Share Minnesota Public Awareness Campaign: Inspirational Volunteer Stories Needed

Minnesota is taking steps to better leverage the talents of individuals 50+ as they apply their skills, talents and passion to Minnesota’s priority issues.  

The Minnesota Board on Aging in partnership with tptMN will be developing short videos in order to share stories of volunteers, age 50+, who have made a real difference in their communities. 

The videos will be developed this summer. They will begin to air this fall on tptMN. They will also be distributed via the web and other mediums.

Lt. Governor Launches Share Minnesota

We need your help to identify people in your community who would inspire others to take action in their own communities. It is vital that people see themselves in roles they might not traditionally think of as volunteer roles and know they can make a real difference in their communities.

Things a nominee might have done:
• Taken the initiative to find solutions to a community problem
• Inspired others to get involved in a cause
• Created an innovative program or strategy to help an organization meet its mission
• Stepped outside of the traditional role of a volunteer and taken on a leadership capacity in an organization or community

We are particularly interested in stories of volunteers working in the arts, with kids, and with the environment.

Selected nominees will be asked to travel to the Twin Cities in August to attend a taping session. Mileage reimbursement and a per diem will be provided.

Please submit your nominations to Lee George at leepetergeorge@gmail.com by July 18, 2012.
All information included in this nomination form will be given to tptMN. tptMN will make final decisions about which nominees are selected and will contact the selected nominees directly.

Nomination Form for Share Minnesota Public Awareness Campaign

Name of nominee:
Phone number of nominee:
Person nominating (including contact information):

Organization nominee volunteers with:

City or region where nominee volunteers:

What sector does nominee volunteer in (Environment, Education, Arts, Other):

Volunteer’s availability in August 2012 to attend a taping session in the Twin Cities:

In 200 words please describe the impact the nominee has on your community. What have they done to make a difference? Please keep in mind this story will be distributed to a statewide audience and will be used to encourage and empower others to volunteer.

Volunteer Management and Community Organizing

What is the difference between Volunteer Management and Community Organizing? Last week I had the privilege of presenting with Antonio Cardona and Katie Kohn from Public Allies at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits Leadership Conference and this question really presented itself. We had set out to talk about creating accessible organizations that truly reflect the community an organization is serving. Taking a look at the intersection of  Volunteer Management and Community Organizing was just a bonus.

Many of our organizations have an origin story that goes something like this. A few passionate members of a community saw an injustice, a gap in support or services or a need in their community. This issue affected them and their families in a negative way and they decided to do something about it, they started a nonprofit. At the beginning this group of very passionate people took on all the legal, financial and strategic responsibility. There were no paid staff. If they were lucky after a few months maybe they were able to find a grant and hire on a part time paid staff person. As this nonprofit became more successful it increased its revenue and added more staff (these staff sometimes are from the community the nonprofit serves and sometimes they are not). This is a normal path of a nonprofit. At the same time this nonprofit is growing and adding paid leadership the community leadership decreases. The power, authority and influence of the community becomes diminished.

What I have seen happen when an organization no longer is accessible to the community, when there is not a space for the "served" to have a voice or influence, the organization creates programs that are bandaids and don't create sustainable solutions to social issues. The organization is not creating out of listening, truly listening.

What does this have to do with Volunteer Management and Community Organizing? It seems to me that at the beginning of an organization there is much more of a community organizing influence and as an organization evolves it adds a component of volunteer management. Community organizing and volunteer management aren't mutually exclusive but they are different. There are a few things that stick out to me from my experience being a Community Organizer and a Volunteer Manager.

1. Volunteer Managers and Community Organizers seem to be distinct groups of individuals. You may have both within an organization but they will probably be in different departments.

2. Community Organizers seem to be connected to advocacy, public policy or social justice causes. They seem to be more outwardly focused. They organize people within a community to take action on something that directly affects them and which they are passionate about. This may happen outside of the organization.

3. Volunteer Managers seem to be connected to efficiency, process and the organization. They seem to be more internally focused. They organize people within a community to do work for the organization which in turn will help others in the community.

4. Within community organizing there is value in just gathering people around a cause, to work in solidarity with others who are passionate about what is happening. In volunteer management the value is on a task being accomplished to meet a goal.

5. Within community organizing there is value in people organically gathering and doing to work on an issue even if it happens outside the organization. In volunteer management there is value in people working within the structure of the organization to accomplish something.

6. There is a difference in language. Community organizing: solidarity, justice and greater good. Volunteer management: support, serve mission.

I would love to hear from you out there. What has your experience been in either community organizing or volunteer management? Is there a difference? Where do they intersect?

Transition

I left my job a month ago. As much as I planned for leaving my job, the transition proved to be much more revealing than I would have thought. Leading up to my leaving the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance I worked at making sure things were complete at the office. This meant much more than just making sure my desk was clean, reports done and notifying partners and volunteers of my departure. It meant creating an opportunity, a possibility for something new to grow in my absence. It is easy and convenient for negativity to grow as people leave an organization. The work the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance does is to important for this negativity to creep its way in.

In order to create a possibility of a powerful transition and an opportunity inside this change I had many conversations.

Starting at the top, with David King the Executive Director and Brad Donaldson the Associate Director of Operations (and my boss) I let them know how important my time spent at the Alliance was to me. How much it had given me as a developing professional; how their guidance, patience and support allowed me to have 15 years of experience in the 5 years I was actually there. I also let them know about the possibility I wanted to create inside this change and what I saw as possible breakdowns in the interim.

I also met with my staff, Anna Karena the Volunteer Specialist, Andi Billig, Graphic Designer and Phil Gonzales, Public Awareness Associate. We met as a team and through the facilitation of Phillip Rand from Landmark Education, we genuinely and openly talked about what this transition means to each of us. We looked at what was there, positive and negative and who we can be in that space. It is a conversation I would have liked to have had years ago because it opened up a new level of relationship for our team and I believe, if I wasn't leaving, would have allowed us to see the humanity in each other clearer, bring us closer as a team and be able to serve people with brain injury better. A great lesson in not putting conversations off.

Most of these conversations were great, powerful and moving. I had other conversations that were powerful and much more difficult to have. Part of leaving the Alliance complete was making sure I became complete with people I had the most confrontation and conflict with. These conversations, while difficult, offered a tremendous opportunity for myself to reflect on who I am inside of work. I realized in mis-communication, tension and silo building that sometimes happens within organizations I was a cause in those happenings. I also realized we really can't separate our work life and our outside of work life. Who we are at work is who we are in life. Life is life. Early in my career I thought you could separate the two. How this appeared in my work is in not seeing the humanity in my coworkers. Probably in to many conversations I approached them as "this is business", I could have instead brought more compassion to those conversations. In this space I realized there is way more that connects us than separates us.

Through all these conversations I received a new respect and admiration for my coworkers and the work the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance does. I had always enjoyed the work, mission and success of the Alliance, but now I saw how passionate and dedicated the staff at the organization truly are. Through these conversations I got to see who I was to many different people and it was incredibly humbling. I felt completely honored that people opened up and became incredibly vulnerable to express who I am to them. I really got that I am an important part to many people's lives. I say this with complete humility because what it means is I need to appreciate more the responsibility I have when it comes to building and maintaining relationships and community. This is a lesson I will bring into all my future endeavors and to each person I meet, it was an amazing gift.

If you are in a similar transition I encourage you to work tirelessly at making the community you are leaving as complete as you can, have the fun and easy conversations and have the difficult ones too.  

  

I Am the Barrier to Buy In

I hear people say "buy in" a lot. As in "we need to get buy in from the departments if this project is going to be successful".

What does this really mean? And how do you create it?

Having worked in an organization that was proactive in providing tools to leadership on how to deal with conflict, communicate and understand the diversity of strengths within the organization I learned the biggest barrier to "buy in" was myself.

"Buy in" is getting people to see the vision you have and actively take on the work to get there. I understand many people get most excited about the the ideas and projects they create. They have an innate connection to their projects because a piece of them is at the foundation.

As a Volunteer Manager I have often been in the position of creating a space of collaboration between people in the community and paid staff. This space forms out of providing a means for a community member to see themselves as being able to impact the organziation's mission and the opportunity to act on it, combined with paid staff seeing the value of working with these community members as volunteers.

This means not being over zealous and demand paid staff work with volunteers. Instead provide a space for them to see what possibility they can create by working with volunteers. This is not just a "working with volunteers" issues. Every time we need the support and help from coworkers we must  truly listen in order to navigate around fear and anxiety and focus on whether the work we are planning is in the best interest of our community. And if it is, how do we get it done.

My excitement for a project has sometimes prevented me from truly enrolling coworkers in the vision and impact of a project. When people don't "buy in" to the idea it is easy to feel abandoned and not supported.  The take away of "not feeling supported" is something that is easy to bring into every interaction and planning meeting afterwards. This feeling gets in the way of getting work done. This cycle will only be disrupted if I understand my way of being is at the root of the issue. How I approach others to get them on board, how I  dismiss their concerns, how I don't take into account their current workload all might be factors in not getting the "buy in" I want.

All the tools, books and workshops an organization provides to its staff will fall short if we as individuals do not go to work on ourselves first. "Buy in" is not something separate from ourselves, it does not exist as its own entity. "Buy in" is a result of who we are and how we act.   

Volunteers make a difference. Do we let them?

Some organizations struggle to work with volunteers outside of the traditional task oriented opportunity. They nestle volunteers safely into compartmentalized positions, restricting responsibility to a specific piece of an overall project. In some ways, this type of volunteer management is very effective. And, it makes sense in the linear evolution of industrialization. Nonprofits, just like factories have embraced the ideals of the assembly line.

It does not have to be this way... or only this way. We all do work, at times, that makes us feel like cogs in the organizational gear. Grinding away to meet our mission. Take a look at your job and ask yourself, "what about it makes me smile". Now, think for a moment, has your boss asked you, or recognized the thing that made you smile? If so, awesome! You have a good boss. If not, find time to tell them.

Either way, volunteers working in your organization have the same sentiments. There are parts of their work they get really fired up over. Often, volunteers don't feel they are in a position where they can communicate what really drives them, or how they would really like to serve the community. If there are not adequate times for evaluation and reflection there is the potential to miss out on an abundance of skill, passion and knowledge from your existing volunteers.

Your volunteers will contiue to do good work and accomplish the task set out, but the ability for your organization to build capacity  to meet its mission will be limited.


How to work outside of the traditional task oriented model:

I think discussing this in regards to third party fundraisers is the easiest way to explain it. If your development department has a goal of raising $100,000 they have created a work plan to reach this goal.  It is not likely the Development Manager would hand over raising $20,000 of their goal to a person in the community, let alone $1,000. Their goal, is their goal. And if they don't reach it they will be held accountable.

In the task oriented form of volunteer management certain tasks are delegated to the volunteer at different points within the project. Reaching the goal is dependent on both the Development Manager and the volunteer being succesful at completing their work.

Reasons to move away from this:

1) Paid staff often think it is risky to delegate "important" work to a volunteer

2) Therefore, volunteers don't get delegated "important" work that capitalizes on their knowledge, skills and passion

3) Miss opportunities for skilled volunteers to be creative collaborators and leaders in the organization to better serve the community.

4) Limited abiltiy to build capacity to serve the community, raise money, create awareness provide direct services.

An alternate form:

If someone in the community approaches the Development Manager and wants to organize a softball tournament fundraiser to raise $5,000, with the proceeds benefiting the organization, I bet the Development Manager would say "go for it". In this scenario the Development Manager and the community member share the same goal, raising money for the organization. Their success, however, is not dependant on one another. The Development Manager is still going to work at raising $100,000. And the community member's work builds capacity to raise more funds beyond the $100,000.

Reasons to move towards this:

1) Capitalizes on the skills, knowledge and passion of people in the communtiy to meet the organization's mission.

2) Limits risk of collaborating with community members. If they are successful it adds to the goal set. If they are unsuccessful it does not affect the minimum standard for reaching the goal.

3) Creates champions of your mission that you can highlight to tell the story of your work and empower other people to join. Let's face it, the community doesn't want to hear about a fundraiser a paid staff person put on. A more compelling story would be a family who organized a benefit in honor of a loved one.

4) Builds capacity to meet your mission in new ways.

This same principal of collaborating with community members to build capacity within the context of any goal allows for highly skilled, creative and passionate people to fully participate in the cause of your organization.

Have you collaborated with community members in this way? If so, what did they do and what was the result?

Just another tool

I have the opportunity to work with professionals across the state and help them build better programs for delivering service and engaging their community. I can guarantee you there is always a part of the discussion that comes down to social media. And, I can also guarantee you there is one person in the group who says "I don't get what the big deal is!?" or "So you 'like' something and all of a sudden that makes a difference?!"

Working with the group to develop an understanding  of social media being a tool, just like anything else we use in our organizations, can be difficult. In these types of conversations it is very obvious to me there is a divide separating people who use social media and those who don't. This is not a judgement of right or wrong, it just simply is. What I have seen happen in conversations similar to this one, is for that divide to get wider. This increasing technology gap does not help anyone. The professional feels more out of touch, maybe behind the times and the community they are serving is at a potential loss because they are not able to access supports, services and information through new portals.

I can empathize with the professional who does not see the point. We have a frantic culture, leaping onto the next big craze. New media platforms, apps and ideas on how to use these tools are developing rapidly. My suggestions are as follows:

1. Slow down. Don't worry if you are not on every social media platform that exists.
2. Start with one. Take a look at a social media tool and do some research on it. Join Facebook and explore how other organizations use their page as a tool. (And by the way there are about a billion blog posts on this subject so take a look around)
3. Don't use social media just because you feel you have too. This sentiment doesn't help anyone.
4. Make a plan and a strategy.
5. And execute that plan.

Five steps to get you started. As you develop your social media tool you will find that many organizations are in a similar position to you when it comes to measuring the impact, creating meaningful content and expanding the use of it. Because of this there are wonderful conferences, workshops and bloggers who dedicate a bunch of their time to helping people just like you use social media to the best of its ability.

Middle of the Pack

Minnesota Compass released information about the annual job growth put out by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Minnesota saw a 1.1% job growth from March 2011-2012. They also cited

"Those without a job, especially residents without assets or a second worker in the household, may experience hardships such as high debt, health consequences, hunger, foreclosure, and even homelessness. Even those workers holding jobs may experience limited mobility and depressed wages and salaries when jobs are in short supply."

I have spent the last eight years working in communities that have been economically isolated due to disability, scarcity of resources and scarcity of demand. The recession did not help these people. We now have the opportunity to rebuild. Based on what we have learned from the recession we as a community can rebuild our businesses and economy and encourage business owners to be socially conscious and understand their relationship to their community. We can focus on sustainable growth that is good for businesses and people. We can find answers to social issues built from an understanding that people within a community know what is best for them. Economic security provides the possibility of finding answers to reducing poverty, increasing access to nutritious food, higher high school graduation rates and healthier people.   

Currently, I believe, there is great interest in rebuilding our communities. Most people would agree our high unemployment rate is of great concern. Moving forward we have an opportunity to regain our past economic prosperity and also address barriers that cause economic disparity.

The Work Space in Little Canada is currently supporting small business owners as they work to build their business and employ people in the community. I think their model of supporting entrepreneurs who have already launched their business is interesting. They have seen that about 50% of small business owners close their doors after 5 years. By supporting entrepreneurs at a critical spots of growth businesses have a greater opportunity to sustainably grow and be foundations for economic security within their community. 

Leverage that Volunteer Experience

By recruiting interns every year I get to look at lots of resumes from young professionals. It is amazing how much experience some young adults have that they leverage into getting an internship and eventually a job. And more then ever I see resumes of people who have done extracurricular activities forever, whether it is sports, a scouting club, debate, joining a professional group or oodles of volunteer experience. All the time you spent doing this stuff has provided great life experience and I bet has helped build some professional skills along the way. Don't waste this experience my not mentioning it on your resume the next time you apply for a job.

Here are a couple of thoughts on adding your volunteer experience to your resume.

1) Mingle your paid and unpaid employment together in your work experience section. If you are applying for a job, especially in the nonprofit world, the time you spent on a board, mentoring or organizing people in your community is valuable. Not only does it show that you have built skills along the way but that your desire to work in a nonprofit is more then just getting a paycheck.

2) Don't minimize what you learned and the skills you developed through volunteering. I have seen people add their volunteer experience to the very end of their resume in a list with a one sentence descriptor. The volunteer experience should be highlighted and celebrated! Make sure you put as much thought into what you did as a volunteer as you did as a paid employee. And make sure you use the title of your position as a volunteer. Don't simply say "volunteer".

3) If you begin your resume with a skills and expertise section make sure you draw on the skills and expertise you built while volunteering. If you do this make sure you support your claim to these skills and expertise in the body of the resume.

Business Model

I have heard a couple of comments lately about people from the private sector mentoring people in the nonprofit sector. As in "there are a ton of people retiring from the for-profit sector and they want to mentor professionals in nonprofits". I think there is something we must distinguish about this scenario.

People in the private sector have many skills and talents they can bring to a cause they are passionate about. The luxury of nonprofits is that we can recruit people with specific skills and talents that will help us solve the particular issue we are trying to solve. And if you are that person we would love to have you. The generalization that people from the private sector are an automatic boon to a nonprofit can be detrimental to collaboration to truly solve social issues; and here is why.

1) It portrays nonprofit employees of lacking some sort of professionalism or intellect. This gives private sector people a false impression of the skill and talent they can work with. It can also turn prospective employees, like students, away from the sector because they think they will be under utilized.

2) It creates a barrier for true collaboration and partnership with people in the private sector because  the relationship is not  accurately established. Without a clear understanding of why the private sector person was recruited they won't be able to be efficient or effective in their work.

3) It continues the myth that nonprofits are run on some sort of magical organizational plan instead of establishing the reality that succesful nonprofits have a solid business plan just like any business.

It's not really volunteering

"It's not really volunteering if you are forcing me to do it". I have volunteered almost my entire life. One of my earliest memories is walking in Take Back the Night marches with my mom. I guess I probably volunteered to go with her; I don't remember throwing a temper tantrum in protest. As I went through school it became increasingly common to have a volunteer obligation connected with getting to the next grade. It seemed like a good idea for schools to ask their students to volunteer. The school was promoting good works in the community, it was giving the students experience, the students got to broaden their networks and horizons by meeting new people and do new things. It seems like a win for everyone.

Many forms of volunteering give the volunteer some sort of benefit; maybe it is a job reference, credit for school, developing professional skills or building their resume. There is nothing wrong with getting something out of volunteering. I have seen people very successfully leverage their volunteer experience into a new job or school application. This is great. It also shows us that volunteering isn't "supposed" to be one specific thing. For those of you out there working with youth volunteers I would encourage you to add evaluation as a key piece to their experience. By adding reflection into the orientation, training or end of the day wrap up you will avoid having the experience be only about the extrinsic reward and instead will uncover all the intrinsic gems that come from volunteering.

Check out these reflection activities for groups put out by California State University, Fullerton
http://www.fullerton.edu/deanofstudents/volunteer/resources/reflectionActivities.html

Volunteering to Employment

I just read a great YNPN blog entry by Lisa Thalacker Joyslin about transforming volunteer work into employment. She had some marvelous tips on how to approach it. Almost anyone looking for a job in the nonprofit field will tell you that networking and the people you know is your fastest way into a job. Employers are getting hundreds of competitive resumes for every opening. Employers are looking more favorably on volunteer experience as a way to distinguish between applicants. If there is one tip I could give someone about turning volunteering into employment it is: volunteer within the cause you want to be employed. Don't worry so much about volunteering for the organization you want to be employed at. The nonprofit world is small despite the fact that we have thousands of organizations in the state. If you are able to get on the right committee or task force you will soon be meeting other professionals and volunteers within the cause and probably some from the organization you really want to work for. And don't stop with just volunteering within the cause. Make sure you are going to educational events, networking events and fundraisers that other organizations are putting on. Because you believe in the cause it will be obvious that you are authentically there beyond just searching for employment. You will stand out.

Volunteering for employment is the long game. It is not a shortcut to a job. Volunteering gives you opportunities for skill development, leadership opportunities and experiences beyond what you have been educated, trained or paid for in the past. Reflecting on my past five years as a manager for the Brain Injury Association of Minnesota I can see that I have had the opportunity for mentorship and growth within my position. But because I also took time to take on leadership roles in other state wide organizations I have turned five years of experience into 15 years of experience. This added experience has given me tools to apply to my day job and it has also given me clarity in making decisions about my future. If you only do what you are paid to do your professional growth will be slow. Accelerate yourself as a professional and volunteer. You will reap great rewards for yourself, and who knows it may get you a job too.

Institutionalized Good

I love working with volunteers and being part of the good they are creating in the world. As I have worked in the volunteer field I have made observations in regards to how people "do good".

Volunteer programs are essential to nonprofits and to the communities those nonprofits serve. They build capacity for providing education, services and advocacy around important social issues. They also create community by bringing together people who are passionate about the same issue; the original Facebook group. Originally many of these nonprofits began because there was some void in support or services for a particular group of people. And just like any industry people realized it would be more efficient to build a unified structure to deliver these supports and services. As nonprofits became more prolific the community began to more regularly look to nonprofits as a source of information, support and service. Everything was looking good. We had an issue, a group from the community decided to do something about it and now we have an institution to rely on. Peachy.

There is nothing wrong with this model but I do believe it has had an effect on how we "do good" in the world. People rely on nonprofits for their services but also as a way to impact their community, they become volunteers. Volunteering means going to an institution in order to make a difference; getting permission to help someone. The result is a person might not recognize their neighbor is hungry and in turn offer to invite that family over for dinner. Instead they search for a volunteer opportunity to work at a food shelf or kitchen to serve families affected by food scarcity; maybe ending up serving at the food shelf their neighbors go to. In some ways we have institutionalized good. Through the system of service we have shifted the responsibility of people taking care of people and neighbors taking care of neighbors to an institution.

I believe there is a balance in providing opportunities through nonprofits to serve others and empowering and encouraging people to take action immediately when they see the need in their community. As a professional Volunteer Manager I would encourage my colleagues to understand this balance of collaboration and empowerment. As organizers we have the opportunity to bring people together and also give them the knowledge, tools and maybe the push they need to make a difference in the world. We can balance bringing people into our organization with supporting the organic service they are doing in their community.

Test this theory: If you are wondering whether or not you live in a neighborhood where people take care of people and neighbors take care of neighbors do this one activity. Go to each house on your block and ask for a cup of sugar. Let me know how many cups of sugar you collected and what you learned about your neighbors.