RDVP Class (11/8/2004) Volunteer Coordination

Stuart started off the class discussion by quoting Peter Drucker that people succeed with simplicity. An idea that is too complex either won't work, or won't be understood by people. Margarita pointed out that this is the benefit of an elevator pitch: condense your idea to 30 seconds so that just the most important aspects are retained. Ideally, those key points form a narrative, complete with characters, conflict and resolution. It is, as Yann points out, the Hollywood archetypes: well known plots that get re-combined and tweaked. Pushing the "movie crew" metaphor a bit, Margarita talked about how teams, especially sports teams, can collaborate effectively because everyone plays his position (and "his" is used intentionally--Margarita said that girls don't have as much of the sports exposure that makes this work). The positions are essentially well-defined interfaces that dictate how the teams are supposed to interact. They set boundaries and expectations.

This moved us into the arena of organizing teams of volunteers for our projects. Jose wondered if there were best practices, optimal sizes and how to avoid role conflicts. Margarita responded that the best practice really was "organized chaos" and while it can be frustrating, especially when an entrepreneur has all of the "meta-level work" (like strategic planning) to be done, he or she keeps getting interrupted to fulfill a manager's job: guiding people to understand what needs to be done. A job description can go a long way in specifying the expectations and responsibilities as well as the authority of each position. Recognize that volunteers don't need to be engaged forever: in some cases they can and should be treated like consultants, with specific skills that fit today's needs. If assignments are vague or too long they lead to volunteer burnout.

Stuart pointed out that starting something up involves creating/prototyping an organization as well as the idea. In the early days, when everyone is fulfilling multiple roles and there's a lot of shared communication, the organizational structure can be fluid. Margarita saw the common pattern of a non-profit organization starting with a working board of 8-10 people that might continue that way for as much as 5 to 7 years before it finally "broke out" hiring staff to do the daily work while the erstwhile working board transitions to more of a governing board. Carlos said that the volunteers are getting helped too, so it's better if you can clarify up front what the benefits are to them, and link those benefits to their own mission (or that of their parent organization) and its strategic plan. Jose added that organizations need to adapt and re-align even re-earn partners' buy-in as the overall project changes. Margarita described the role of the social entrepreneur as chief salesman, evangelist and communicator. Carlos, drawing on his experience in marine life rescue, stated the importance of an unequivocal goal. In his case, the vision of "Manatees + 1" (do only those activities that will increase the population of manatees) helped rein in well-intentioned but scattered plans or discussions that led nowhere. This organization also caused Carlos some frustration and an understanding that you need to "test" volunteers to make sure that they're really committed. Carlos described calling his volunteers and getting 70 that said no before one was able to help on a particularly demanding animal rescue mission.

Stuart gave the example of the Food Bank, an organization which was able to take in a variable number of volunteers and deploy them effectively. Though he admitted that this was probably a special "easy" case, since the work was simple, highly parallelizable, and didn't require much direction. But in trying to determine appropriate matches between volunteers and takss, Moulaye insisted on the importance of gathering feedback from the volunteers, while Helen suggested selectivity and only matching people with tasks that they can do--this was a little controversial, since others felt that many volunteers were giving time so that they could learn new skills, that is, go outside of what the natural matches were. Margarita specifically suggested encouraging people to do things that they're not sure they can do. Set up a couple of "easy wins" for them to achieve some small successes quickly, and then give them goals that will challenge, but recognize that you need to use a different measuring stick for success and failure for a volunteer (than you would with an employee.) Jose said that if you included the person's enthusiasm in the matching process, you might end up with better results than those that were purely skills-based. Durga asked if simple self-reported skills matching was sufficient, wondering how you really evaluate someone. Renee thought that it was really the personal assessment, getting to know them on a face-to-face basis, that allowed you to make those judgments. Margarita said that some people are really good at intuiting people and finding assignments that are fulfilling for both the organization and the volunteer. Durga asked about how that scales to a hundred volunteers. It became clear that this was not a purely hypothetical question: he's gotten a great response from his request for volunteers in India to help gather data about parent's perceptions of school and why they do or don't send their children.

We were all impressed. Helen echoed my thoughts by saying that her project was still under definition, and she needed to get a task list together before she could productively use volunteers. Renee gave the helpful hint of breaking volunteer groups into "newbies" and "oldtimers" so that the experienced volunteers weren't subjected to the same old orientation every time a new volunteer arrived. Carlos had previously mentioned the notion of "docking points" (areas at the fringe of the project where partners can plug in) and pointed out that they could work well for integrating new volunteers as well. Renee suggested giving feedback to the volunteers, including a self-evaluation component. In designing a successful organization, Margarita came back to an idea from last week: the need for a #2 executive who can "make the trains run on time" (handle the day-to-day operational issues), freeing up the entrepreneur for the more strategic work. She also asked that we not forget that part of the reason that people volunteer is to meet other volunteers: most effective organizations have a social component as well, since people join things to make friends.

For the balance of the session, we helped Jose with a brainstorm on his project, including suggestions for different models (an actor map, a time line, a market analysis) for how he could think about the project and what needs to happen next. It sounds like this may become a regular feature of our Monday sessions.