-CEO partnership.
Consider alternative models for governance.

Ohhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Has your curiosity been piqued? I know mine was. If you are intrigued and want to learn more about more deeply engaging your board volunteers, then I have two suggestions:

First, I strongly urge you to read Paul Connolly’s article “Nine Keys for Reinvigorating Board Leadership“.

Second, circle back here to DonorDreams blog and engage your fellow non-profit professionals in a discussion using the comment box found below. We can all learn from each other, especially if we share examples of what we’re doing and what has worked (or not worked) for us.

So, are you one of those executive directors who focuses on deepening board engagement? If so, why? If not, then why not? What things have you done or seen others do in the name of board engagement? Did Paul Connolly’s article trigger any ideas? If so, please share.

Here’s to your health!

Want to change your non-profit organization? Then change your people!

May 4, 2012 DonorDreams Board development, Fundraising, organizational development, Planning, volunteers

Today, we’re focusing on a post that John titled “Burn the Boats“. In that post, he talks about two different theories of change. One school of thought advocates that changing behaviors drives organizational change. The other school of thought speaks to the idea of changing the environment / structures to affect organizational change. I just love the story John shared in the beginning of his blog post by Napoleon Hill. If you have a little time today, I strongly encourage you to click-through and read Burn the Boats.

I see non-profit organizations struggle with this ALL THE TIME. One classic example that I’ve witnessed (and have seen over and over again) is how many agencies develop a resource development plan and then go about trying to implement it.

One example that bubbles to the top of my mind is an agency that was heavily dependent on a special events strategy to raise money. They were running a special event fundraiser every other month. After completing a resource development planning process, they came to see how damaging those activities were. They decided to cut the number of events in half and pivot strongly to an individual giving strategy focused heavily on person-to-person solicitation tactics.

One big challenge was that the agency’s staff were all event minded people. They were hired because of their skill sets and experiences in planning, implementing and evaluating fundraising events. Another big hurdle was that their board of directors and fundraising volunteers were all events people, too.

To John’s point in his post “Burn the Boats,” the organization tried to persevere with its people. It asked for technical assistance from its national office. Of course, they invested in training opportunities.

In the end . . . Do I really need to finish this sentence???

I’m with John . . . BURN THE BOATS!!!!

Jim Collins in his book “From Good To Great” talks about getting the right people on the bus and then finding the right seat for them. In situations like the one I just described, I think there are ways to have polite conversations with volunteers about finding a new seat for them on the bus when the environment on the bus starts changing.

As for staff, there are two options if you’re going to “Burn the Boats”. You either gracefully terminate staff (providing severance packages, etc) or you hire more staff with the skill sets you need to implement the new plan (and find new things for the old staff to do).

I suppose there are other less harsh ways to still “burn the boats”. For example, you can ask your biggest annual campaign donor to change their annual support from an outright contribution to a challenge gift. However, this still doesn’t change the fact that there are people being asked to do something they don’t have experience or well-developed skills to do.

I respect that this is a tough post with which to start your weekend. Sorry! Do you think John and I are being too harsh? Are there better ways to go about affecting change? Do you have any examples of change at your organization that you’d like to share? Please take a moment to weigh-in using the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Are fundraising volunteers born or are they made?

April 11, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, Uncategorized, volunteers

I have often wondered if there is an answer to the question posed in the title of this blog post. I think it is almost as classic as the question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” However, unlike the chicken question, the fundraising volunteer question haunts fundraising and non-profit professionals every single day. However, I think I might have some good news after attending an annual campaign kickoff meeting a few weeks ago for one of my favorite non-profit organizations.

Before sharing the good news, I think it is important to start by looking at the question, “What traits and skill sets does a good fundraising volunteer possess?” While I probably could’ve developed this list from my 15 years experience of working with fundraising volunteers, I decided to be lazy this morning and found a great online article by Nikki Willoughby at eHow.com titled “The Job Description of a Fundraising Volunteer“. The following are a few traits and skill sets that Nikki pointed out:

Good communicator
Persuasive
Mission-focused
Keen understanding of the agency they are fundraising for
Computer skills and general understanding of how to use the telephone (I am not kidding . . . I encourage you to click the link and read the article for yourself)
Being an extrovert helps
Salesmanship skills
Goals-oriented and driven

I believe Nikki generally hit the nail on the head. The only thing I would add to her laundry list is that an effective volunteer fundraiser must value the ideas of “philanthropy” and “charity”. Most importantly, they need to be a current donor to the non-profit organization to which they are asking others to make a charitable gift.

Unfortunately, this list doesn’t help us answer the question “Are fundraising volunteers born or made?” because some of the skills and traits cannot be taught such as being an “extrovert”. (Note: I happen to know a number of “introverts” as defined by the Myers Briggs personality test who I consider good fundraising professionals. So, I’m not sure if being an extrovert belongs on Nikki’s list. However, since I am an extrovert, I’m going to pass on arguing the point) 😉

As promised in the introduction, I have some good news for those of you who think you can train anyone to be a good fundraising volunteer.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to serve as an annual campaign fundraising volunteer for one of the non-profit organizations in my community. At the kickoff meeting, I bumped into someone I first met 12 years ago. In an effort to “protect the innocent,” I will refer to her as “Jane”.

When I first met Jane in 2000, she was perhaps one of the most reluctant fundraising volunteers that I’ve ever met in my life. I must admit that she doesn’t even come close to fitting that description today.

As I approached the building where the kickoff meeting was being held, we accidentally bumped into each other, hugged and exchanged warm greetings. And then it happened . . . before I even knew what hit me, she launched into a fundraising pitch. The case for support wasn’t for the organization who was hosting the kickoff meeting. It was for a local church who was trying to raise enough money to buy a LCD projector for their sanctuary. (Note: this wasn’t even for the church she belongs to!!!)

Yep, you guessed it . . . in short order she had me signing a pledge card.

Fast forward through the meeting and training, and Jane proudly shared a story with me about a solicitation she made last year with a very reluctant donor. Without breaking confidences, let me just say: “she came, she saw, and she conquered”. She ended her story by sharing what she thought was the secret to her success:

Don’t take NO for an answer
and
Refuse to leave their office until you get the signed pledge card

I can only imagine how many of my fundraising friends who are reading this blog post right now are wincing. Please know that I’m not sharing this story as a “best practice”. Instead, I am point to it as PROOF . . . I am more convinced after seeing Jane’s transformation that fundraising volunteers are “made” and not “born”.

Twelve years ago, Jane had a tough time even thinking about asking others for a pledge to the annual campaign. Today, she is a grizzled fundraising veteran who won’t take NO for an answer.

I am one of Jane’s biggest fans! However, I need to remember to never invite her into my home office. LOL 😉

So, what do you think? Are fundraising volunteers born or made? Do you have any personal stories that you’d like to share that proves your point? Please scroll down and use the comment box.

Here’s to your health!

Getting your ducks … er … volunteers in a row

March 28, 2012 DonorDreams Planning, technology, volunteers

Putting your nonprofit organization’s resource development plan together can be a monumental undertaking. If you do it in an engaging and collaborative manner, then you are likely temporarily expanding your resource development committee and inviting various stakeholders (e.g. event volunteers, foundation staff or board members, and donors) to come to the table. This could easily result in 8 to 16 volunteers jockeying for position around your planning table.

I have used this approach before. Yes, we experienced challenges such as:

getting everyone’s calendars aligned,
communicating effectively and trying to avoid crazy, overlapping, and confusing long email threads,
keeping track of action items (not to mention injecting accountability into the process),
collaboratively working on building one document that didn’t result in 20 different versions attached to countless different email threads, and
sharing files with each other (Note: “the cloud” did not yet exist at the time of the project I am referencing).

A few months ago, a very dear friend and fellow consultant — Teri Halliday — introduced me to an online product called “Basecamp“. She swears by it, and I trust her like I trust my mother. So, I purchased the service and it changed my life! (Yes, dramatic but very true) There isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t think back to the resource development planning process that I described a few paragraphs ago and wonder how different things would’ve been if I would’ve had access to Basecamp.

All of the challenges I described in the previous set of bullet points would’ve disappeared. Once everyone registers and links to your online workspace, you can:

work on collaboratively building documents in the Writeboard section,
keep everyone’s schedules in lock step with the Calendar section,
communicate with each other using the bulletin board functionality in the Messages section,
keep track of action items using the To-Do section (and OMG the system even reminds people their tasks are coming due), and
share documents using the Files section.

It is true that people who don’t want to be engaged won’t get any more involved in a project just because you’re utilizing an online project management tool. When you see this dynamic at play, your problem isn’t that you’re disorganized . . . you have a recruitment problem!

However, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen well-intentioned volunteers who want to be involved just walk away from a project because it is disorganized and hard to collaborate with other volunteers. It is this problem that Basecamp can help you resolve.

OK . . . I must admit that I am in LOVE with Basecamp. I am like a man with a hammer, and now I see nails everywhere! 🙂 I can see busy families utilizing Basecamp. I can see for-profit companies who operate in offices sprinkled across the country utilizing Basecamp. I obviously see the benefits for non-profit organizations who constantly engage busy employees and volunteers on a multitude of projects (e.g. strategic planning, resource development planning, special event fundraisers, annual campaigns, etc).

While I wish I could say that this “Software as a Service” (SaaS) was free, I cannot say such a thing; however, I think it is reasonably priced with one plan costing just $20 per month (and no long-term contract to sign).

I am sure some of you are wondering what has gotten into me this morning . . . am I a paid spokesperson or something like that? No! No! No! I am just a huge fan of things that work, and I have worked in the non-profit sector long enough to know that a tool like this can be a godsend. I say every day on this blog that “we can all learn from each other” . . . so I decided to put my money where my mouth is today.

What other tools (either free or paid service) has your non-profit agency used to help organize your volunteers and projects (e.g. Doodle.com? Google docs? GoToMeeting? BigMarker? Microsoft Project?)??? Please take a moment to scroll down and share your ideas via the comment box.

Here’s to your health!

2012 Non-Profit Trends and Predictions: Volunteerism

December 29, 2011 DonorDreams volunteers

This week I’m looking back upon 2011 for major trends, and then looking forward to 2012 with an eye towards making a few predictions. Today, we are looking at non-profit volunteer recruitment, retention and management.

Throughout the course of 2011, I had the opportunity to write about non-profit organizations and volunteerism. I’ve kept my eyes open for signs of what non-profits are doing with volunteers, and I see indicators everywhere pointing to:

2012 continuing non-profit agencies’ focus on volunteerism.

Here is what I’ve seen that leads me to this conclusion:

My fellow Generation Xers continue to increase the amount of time they spend volunteering. (I personally suspect this has less to do with their charitable outlook on life and a lot more to do with the fact that they’re in the heart of their child rearing years)
I see my parents’ Baby Boom Generation starting to retire, and they just don’t know what to do with themselves when they wake up in the morning. They are volunteering because they don’t see themselves as being old and they want to keep busy.
I see my Millennial generation friends standing in the unemployment line, and then turning around in search of volunteer opportunities that they hope might just turn into a job opportunity (or at the very least turn into a great reference or a referral).
I see my former employer — Boys & Girls Clubs of America — partnering with one of their major corporate supporters to fund a volunteer management pilot project in an effort to develop a program to teach their local affiliates to become better with volunteer recruitment, retention and management.
I see corporations demanding volunteer opportunities and projects from their philanthropic partners in an effort to drive down their employee turnover rates and grab onto what marketing professionals call “the halo effect”.
Let’s not forget about the research out there on the Millennial generation that shows this emerging generation is very much into volunteerism unlike any other recent generation.
According to a recent Guidestar survey, many non-profit agencies are trimming staff or putting a cap on hiring plans in 2012. Not surprisingly, the same survey showed that 65-percent of all non-profit respondents are looking for volunteers for program work and 54-percent are looking for volunteers for administrative work.

The reality is literally this simple . . . donors are saying they want to see non-profits do more with less . . . volunteer recruitment and management helps accomplish exactly this . . . and in the final analysis volunteers turn into new donors a lot easier than cultivating new prospects from scratch.

Investing in volunteerism could just turn out to be the non-profit sector’s version of an economic stimulus plan that pulls agencies out of their economic doldrums.

Volunteer recruitment, retention and management isn’t as easy as just putting out a call for volunteers. As with everything in life, it is science that requires planning and careful management.

Since the economic collapse four years ago, this trend has been taking form and the non-profits who are leading the way have been experimenting with such things as: volunteer databases, volunteer coordinators, various recruitment strategies, strategic alliances with agencies that specialize in volunteerism, recognition programs, orientation and training programs, placing value volunteer hours, and much much more.

As budgets get even tighter in 2012, the flood of non-profits who commit themselves to figuring all of this out will continue to propel this long-term trend.

Is your agency recruiting more volunteers? How has it gone about doing so? What challenges have you experienced along the way? How important is it to have a volunteer coordinator on your payroll to orchestrate recruitment, orientation, training, volunteer opportunity assignment, evaluation, retention, etc? How successful have you been at turning volunteers into new donors?

Please scroll down and use the comment box to weigh-in with your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Welcome to a new philanthropic era: The Age of Women Power!

December 2, 2011 DonorDreams Board development, Fundraising, Planning, volunteers

I used to jokingly say to various board members at my former agency that if our non-profit needed to get something done (e.g. organize a special event, put together a strategic plan, etc), then we should recruit a bunch of women to help us do it. I’d usually finish making my point by saying, if you want to talk an issue to death and get nothing done, then put a bunch of men in the room. (Note to readers: Whenever I said this it was always said “tongue in cheek” and I was kidding. Of course, I was only kidding slightly because I think there is some truth to it.)

I share this story today because my good friend, Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh Development Coordinator Anne Lemke, sent me a fabulous email a few days ago about “What Women Want” which is whitepaper written by Katherine Swank from Target Analytics, a Blackbaud Company. After reading the paper, I just could resist sharing a few of the highlights with you today:

nearly half of the top wealth-holders in the United States are women,
women have increased their combined wealth by more than fifty percent in the last 10-years, and
women have a net worth of over $6 trillion.

Katherine does a masterful job of profiling what an affluent woman looks like. I suggest you read the whitepaper and burn that picture into your head because it is surprising. In fact, you probably know a number of women who fit the profile. Having this profile picture burned into your non-profit brain is important because as Katherine says so perfectly:

“Affluent women may also be identified by their willingness to both donate and volunteer at higher levels than their male counterparts. Women, on average, donate twice as much to charity and make three times the number of donations as men.”

So, some of you might be reading this post and thinking to yourself: “OK, I just need to start asking women for money and I’ll be fine.” If this is what you’re hearing me say, then please stop yourself! The reality is that women are different from men, and you’ll need to change your resource development strategies and tactics if you are going to appeal to this very powerful donor segment. Again, Katherine puts it best when she said:

“While I can’t claim to know what all women want in every situation, over twenty-five years in philanthropy has taught me that what women want is simple: to be asked their opinion and for their answers to be listened to and acted upon. They seek equality in the workplace, an ever-equal sharing of the ‘load’ from their male partners and counterparts, and to make the world a better place, both close to home and halfway around the world. Elementally, women want their lives to make a difference in the lives of others. To accomplish this through philanthropy makes women feel empowered.”

Translated into language men might understand better: “You need to cultivate, solicit and steward women different from.” Oh heck, who am I kidding . . . let me translate this even more clearly for my non-profit male friends out there: “Go hire and recruit some women to help you with this incredible important and transformational shift that your non-profit agency needs to make.”

I suspect this trend will change more than just your agency’s approach to resource development. It will also likely affect your board development, marketing, and volunteer recruitment & management efforts. Right?

Oh yeah . . . go download Katherine’s whitepaper and read it. Click here to get your copy. It really is a great read!

So, what are your thoughts? Are you already seeing this philanthropic trend in your community? How are you responding to it? Have you addressed it in your strategic plan or resource development plan? If so, how?

Please take a quick moment and share your thoughts using the comment box below. After all, we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!