May 27, 2012
Creating a Learning Pathway
Those of you who receive the Updates on Volunteering New Zealand’s Management of Volunteers Project will notice a gathering momentum. The Learning and Development work-stream, charged with creating a professional development pathway, is making good progress towards a significant milestone.
As a reminder, the two key areas of the group’s work programme are:
- To identify key competencies for leaders and managers of volunteers
- To establish a process for enabling Assessment of Prior Learning (APL)
The part that has taken the most time and effort is figuring out how to frame Competencies. A whole issue of e-volunteerism (October 2011) devoted to ‘credentialing’, with contributors from all around the world, could not produce a consensus. It was not simply a matter of establishing options for certification, nor in identifying particular tasks or skills. Much of the debate roved around the meaning of competence and its application to the business of managing volunteers.
The Learning and Development group is not engaged in determining the detail of what knowledge, skills and attributes signify competencies for managers of volunteers. That way overlooks the huge diversity in organisations, responsibilities, communities and sector interests. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ formula. Prescription could also become stifling for people wanting to move beyond standard practice, for people wanting to carve out new territory in leading volunteers.
The principal concern for the group is to identify a learning pathway, a road-map that offers clear entry points, recognition of prior learning, indications for further learning, and for leadership extension. The pathway is open to all non-profit organisations, will offer something to all managers and leaders of volunteers, regardless of scope and scale of the organisation.
Think of a motorway with on-ramps, and passing lanes, and exits to different destinations. Think of short journeys for immediate and relevant development needs, or taking the long road to a higher goal. This learning pathway will have signposts and markers for different options, and room for personal choice and direction.
The Wellington Leadership Group met a couple of weeks ago to consider a draft proposal for the motorway. We are impressed with the breadth and depth of the work that has gone into compiling the documents. We are excited by the range of ways the model could be used, and how useful it will be as a development guide for both new and experienced managers of volunteers.
The draft competency framework will be available for consultation in a matter of weeks. Getting feedback is one small step towards the significant milestone that will benefit all managers and leaders of volunteers inNew Zealand, and their organisations.
November 20, 2011
Volunteer Recruitment and Retention
It has to be the chestnut season, because here is another topic much featured in the annals of discussion among managers of volunteers.
The Old Hands refer to Recruitment & Retention as MV101, one of the first steps in learning about management of volunteers.
The Newbies ask questions like:
- Why am I having trouble finding enough volunteers for our programme?
- What is the best way to recruit volunteers?
- Why do they go through all the screening and training and then drop out?
- Why do volunteers just disappear without giving notice? They just don’t come back.
The Old Hands will ask:
- What sort of paper-work have you got for your programme? Volunteer policy? Job descriptions? Rights and responsibilities statement, or a code of practice? Screening Process? Training programme organised? Volunteer performance review?
- Do you have a budget to offer celebrations of volunteer achievement, rewards and appreciation?
- Do you have a bag of ways to appreciate volunteer contributions to your organisation?
- When volunteers leave can you catch up with them for an exit interview, even if it’s a fill-in form per e-mail?
And the Old Hands’ advice will be to get all this in place before you start thinking about recruiting volunteers. Then they will add:
You want to get the best possible people to volunteer for your organisation?
- You make sure you spell out what is expected via a job description and all that organisational stuff, plus all the support systems available to volunteers
- You target the most likely resource population
- You go ask them (Simple, eh?)
- You get creative when a prospective volunteer offers skills not previously considered for your organisation – be innovative and enterprising.
You want to keep your volunteers engaged?
- Make sure they have a good experience!
- Say ‘thank you’ in as many ways as you can think of, and then some!
- Respect and value volunteer work, and make sure paid staff do too!
- Volunteers will stick around when you understand your role is more than nuts-and-bolts management, that you need to be a people-person, and how your leadership skills will ensure the best possible volunteer programme.
Now the Newbies cry “But how do we get there?”
Ummm… The Old Hands pause. They have to think about where they came from:
- The school of hard knocks
- The sink-or-swim school
- The long-and-winding trail of a varied employment history
- Training and education and professional qualifications in something completely different from managing volunteers
- Lots of experience as a volunteer, even plucked from the pool to be a manager
- Because it was added to a paid position when nobody else would do it
OK. The Old Hands pause again.
You’re lucky, they say to the Newbies. Training opportunities for managers of volunteers are available, in a sort of pick-and-mix way. You can pick through
- Volunteer Centre forums / seminars / workshops
- Qualifications offered by industry or vocational programmes such as Tafe (Australia), NVQ (UK) or ITOs (NZ).
- Programmes like Australasian Retreat for Managers of Volunteers, or a raft of Webinars being offered in the UK and US
- On-line applied training through energizeinc.com or CVA and Volunteering NZ
- A ‘relevant’ University level Certificate / Degree / Post-Graduate Diploma
- And don’t forget learning from colleagues, getting into mentoring and peer supervision.
Beware! The Old Hands have not quite finished. We have not yet sorted what it takes to be a properly credentialed manager of volunteers. Not the last word anyway. You may have some ideas, and you need to go look at the current issue of e-Volunteerism to see what is going on, and to make sure you have your say.
Here ends a shorthand version of resolving the trials of Recruitment & Retention of volunteers. Don’t let it put you off!
November 13, 2011
Network or Perish
Observant readers will notice a recurring theme over the past couple of months. The word ‘networking’ keeps popping up in various contexts, mostly when I am talking about professionalism. Go have a look here if you need reminding.
So let me give another plug for the virtue of networking as a tool of trade for a manager of volunteers.
It’s Network or Perish, like the book says. Snappy title, evoking a parallel with the academic obligation to ‘publish or perish’. Of course Network or Perish is written for all those Sales and Marketing managers, the lobbyists and PR people. (Read a review here.) Which sounds like networking fulfils the adage “it’s who you know, not what you know”.
Which is not quite how I see networking creating advantage for managers of volunteers.
Networking in MV-speak is what happens at local workshops and seminars, at Volunteer Centre lunchtime sessions, at the functions that recognise and celebrate volunteering and IMVDay. Networking is what happens when you find allies within large institutions and organisations who know and understand volunteering and the importance of good management. Networking is what happens through social media connections and subscribing to all those newsletters that stream to your in-box.
What you get from these occasions is opportunity to:
- exchange information, opinions and ideas
- learn from others
- discuss issues, so that “a trouble shared becomes a trouble halved”
- appreciate the presence of a collegial community, even a sense of solidarity with others for the role of manager of volunteers.
You can go further, by linking on-line with a global network of volunteer organisations, peak bodies, resource directories, research, training programmes, bloggers and newsgroups. There is a virtual spider-web out there to take you as far as you want to go.
The pay-off for being a good networker is:
- personal and professional development
- potential to enhance volunteer contributions to your organisation
- learning new tricks to raise the level of competence (yours, and the volunteers)
There is another trick or two about networking to learn from this definition:
Effective business networking is the linking together of individuals who, through trust and relationship building, become walking, talking advertisements for one another.
Ignore the reference to business. It’s the relationship that matters, being genuine and authentic. And even if you don’t like the reference to ‘advertisements’ think about this in terms of being in the same boat, belonging to a really important professional occupation.
Because great volunteer programmes do not fall out of the sky, and we need to hang in together to ensure the best possible management practice.
Here is a personal testimony supporting informal networking:
For me an invaluable experience is in seeking the opportunity to meet for a chat over a cup of coffee with volunteer managers/coordinators who work in similar organizations. It’s a great way of finding out about what you are doing right, or doing wrong and how you can do things better. But, best of all there is always laughter or grumbles when there has been recognition of circumstances or behaviours that you realize you all share – and then discussion how these issues are best managed!
Or go find on-line discussion groups to see how they can offer instant information, or illuminate an issue and teach you heaps you had never thought about.
Why should networking be important for managers of volunteers?
- Because you are an entrepreneur, a mover-and-shaker (or a pusher-and-shover), in a social enterprise.
- Because you are in the business of community development.
- Which means that in between everything else you are promoting your organisation’s mission as well as attracting volunteers and running a great volunteer programme.
- Because you are a communicator par excellence.
- Because you know your community, and how to tap into community resources.
And if you are thinking “That’s not me” or “I can’t do this!”, take heart from some good advice offered to the introverts among us.
We are not likely to ‘perish’ from a lack of networking skills, but we sure have lots to gain.
October 16, 2011
Being Professional
If last week’s effort has not started you thinking, let me whisper in your ear: what does it mean to ‘be professional’, and how will you know?
I have suggested some pointers already:
- Being trained for the job via a formal qualification
- Knowing about and applying a code of conduct and a code of ethics
- Being open to ongoing learning – via seminars and workshops, and ‘supervision’
These might be important, but not altogether sufficient. What else?
Susan J Ellis has been promoting professionalism in managing volunteers for more than thirty years. In a 1997 Hot Topic she listed her criteria for being professional:
- Professional association
- Collective action
- Literature
- Education
She concluded:
“No one will buy you professional status. You either have it or you don’t. But it is different from competence on the job. It means affiliation with a field and a willingness to work together to build that field.” [My emphasis]
Since then the evidence shows we have struggled to sustain professional associations. Yes, there are plenty of training programmes, yet few managers where I come from are sporting a widely recognised accredited qualification. Collective action? Too often I am hearing about the ‘too busy / no time’ syndrome.
On the plus side, there is a growing accumulation of literature and published research, via (for example) UK’s Institute for Volunteer Research, Volunteering Australia’s Journal on Volunteering. Yet these are more about volunteering than managing and leading volunteers, and much less about ‘being professional’.
I can learn about good practice principles and processes by tapping into websites like Volunteering England’s Good Practice Bank, or the huge catalogue of resources offered by Volunteer Canada. I can follow various electronic newsletters and newsgroups that will keep me informed about the world of managing volunteers. Or I can follow the bloggers, and there are plenty of people out there offering their wisdom or droll perspectives. Maybe we are ‘the very model of a modern major-[manager]’, changing the criteria for a profession to meet the conditions of working in the community and voluntary sectors, and we are demonstrating our affiliation with a field by doing it on-line.
Conditions like the range of job titles, the range of programmes offered (many with specialist interests), the range of responsibilities (size and scope of programme, numbers of volunteers) – all these make for a complexity not usually encountered in other professions. Not to mention being paid or unpaid, employed full-time or part-time, and variations in organisational status.
By my reckoning managers of volunteers are still at the stage of asking questions like Who are we? What do we want? And how do we get there? And then the real question: “Does it matter?”
Well, I have never been one to follow prescriptive advice, but I do believe being professional does matter. Because being professional relates closely to the quality of Volunteer Management: one size prescription of management tasks may not fit all organisations, but the quality of management does!
Of course ‘quality’, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. And it is really difficult in something like managing volunteers, in all its variations, to put parameters around quality.
Here’s my stab at a list of factors critical to quality performance:
- Knowing and understanding and living by one’s beliefs and values – because the original meaning of the verb ‘to profess’ was ‘to declare one’s beliefs and values’. There is an inherent sense of vocation in what we do.
- Knowing about ‘community’, and supporting the collective good of civil society. There are a dozen different terms, and we can learn much about the meaning and practice of communal values from Maori and other indigenous cultures.
- These two points lead to a third: the sharing of knowledge and practice principles with other agencies and organisations. We may not have a
codified body of knowledge like traditional professions, but we are surely keen to share experience and accumulated wisdom with others.
Get these lined up and presto, we have commitment to the field and a willingness to work together.
Earlier this year Susan Ellis laid down a challenge: Leaders of volunteers UNITE! In New Zealand this week there is an opportunity to get involved when the AGM of Australasian Association of Volunteer Administrators takes place. Every month there is a Volunteer Centre or a community collective near you running a workshop or a forum to share information and ideas. Every month there will be somewhere, some sort of training on offer. There is no excuse for remaining isolated or ignorant. There is every encouragement to be proudly professional in our own way.
October 9, 2011
Professional Development
Professional Development is a chestnut that falls from the Management of Volunteers tree every year. It turns up in research, and in workshops and seminars. Yes! say the managers in unison – we want more, and there are a heap of suggested preferences for topics and content, and how this might happen.
There are plenty of provider resources for professional development, on line, and institution-based, for various levels of attainment. Volunteer Centres can offer a year round programme of one-off workshops and seminars. Volunteering New Zealand’s Management of Volunteers Programme is pursuing a learning and development pathway that could initiate a real career option.
Yet Professional Development is not just about acquiring an accredited qualification or a few notches on the belt of ‘training courses attended’. Being professional has a few more responsibilities, as the chestnuts recognise.
Like embracing a code of conduct and a code of ethics. Go here for an outline on professional standards and ethics for managers of volunteers. There are not too many codes of conduct specific to managers of volunteers, and the one I found made no mention of professional development. So I have resorted to a New Zealand version for the social work profession. Right up front you can see the commitment to professional development. ‘Continuous improvement practice skills and knowledge’ is what you do,
and regular supervision is first on the list to get there. Managers of volunteers are telling us they want continuous improvement too.
‘Supervision’ is a tricky word, used particularly by professionals in the human services field, like counsellors, psychologists – and social workers – and most recently taken up by the nursing profession. ‘Supervision’ is certainly not that part of your job where your boss reviews your performance. Nor is it about ‘supervising volunteers’.
Think about ‘supervision’ as your personal time to focus on what you do as a manager of volunteers, how you do it, and what you want to do better, and why.
There is a continuum of models for ‘supervision’ practice. You can enjoy 1:1 supervision, or group supervision, or peer supervision. Or apply the same formats to ‘mentoring’. Or go for ‘coaching’. Never mind the words – go find out more here, and here, and here.
Back in 2010 Managers Matter research reported the importance attached by managers of volunteers to external support: mentor/external supervision (25%), local volunteer centre (25%) and Volunteering New Zealand (13%). [Table 15, p33] The researchers noted the following: Only 3% of respondents mention seeking support from other similar organisations, suggesting the potential of improving networking between organisations in the sector.
Picking pieces out of a very important piece of research is not always constructive, but I have to put this information alongside informal evidence of managers of volunteers clamouring for ‘professional development’ and ‘networking’.
Trouble is, ‘networking’ does not come to me – I have to get out and engage with others. Volunteer Centres will help, but they can’t do everything for me.
Trouble is, we are beset by the “too busy/no time” syndrome.
Trouble is, supervision / mentoring / coaching can come with professional fees.
If the organisation baulks at the cost or does not have a HR policy on professional development then go for self-directed peer groups (which could be a way to build on networking). Peer supervision or mentoring is not to be taken lightly – they need to offer more than a cosy chat. There are various process models, which work best when there has been some introductory training.
The thing is, this business of professional development is not just about personal career development. There are gains for all the volunteers and for the people they work with, for the mission of the organisation, and specially for setting and maintaining standards in management of volunteers. You want a first-class volunteer programme? Go look for Professional Development, via formal qualifications and / or mentoring.
November 7, 2010
Lace-Making
A long time ago I watched my grandmother tatting lacy doilies and place-mats. She used a small shuttle that wove in and out of her fingers with the speed and dexterity of much practice. It was a domestic craft I never accomplished, though it seems there is a global revival movement in progress.
Like knitting, embroidery, weaving and tapestry, tatting is an art that takes a thread to create something else, something larger and more complex than the original material.
So it is with ‘networking’, a word much favoured these days. ‘Networking’ crops up in many different contexts. Telecommunications is a big one – all that electronic interconnection, and the sub-systems of multi-media transmission and reception accomplished through Broadband. And we can’t get enough of it. ‘Networking’ is also a favourite tool for the public relations industry, and aspiring politicos and business executives.
‘Networking’ is high on the list of must-do’s for managers of volunteers. Here are a few examples of the advantages of making connections and interacting with other managers and organisations:
- In a meeting of trust and confidentiality you can let off a bit of steam
- Sharing experiences and concerns is also a forum for learning more about the art of managing volunteers
- Take this a step further and you can form a group for peer mentoring or professional supervision
- The business of being creative and innovative as a manager of volunteers demands a community development approach, and you cannot do this without being involved and closely connected with your local community.
- Networking is a two-way street – there are mutual benefits for your organisation and your community, like in recruiting volunteers, learning about trends, finding new opportunities for development.
- And when you sign up to newsletters, email groups, blogs or face-book you are getting linked with the wider world, connecting with a global community as well as an information highway.
Last Friday there was a flurry of lace-making, locally and globally. The International Day for Managers of Volunteers brought people together in small-town communities and clusters in the cities. Supporting messages from politicians and civic dignitaries were published. Events were recorded on a global website (http://www.volunteermanagersday.org/), and a face-book page introduced regular updates and encouragement.
What we produced on this day was a classic piece of tatting, the whorls of delicate circles, linked with each other.
There are connections within connections. There are nuclei that spread to connect with others, a bit like the biochemistry of the central nervous system, stimuli that spark off each other. So the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
IMV Day can be an annual one-day wonder, or it can be the start of something that pushes Management of Volunteers into a work of art, for volunteers and for their organisations. All it takes is a thread or two and the connections can last a lifetime, like my grandmother’s lacy doilies.
