The dreaded meeting

Meetings are often the lifeblood of a volunteer organization. It allows management to disseminate information to the general membership in the quickest, most effective manner. It ensures that the information is discussed and understood and it allows for the management to motivate the volunteer to "buy in".

The problems with meetings is that they are frequently the cholesterol in the lifeblood of a volunteer organization. Many times they are unnecessary gatherings that are poorly attended, poorly defined, or poorly run which means that more meetings are usually scheduled to try again to achieve the original goal of the meeting.

There are several ways to avoid this:

1) The most important question the leadership can ask prior to a meeting is, "Do we really have anything to talk about?" It is vital, however, that the leadership ask this "out-loud" because there may be a burning interest that some of the members need to bring before the collective body and that should not be overlooked. There are many times though that the leadership may find that the answer from everybody is a resounding NO and they can either not schedule a meeting or cancel an already scheduled meeting. This would make everyone happy and probably make for more productive, better attended meetings in the future.

2) Once the need for a meeting is established, the next thing to ask is, "What do we need to talk about?" The answer to this provides an agenda. To make meetings most effective, the planned agenda should be distributed to all members in advance to allow for additions to avoid surprises that will cause disruption. This allows everyone to be "on the same page" when they arrive for the meeting. It gives the leadership a general idea of how much time to allot to each subject and will help keep the meeting moving along.

3) The agenda should become the outline for the meeting which should ideally be wrapped up in an hour. Any issue that deserves more discussion than can be completed in an hour should be considered for a special meeting to allow for discussion on that topic alone. The leader of the meeting is responsible for keeping the discussion on topic and not allowing for wide-ranging discussions of topics, viewpoints, and opinions that have nothing to do with the original agenda item. In addition, the leader is responsible for the "parliamentary procedure" of the meeting. It would be advisable for anyone running a meeting to aquaint themselves with some sort of parliamentary procedure. My suggestion is The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure by Alice Sturgis. It is much simpler to use than Robert's Rules of Order and allows for much quicker meetings without extended parliamentary tricks.

These three steps can easily make an organizations meetings become more effective and better attended. People are anxious to stay informed and involved, but they will stop being interested if the monthly meeting is just a practice in spending an hour discussing gossip and achieving nothing.

Get out there

Recruiting is crucial to the volunteer organization. Any organization that thinks that it is so important that volunteers will flock to it, is doomed to eventual failure. There may be some incident or news story that may make it the "flavor of the week", but there will be new stories next week and the fickle public will move on and the steady stream of new volunteers will move on too.

To avoid this, a well-thought out, well-executed recruiting plan should be developed. It should be an on-going process in the life of the organization. In fact, a recruiter, should be one of the job descriptions that was developed and filled.

Some things to consider when doing a recruiting drive:

1) Those involved in the recruiting drive should always be professional in appearance and demeanor. Regardless of the organization and/or the location of the drive, if people are poorly dressed, fooling around, foul-mouthed, etc not only will potential recruits be turned off, the organization runs the risk of damaging its reputation with the general public.

2) Recruiting materials should be professional quality. Hand drawn signs with miles of invisible tape pasted on a rickety table also make an impression. Take the time, in this day of personal computers with color printers, to make decent posters and flyers to use to make your case. Remember, you are trying to "sell" someone on joining your group. You have about 15 seconds to make enough of a positive impression that they will stop and talk with you.

3) Location of a recruiting drive is important. You need a high-traffic area, but you don't want to impede the flow of traffic. You need to be visible without being obnoxious. You also want to be aware of the type of people you are recruiting for. To put an animal rights recruiting station in front of the local fur salon is merely asking for trouble, not recruits. That same station, however, may work in front of the local pet store as long as you have a buy-in from the owner and you are careful not to imply that you are implying poor treatment by the store owner.

4) Most importantly, it must be active. Hanging a banner from the side of a building does not qualify as a recruiting drive. It may get one or two highly motivated people, but it will not fill your ranks. You need to be out and available to answer questions and talk one-on-one with potential recruits. You need to be able to show people your job needs (using your job descriptions) and the commitment they are undertaking. This way, you'll also be able to broaden your recruiting to include some of the people who wouldn't immediately think of your organization as being for them (ie financial people, fund-raisers, and even recruiters).

Just as companies are always hiring, volunteer organizations should always be recruiting. It should be an on-going plan, not a desperation move of a failing organization.

Job descriptions for the volunteer

One very interesting, and necessary, activity that volunteer managers should undertake is the development of job descriptions. Just as in any paying position, the rights and responsibilities of the position should be clearly outlined so that the volunteer and the manager agree on what is to happen. This is especially importat to the volunteer because they are giving their time and effort for free and they plan on making it a part of their life which already has other time commitments. How many times has it been said, "If I knew I was volunteering for ALL THIS I never would have volunteered."?

This happens when a volunteer is not given the whole picture up front. This usually isn't done maliciously, it's done because the volunteer manager really has no clear picture of what the job will entail, or the organization continues to have needs and the manager merely uses the current crop of volunteers to fill them. The problem is that many times it's the equivalent of filling a round hole with a square peg. You're using people to perform tasks that they have no aptitude for, or desire to do.

This can be reduced or eliminated by the development of clearly designed job descriptions for every function in the organization. Many times this can be eye-opening to the volunteer manager because many do not realize how many different functions are required to keep the organization running. Developing the job descriptions, however, will enable the manager to see the "big picture" and to begin to fill the open positions with willing and capable people who are fully-informed on what they are volunteering for.

Don't waste my time

As stated yesterday, there are literally millions of people who are willing to volunteer. They are motivated enough and interested enough to go through whatever training may be required of them, as long as they feel the reward is sufficient. The problem comes when the volunteer activity becomes a greater burden than the required training.

Having been a EMS volunteer for several different agencies over the past 25 years, I can attest to the feeling that "it's not worth it". Rarely will you hear someone voice the opinion that maintaining the EMT certification is not worth it. Most people who get into that field, do so out of a genuine interest in pre-hospital emergency care. What they don't count on is the hours of mind-numbing meetings and time-consuming requirements that really have nothing to do with actually being an EMT.

Some of this can be alleviated by expanding the scope of the recruiting drive to enlist the assistance of others to help. For example, one agency spent hours and hours involved in fund-raising activities such as stuffing envelopes for fund drives and frying any type of food available for fund-raising dinners. All of this became "required" of all members because it was vital to the agency's existence. The problem was, it was more than the EMT's signed up for. It was work that could have been done by people who enjoyed assisting the agency but who had no EMT training. This is the type of non-focus activity that burns out volunteers.

Another big time-robber is the meeting. I was a member of another organization for years and saw the difference between leaders in running a meeting. We had monthly meetings that were "required" for all members. One leader, a specialist in minutae, would allow discussion on the smallest item without limit and his meetings would last, literally, 3 hours. Another leader, same organization, same members, would hand out a tight, meaningful agenda and keep all discussion focussed on only the necessary business resulting in more things accomplished in 45 minute meetings. This makes a HUGE difference to the volunteer membership.

Remember, volunteers do want to be a part of your organization, but they don't want to make it the only thing in their life. You must be respectful in your use of their time.

Decline of volunteerism is a myth

Don't use the supposed (and largely anecdotal) excuse that there is a decline in volunteerism to defend a drop in your membership. Census studies show that while there is a small decline in adult volunteerism (as measured in percentage of population) over the past 5 years, if youth over 16 are included, actual number of volunteers has actually increased! Over 61 million people volunteered in 2006.

If you are experiencing a drop in your membership, you should begin studying why. One very valuable tool is to ask your members. Even more importantly, you should ask your ex-members. The one caution I would have for you is that you must take the data seriously. You cannot ask for opinions and then rationalize them away. You must be willing to use them as the basis for a thorough self-evaluation as an organization.

As a result of this research, you may find that some of the ways that you do things need to be "tweaked" or you may find that you need to totally rethink your organization's operation. One of the biggest (and most common) dangers that a long-established volunteer organization faces is the "we've always done it that way" syndrome. Once you've heard those words come from the mouths of your leadership, you are on the way to extinction.

Tomorrow, let's talk about wasting time.

But I can't do that....

One of the most common mistakes made by volunteer recruiters is limiting the scope of their recruiting. They focus their efforts on people who are interested, certified, or talented in the actual work of the organization and ignore the hundreds of other potential recruits that would make their organization stronger and more efficient. A theater group, for example, works very hard to recruits actors, singers, and occasionally stagehands. They don't consider seamstresses, financiers, publicists, and basic runners. All of these people would be able to provide basic services to the organization that would be invaluable.

The advantages to recruiting a person who can't sing or dance, but is a financial wizard are multi-fold. First of all, that is their passion and they are probably much better at it than someone who just because they know how to balance their checkbook. In addition, they replace someone who is able to sing and dance. The financial wizard gets to become a part of an organization that they are interested in, maybe because a spouse is involved, and they can contribute in a way that most benefits that organization. By taking the place of an actor/singer, they reduce burnout because the actor/singer is likely to become less interested quicker if they were required to work on the finances which are of no interest to them. By broadening the scope, the organization now retains two new members that are passionate about their jobs and they are better off for it.

Volunteers rule?

I've been in organizations where discipline or standards are not enforced because the leadership states, "We can't do that to volunteers." The question then becomes,what does it mean to be a volunteer? Infoplease.com defines a volunteer as, "A person who voluntarily offers himself or herself for a service or undertaking." The key words here are offer himself or herself.

The person willingly makes an offer to join an organization. The important part here is that the person's offer includes an offer to abide by its rules and regulations and perform the work to the organization's standards. In fact, part of the reason that the person makes the offer is because they enjoy the work and image of the organization. This work and image is made possible by the rules and regulations of the organization. If the organization fails to enforce these uniformly and fairly, then they are doing a disservice to its volunteers and runs the risk of losing membership.

Thus, the idea that a rule cannot be enforced because the member is a volunteer and the organization runs the risk of losing them if they are too strict, is a bad idea. While the parameters of the volunteer's time and commitment should be taken into consideration when rules are developed, once established, they must be enforced.

To be fair to the volunteer, the organization's expectations must be shared with the volunteer BEFORE they join. They can only offer themself willingly if they have full disclosure.