Auxiliaries/Friends Groups

Teens, Texting and Ten Dollars: A Volunteer Project for Today

Margaret Kirk PhotoHow can texting a friend raise significant funds to help patients and families who are battling brain tumors? The answer is simple for Judy Zocchi and Olivia Questore, the two driving forces behind “Text for 10,” a unique fundraising event to benefit Monmouth Medical Center’s Davis S. Zocchi Brain Tumor Center in Long Beach, New Jersey.

In 2007, Zocchi had just learned to text. Questore, like all teens and tweens today, could nimbly text like the best of them. And both shared the experience of losing a loved one to a brain tumor. So Zocchi, the CEO of a multi-media company, and Questore, then a middle school student, created an innovative fundraiser – one that has been repeated every year since.

e-Volunteerism Senior Editor Margaret O. Kirk interviews both Zocchi and Questore for this story, which presents their creative, replicable idea and probes the volunteer management challenges that both faced in this inter-generational, modern media effort.

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What Volunteers Do to Each Other Is Not Always Pretty

As we’ve often noted, the most frequently-requested topic for a workshop that any volunteer management trainer receives has always been, and continues to be, employee/volunteer relationships. The tension between paid and unpaid staff surfaces in all types of organizations and settings, and program leaders want to find ways to develop effective teamwork.

Less often discussed, but just as prevalent, is conflict in volunteer-to-volunteer relationships. This can express itself in various ways, from long-time volunteers being less than welcoming to newcomers; to generational, ethnic or cultural groups that don’t mix with others; to “true believers” versus those who are “just helping.” The truth is that volunteers do not automatically work well together or even like each other. It’s up to us to foster good relationships among volunteers just as we seek to assure teamwork between volunteers and paid staff.

In this “Points of View,” Susan and Steve discuss the consequences of volunteer-to-volunteer tension, why you neglect such relationships at your peril, and how to assess if you are helping or hindering volunteer unity.

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