Acronym

Hi Joe!

You don't have to be an introvert to feel like skipping a volunteer opportunity where you don't know anyone.

People make decisions based on emotion and justified by logic.

If I don't feel welcome, I'm less likely to show up.

Associations can help shift this by having an active on-boarding and/or welcome process.

Chapters who have embraced having host teams find a lot of success. Hosts are people who work the room - not just say, "Nice to meet you and good luck!" at the door.

These folks have stickers or something on namebadges or bodies to identify them as hosts.

The other trick is to promote the host team to potential attendees. "If you don't know anyone, that's okay. We've got a team of hosts ready to welcome you and help you meet others."

The hosts are trained to welcome and assist anyone standing by themselves.

Another group who can have a hard time coming back because they feel like they don't know anyone is formerly active volunteers. They may have even served in leadership somehow. If it's been a while and active membership has churned, they too may know few people and feel awkward.

The importance of a warm and welcoming environment includes and goes way beyond just introverts.

It's a must-pay-attention-to kind of issue for any association that wants to grow and keep their volunteer base!

I think we need to reframe the way many organizations current view volunteers. They see it as something that only “some people” may do. But as The Decision to Volunteer noted, many members say they are volunteering in ways beyond how the board often defines volunteer involvement (positions, formal service, etc.).

What if we began to think of volunteering as something everyone should do because it is one of the most significant ways to build a strong professional network, to connect more to the professional community in general, and to receive more value from being a member? That’s how most highly engaged volunteers would describe their experience: you get more when you give more.

If we start with this premise: everyone will want to (or should want to) volunteer, we would enact a very different method of invitation and engagement. The membership application would solicit your volunteer interests and the talents and time you have available to contribute. You’d be contacted personally within a set time (say 5 business days) to extend an invitation to contribute. We’d look for more real-time micro-volunteering opportunities during major events like annual meetings. In short, we would organize the enterprise for 100% volunteering.

Would we achieve it? Probably not. But in creating the system to enable and support it, we would most likely diversify the number and perspectives of people volunteering and the ways in which they contribute.

And we could also more intentionally engage non-members in connecting with and contributing to the community in limited, ad hoc, volunteer responsibilities as a means of diversifying our membership recruitment efforts and results. “Come initially to contribute to an issue you care about. Then join and stay for the community and content.

If we want to achieve radically different results, then we need to start with radically different premises and assumptions. I’m sure others will have ideas beyond the ones I’ve suggested above.

Thanks Cynthia and Jeffrey.

Cynthia, I love your suggestions on ways to create a welcoming atmosphere for volunteers. Those are all fairly small gestures that will have a broad and immediate impact. I also like that creating a welcoming atmosphere is a purposeful, tangible role. I think the habit many groups fall into is thinking "We're a fun, happy group of people. Who wouldn't love us as soon as they walk in the door?" And then they just trust that new group members will be absorbed organically, but it just doesn't happen that way. These ideas of yours acknowledge that and aim to overcome it.

Jeffrey, that idea sounds like it belonged in our big ideas month here on Acronym a long while back. Aiming for 100% volunteerism at an association is a very different way to think about volunteering. It redefines what it means to be a member of an association. In fact, I think you'd throw out the term member altogether. If everyone is expected to volunteer, then all joiners of the organization should be called volunteers, not just members. You'd also have to broaden the definition of volunteering, as you mention, to include all variety of involvement activities, large and small. To get sustained buy-in, I think you'd also have to build a way to thoroughly monitor and record volunteer activities, akin to the member engagement scoring systems that some associations are adopting. That would help reward volunteering, especially the small roles, and help illustrate how everyone's contributions add up to better the community.

And with everyone volunteering, no one could say they didn't know anyone who volunteers with your organization, so it solves that other problem, too!

Jeffrey's idea is a great one - and makes me think if perhaps part of the change we have to make is in terminology.

A volunteer is someone who is giving of their time to help complete a task or work on an activity. Whether they are doing so because a friend asked, passion for the cause or to build experience and contacts the volunteer tagline is still one related to a job at hand or committee to advise.

If the premise we are discussing is having every customer who joins as a member become involved as a volunteer, then we want to frame their involvement in a way that is not temporal or related to an activity or task. I believe what we want is ongoing contribtion as we hope their involvement and affiliation continues throughout the life of their career.

Associations that can take an individual member and make them feel part of a larger community see those members stay involved longer and contribute more. To be part of a community is a two way relationship of what the community provides for a member in connections, tools and sense of belonging and how each member in turn adds their own knowledge, background and efforts to make the community a more vibrant and rich micro-society.

Therefore, perhaps instead of volunteers each member is a community contributor. There can be community builders that lead the committees, but in the end everyone is a part of the whole, and without their contribution and involvement that whole is smaller than it could be. In this way associations are not looking for volunteers to fill tasks, but are demonstrating to each individual member their importance to the group/association.

If everyone has something to give, then everyone can be a community contributor. Members are not customers who pay dues, but are professionals who are better for the community they belong to and who make their profession better for what they contribute to that community.

Much as Jeffrey said, perhaps this is all theoretical and ideal - but if associations can provide a sense of belonging upon joining, a sense of ownership through contribution and a sense of strength through involvement perhaps the questions of why join or why volunteer would be easier to answer.

Lowell said"

If associations can provide a sense of belonging upon joining, a sense of ownership through contribution and a sense of strength through involvement perhaps the questions of why join or why volunteer would be easier to answer.

Bingo. We need an informal group to get together and hack the current volunteer model, fleshing out what this 100% contribution approach could look like in practical action. Could be a cool chance for ASAE to experiment with something like http://www.ideascale.com.

Joe,

One of the primary functions of a volunteer-powered association is to act as a facilitator - a conduit between the group and various external organizations. Their job is to represent the industry and to link all these different people groups together. Why can’t they do the same thing with their volunteers? I definitely agree that outreach to different groups is essential to avoid the 'Catch-22' type pitfalls of volunteer recruitment, but the onus shouldn’t completely fall on the volunteers themselves to do all of the outreach. Associations already have the expertise and tools at their disposal for just this sort of thing.

-Ann