November 07, 2001
Contributed By Nan Hawthorne

Why do organizations seek volunteer help? There is no more important
question you can ask before you initiate a volunteer program at your
organization. Your answers will demonstrate your awareness of the
potential of volunteers and define how well they will fit into and
contribute to your success.

If you believe volunteers only make you look good to the community or
are just a tradition, you will miss a great deal of the benefit a
volunteer program can offer. It is likely that you will need to
create largely unnecessary work for them, underestimate the skills
needed to contribute to your work and miss many of the sound volunteer
management principles better understood in better designed programs.

Let's start with the first very simple reason an organization, any
organization, involves volunteers:

1. There is important work to be done.

The "important work to be done" is the individual organization's
mission in the community. You must start here. Too many
organizations and their volunteer resource managers operate from the
point of view that volunteers are an end unto themselves. They put
volunteers first. In reality the organization's mission always comes
first. Volunteers, and paid staff as well, are there to serve that
purpose, not the other way around. Not only does putting volunteers
first put the organization at risk by, for example, allowing very bad
volunteers to interact with clients and the public. It robs the
organization. You cannot use volunteers' skills well unless you know
what skills are needed. To do what? To do the important work that
has to be done.

Once you identify the important work your organization is doing,
you can begin to understand what role volunteers can play.

2. Volunteers are part of the best way to get that important work done.

That is, they are much more than just free labor. If you recruit
for skills, you can find people who will be happy to offer them. You
simply could never pay for the talent and knowledge these volunteers
want to give you.

They can bring material help through their extended contacts in
your community. They have access to resources from their employers or
their own businesses. They know journalists, civic leaders and
philanthropists. They know what the community beyond your four walls
thinks about what you are doing.

They bring money. Not only are volunteers generally devoted
donors as well, they raise money for you just through their enthusiasm
about what you do. The public relations extends to people who,
looking for a worthy destination for their money and time, see that
you have a thriving volunteer program, evidence of wise use of their
donations in a world where charities are not always trusted.

It is a mistake to underestimate the freshness a volunteer brings
to an organization. While staff can become inured to the routine,
volunteers' focus, commitment and enthusiasm can energize and refocus
staff and make them happier and more productive.

Pay attention to the fact that we said "part of the best way."
All-volunteer organizations, they are not always the most effective in
solving community problems. But because volunteers can bring in more
and different skills and resources, having a volunteer program allows
you to get your important work done more effectively.

If you understand the potential of a volunteer program, you will
understand that strong and skillful leadership is a key ingredient.

3. Good volunteer management makes sure that important work gets done
well.

Effective volunteer management makes sure you do not waste time,
money, resources, good will and people. To make sure the
organization makes best use of these valuable voluntary human
resources, its leaders must recognize that it is that not just anyone
can manage a volunteer program. Volunteer resource management is a
set of skills, tools and knowledge. Hiring and supporting a
professional volunteer resource manager is essential if you want to
get the important work of your organization accomplished in the best
possible way.

So, maybe there is a lack of knowledge to matters that concern what we have been doing whilst they were living their life, but to presume that they lack knowledge is rather patronizing.

This should inform us when we approach problem solving in the developing world. First we should not assume that only us have the answer to the needs of a developing community. Second we may consider first how the local knowledge would answer the problem. Third the local solution should be favored against a foreign intervention.

Obviously there is room for flexibility, but this raises a surprising question: What can we give that is of use to a local community? And do we give it best?

Roger_jg

Any OVO that aim to be efficient should not be organized because it relies on disorganized workers: the bee workers mentioned earlier.

What the OVO should aim at is to provide an environment for the people to be able to work together with minimal rules, interferences and dependence from a mother-like figure organisation. It should be self govern like Wikipedia is, it should broaden space rather than constrict it, it should offer a minimum number of regulatory processes but a large number of "opportunity processes".

Most fundamentally it must be based on the expectations and interests of those who contribute to it and not try to create a system framing people! On the contrary it should fit itself to the people. The OVO should not aim at framing working environments but should let them grow by themselves.

The best example here is MySpace and Facebook. MySpace is well know for a messy interface but that did not stop people joining in and making it the archetype of social networking! (despite the pre-existence of other similar but less flexible systems).

What MySpace did was to say: here is a space, here are some efficient and trendy tools for you to use, do what you want with it. People joined in, created their environment, attracted and found others with similar interests and started to exchange with one another, learn from one another. MySpace pushed the boundary of blogging one netuniverse further.

And this is what the OVO should not be doing: Re-inventing social networking, it has been done already and we are past it!

Of course I am not blind to its fault. As it is the case with blogging, assiduity and interest in developing one's space has fadded quickly in a majority of cases.

The operational rules of the OVO should be simple, limited and favoured one thing: emergence, also known as self organisation.

What all of this is about is social networking, but with an aim: philanthropy. But nothing new here. It already exists, it already happens, it already works (see Idealist for only one example), but its full potential has yet to be revealed and exploited so that those most in need can benefit from it.

Answers will come from the people, not from the tools. The answer to cutting raw meet was no the silex, but the person who came up with the idea of silex cutting, then it was only a question of craftsmanship

More to come soon….

Roger_jg

PS: You may wonder what that has to do with Lao.. Well, it is fascinating to observe how people in a resources limited setting come up with solutions to their everyday problems and without the Internet, simply by networking. A lot has been forgotten and need to be re-discovered.

Since this is all about action, the control vocabulary should be based on active verbs, nouns and a relation to a subject. I am aware it all seems a bit esoteric but let's practice…

Verb: Find (but not Search) - Identify - Contact -

Noun: Information - Person - Organisation - Means - Needs

Complement: Responsible (in charge) - Purpose

What I am heading at here, is that there is a need to very clearly frame and define the work a volunteer should be doing.

Roger_jg

What would an office be good for in an online volunteer organisation?

Let's say:

• screening applicant's project? Ah Ha! Project you say? Are we talking about projects here? Is it realistic to run full project with online volunteers only? Possibly. if one takes great defining what kind of project!

• Managing resources? Hrm well.. Does someone manages Wikipedia? Yes, its users!

• Bringing together volunteers and the community? Well, the community can self advertise and the volunteer know to read and can come forward!

• Ensuring that projects are genuine? hard task, especially from afar, some trust is needed especially if money is not involved.

• Fundraising? This is a very demanding administrative activity that few online organisation would engage in.

Overall there is very little use for an office and many organisations have started with minimal personal, often unpaid (see the article I referenced elsewhere) who remember the beginning of Avaaz?

[roger_jg]

It is indeed essential to know WHO are the people willing or trying to do some online volunteer. Unfortunately it is difficult to conduct a survey in this regards, but a US Survey do exist about more traditional form of OV.

The way round this is to try to define ourselves the audience we think we have, based on ourself, our friends and our experience. At least it is possible to drawn an outline of our Weekend Warrior. Of course there will always be exception… That's taken for granted!

Time: The Weekend Warrior is an active person who has limited time to invest.
Attention Span: The Weekend Warrior has a short attention span. It can be extended but overall he won't engage in long term project.
Knowledge: The weekend warrior has the knowledge of his trade and hobbies.
Skills: The skills of the weekend warrior are limited or highly technical (in another word: limited! Not useless though!!!)
Learning curve: can learn quickly or slowly but considering the limited amount of time available, tends to dislike complex systems and processes.
Motivation: parallels that of the attention span

Do you see something to add or correct. Of course we are not here talking about hard core volunteers…

Roger_jg

I would like more people to contribute on this forum, where I am struggling to trigger a debate! It maybe that not so many people are interested in discussing this issue.

Let see how it develops during the next two weeks.

Roger_jg

Initially i suggested that the goal of this forum is to develop a scheme/organisation that will successfully deliver assistance where it is needed in a timely fashion.

The mission of the OVO will be somewhat similar but shorter To successfully deliver relevant assistance where it is needed in a timely fashion.

Of course we could built on that. What kind of assistance? (See the dedicated forums)
Where? How? What means timely fashion?

This being clarified, it should then be easier to devise appropriate mechanism. But I fear I am avoiding answering this question, only because i need your help ! So jump in and tell me what you think. Is this going in the right direction?

Roger_jg

When governance and policies are clear, everybody know what to do and how to do it. Confusion is born and bread from ignorance and obscurantism.

The role of the platform is fundamental too. The better the platform teh less direct management is needed!

I we agree on these premises then the next step is to look at what needs to be managed….

What are you looking for?

- Speed of delivery
- Previous successes of the OVO
- Location
- Others

What do you expect the OVO will achieve? How quickly?

Let us know about your feeling towards online volunteering organisations and what you really expect form them.

Roger_jg

Let say a community is having a problem of water sanitation. One of the first task necessary to tackle the community's problem is to survey the various WatSan methods available. Since I know nothing next to nothing about WatSan i will have to spend some time looking first at what water sanitation means then at the available methods currently used.

But somewhere else, another volunteer of the same OVO is working on a similar problem and has already gone through this stage. I am therefore re-inventing the wheel.

My point here is twofold:

- I need to invest time in an issue I am not familiar with
- Someone else has already gone through the process and know the answers I am looking for

Solution A:

- Provide knowledge primer
- Connect people or projects related to the same issues
- Organise resources in a knowledge base (HERE is an example on how to do it easily using a Wiki)

Solution B:

- attribute project to people who are knowledgeable in the field

The two solutions are not mutually exclusive but require a different mechanism of project attribution and management.

Roger_jg

But for communities in need, accessing the Net maybe more a problem than a solution!

First you need a computer and a phone line. Those cost money that will come from "selling mangoes and bananas" as friend put it, and a lot of them. Second youneed someone who know how to use the Internet.

Of course there is the solution of the omnipresent Internet cafe, though I doubt it would be easy to find one in a refugee camp in Uganda… And young people are nowaday familliar with basic internet features (emails and forum).

Hence, the aims of an OVO is immediately curtailed to solving problems of communities which can reasonably access the internet, even thought there is no guaranty that the community can easily and regularly access the net.

What you say?

Roger_jg

• Finding and dispatching teaching equipment (books, pen, paper, notebooks)
• Finding and dispatching computers
• Finding organisations supporting educational projects in developing countries
• Finding volunteers willing to go and teach or train teachers in developing countries
• Preparing grant/letter of application for funding or support
• Finding and adapting curriculum (but NOT developing curriculum, that's reinventing the wheel)
• Finding blueprints for school building

But NOT building the school, this an overwhelming task and I am not even convinced that a specific building is necessary. I remember my first year at school, we did have a building but we also had 4 different levels in the same classroom!

Any other ideas?

Roger_jg

• VolunteerMatch
• TimeBank
• NetworkForGood

I think the Time bank and VolunteerMatch have nice and user friendly interface.
Network for good is a bit more clumsy.

It is worth noticing that mostif not all opportunities are in the real world.

Roger_jg

An online volunteer organization (OVO) is at a distinct disadvantage in this respect. There is very little that can be done as a group to raise funds online. How does one establish the credibility necessary for the donor to feel secure that their funds will be well spent? What exactly is the entity the donor is sending funds to? In my experience, this method does not have a high success rate.

As mentioned elsewhere, I believe that an OVO might succeed best by acting as a broker between the community in need and established charitable organizations, finding a match between the community and the organization that would be best able/willing to meet their needs.

I'm hoping others here have had better experience with the fundraising/OVO experience. What have your experiences been? And what are your thoughts on a better way?

In a recent post Siegfried asked how can we be sure the OVO is genuine. How do we know that the community is genuine?

My answer to that would be to position the OVO as a B2B, linking established and well known organisations to recognized communities.

For instance, last week, I was contacted by a friend working at the Bangkok Refugee Centre (BRC). She asked me to design a School Health programme for the refugee's children and to organise a training session for the teachers. In this situation, the BRC is run by the UNHCR, and the community of refugees is recognized as genuine.

As a volunteer I acted as a B2B would have. I provided a (free) service to a company that serves a community in need. Hence the "genuine" aspect was not an issue.

This may exclude some communities, but I don't think many will be excluded as there are many way for a community and its problems to be recognised. Also many are already working with recognized organisations.

If I follow this reasoning, the OVO would not work for the community but for an organisation who work for a community. We are closer here to the Idealist.org model.

As much as I enjoy Idealist.org, I found it too difficult to access both for the community and for the volunteers. Also most of the volunteering is not Online. But an OVO built on this model is possible.

~R

All these friendly demands requests time. MY time. And if most of the time I am happy to oblige I need to factor that in my day/week schedule.

I believe it is the same for an online volunteer who has decided to give part of his free time to do something online. Now this free time is not unlimited! It is then reasonable that online work must match what a volunteer is happy to give.

This raises the question of Task vs. Project. A project will require a lot of time whilst tasks are less time demanding. I agree that a project can be cut into small parts, but there is still a need for someone to oversee the project and ensure it is going the right way. I am not thinking here about a facilitator or a Moderator as discussed elsewhere, but of a real project manager.

Is that something a Online Voluntary Organisation (OVO) can afford? If not what kind of "projects/Tasks" such OVO can take on? Does it limit the scope or ambition of the OVO?

What you say?

~R

A community website, a meeting place for those in needs to meet those willing to help, a good knowledge management approach are essential but they won’t provide a concrete answer to a community’s problem.

ICT can do wonderful and trendy things but there is a real danger to be overwhelmed by information (most of it often irrelevant). It can also scatter energy and can often scare entry level users.

Most importantly, ICT does not offer universal access to the community in needs that may have to invest a lot of “mangoes and banana” (as a friend of mine says) to get online. We should not forget that when thinking about the best IT platform.

~R

http://www.dotlrn.org

~R

timedesk

As to the role of facilitator I would like to add a different vision. By narrowing down the facilitator as a person we create a boxed in approach, which could mean lack of facilitors in the end obstructs progress. In my definition a facilitator would be anyone or any company or institution that contributes in reaching community goals, whether as sponsor, partner, coach or whatever role you can imagine. Maybe it will be even more clear to outsiders if we would not even use the phrase facilitator in the first place …

The concept of Facilitator comes from the way Nabuur organises its "villages" around a Facilitator who is at the junction between the real community and the virtual one.

I agree with timedesk that using a Facilitator to run a project corners a volunteer into a box. I will add that the box is wrongly labeled since often the Facilitator will have to take on tasks himself, that the function could overshadow the involvement of others in the project and smother their participation. Also it kind of diminish the responsibility of contributors. It is worth noting that several of Nabuur villages works well without a Facilitator.

I believe that if a group of people start to work on a project, a natural leader will emerge, or some sort of organisation. People will exchange ideas amongst themselves rather than with a facilitator. What's needed is a regular monitoring to ensure the project is not stalled.

What you say?

Roger_jg

What should be the approach chosen by a volunteers-run organisation? Is there a middle way? This is an important point to discuss and here is an example to illustrate the dilemna.

A small community in Africa believes that a good education helps the youths to find better jobs and therefore earn a better living which will benefit the whole community. They decide to built a school and request help from the organisation.

In the “It’s the community who lead” model, the volunteer will support the community in their goal of building a school. After all, that's what they want.

In the “FMI” model it is the organization that tells the community what to do, that needs, assets and community skills need to be assessed first and that only then the decision will be taken to built or not a school.

Who knows better? I think it is irrelevant. What is relevant is the situation. For instance, there may be a school in a nearby village that can take the children on board. This school may be 10-20 km away from the community, but it is possible that developing a bus service between the two communities will be more profitable for both communities. The organizations and teh community should be open minded to different solutions.

My point here is that there shouldn't be any narrow-minded position and that the dogma “the Community/Organization knows better is irrelevant”. The consequence of this approach is that mechanisms are needed to evaluate options and to decide in collaboration with the community which solution is better.

Roger_jg

Indeed, online work is limited by

• the time an online volunteer is prepared to give,
• the efficiency of the volunteer (which depends on many factors I'll discuss elsewhere),
• the reward a volunteer find in his work online,
• the relevance of the task to performed.

I agree that the same is true of real world volunteers but it is more obvious in the virtual world where there is an insurmountable dampening distance between people.

If these elements are not factored, willingly or not (or idealistically or not), in the management of a project or a task, then I believe it is a recipe for failure.

To believe that the pool of volunteer is infinite is also a mistake, because it is not the number that matter but what they can achieved in a limited amount of time.

Therefore if one considers that meaningful assistance must be delivered in a timely fashion, working with online volunteer is really akin to working in resources-limited settings.

This observation has a significant effect on how an organization is structured and work !

Roger_jg

Stand alone or module? What I have in mind here are different approaches to fundraising:

1. The organisation endeavours to organise fundraising activities and manage all activities related to fundraising. Fundraising here can be conceived as part of a project (for example, a community wants to build a school and money is needed for buying the raw material) or an independent project in itself (for example, a community needs to buy a new power generator)
2. The organisation supports and endorses fundraising activities but does not manage the fundraising itself or the fund raised. The organisation can provide fundraising tips and links to fundraising online resources.
3. The organisation does not support fundraising nor does it endorse it. It is the decision/responsibility of the community/volunteers to engage and manage the fundraising on their own.

Each of these options (there may be more, add to it!) have different consequences on the structural and functional needs of the organisation.

~R

Thank you for joining this summer forum on Online Philanthropy. It sound a bit pompous but let's say it's a convenient way of calling it.

I will be wearing several hats at first, Admin, Facilitator, Moderator but I hope some of you will come forward and relieve me of some of these tasks.

The Motto of this forum is Bringing people together to develop a scheme that will successfully deliver pertinent assistance where it is needed in a timely fashion.

You will read if often, sometimes with minor variations but I want to make it clear that this forum is not for discussing "problem solving for community in needs", but "problem solving for an organisation wanting to solve problem of communities in needs"!

Questions, comments, post below, send me a private message or an email.

Best regards
Roger

The simple "who are you?" raises the question of the organisation's membership policy.

You have read the welcome page and browsed through the forum and have some ideas about the work done from a previous similar experience. What would be the 5 non-technical (i.e. not : where do I post messages?) questions you would ask before joining?

Whatever the beliefs, there is a need for a minimal set of rules by which members of an organisation agreed to abide.

A reasonable or rational purpose of governance might aim to assure, (sometimes on behalf of others) that an organization produces a worthwhile pattern of good results while avoiding an undesirable pattern of bad circumstances.

I firmly believe that any organization, in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions. Next, I believe that the most important single factor in corporate success is faithful adherence to those beliefs. And, finally, I believe [the organization] must be willing to change everything about itself except those beliefs as it moves through corporate life.

A philanthropic organisation can and should aim at succeeding in its mission like a corporation. In this case, delivering appropriate help where it is needed, in an efficient and timely fashion.

Propose 3 core beliefs and 3 values a philanthropic organisation built on the principle exposed in the introduction should have.

"The Millennium Development Goals were adopted five years ago by all the world's Governments as a blueprint for building a better world in the 21st century." Kofi Annan

Amongst the numerous problems that ride our world, the UN choose to address 8 of them. The MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases. By doing so, the UN members clearly indicated that some issues are more important than other. This also suggests that there is a limited amount of energy (or money) available and that therefore only some problems can be addressed.

Should an organisation based on the work and contribution of volunteers adopt a similar approach. If yes what should be its "list of priority".

General discussion in this thread. Specifics in their respective threads. Thread will be updated to reflect contributors' thoughts.

The first is concerned with the fundamental approach to helping people by either managing a project with all its complexities (imagine building a school) or providing specific help to an existing or growing project (imagine finding desks for the school). Fundraising is also a fundamental issue any organisations has to deal with since there is "no honey without money" (Thai saying!).

The second is about the role of the organisation. Should it solve the problem, which suppose its volunteers are qualified to solve the problem, or should it act as a link between those in need and those who can provide a solution which open the organisation to a much broader audience.

The third relate to the technical matter of knowledge management and the IT platform, backbone of the organisation.

Use the general thread to discuss general issues about vision and mission statement.Vision and Mission Statement have their own discussion thread.

There is also a "time factor" which is twofold:
- that of the amount of time a volunteer is ready to give to a project
- that of the amount of time those in need can wait for a solution to their problem to be found

In both case there is a risk of "giving up" if the volunteer or the community feel they are wasting their time (for whatever reasons).

"Thinking Big" is great, but "Starting Small", being successful, earning credibility and respect and growing is better than loosing sight in the vastness of an ocean of problems.

It is with this in mind that I will personally approach this discussion.

This general thread can be used to discuss what is achievable globally. For specific issues please use the specific threads. If more threads are needed just ask! But I think I have already detailed to much!

~R