For Volunteers Themselves

One of the most powerful things a volunteer can do is see a need and start trying to meet it. With enough passion and hard work, that initial maverick will attract other volunteers to the cause and a worthy organization will emerge and grow. That evolution might expand over time to raising money, hiring staff, and moving volunteers to governing boards and service-assisting positions. That’s the history of most of the institutions and organizations we take for granted today.

In this article, we introduce Stephanie Myers, a recent MPA (Masters in Public Administration) graduate at Villanova University in Villanova, PA. As readers soon learn, Myers is a decidedly determined young woman who is taking steps to try and change the world through her role as a volunteer and her dedication to a cause: the unrecognized – and therefore untreated – mental health issues among student athletes. To address these issues, Myers founded Mind4Athletes, Inc. (M4A), an organization so new that it doesn’t even have a Web site yet. In this article, we get to know Myers and her work, and discuss why and how she decided to form M4A.

In future stories published over the next months and years, we’ll revisit Myers and M4A to see how things are going. We hope this shared journey will give our volunteer management readers insight into how to support mavericks, Millennials, and dreamers like Myers.   

Always looking to share innovative ideas with our readers, this issue highlights a new American initiative called Voolla, which calls itself “the new way to give…turning volunteer skills into money for charities.” In this feature story Q&A, Stephanie Downs, founder and “chief volunteer” of Voolla, shares her story and her concept. As Downs explains, Voolla matches volunteers, their skills and their expertise with individuals or companies who need that assistance and are willing to pay for it with cash. While the transaction itself is a commercial one, the volunteer never sees the money. The customer actually pays the agreed-upon fee to Voolla and, once the service is completed, the money is donated to a charity chosen by the customer or by the volunteer or both.

The Voolla concept meshes perfectly with an idea that our late editor emeritus, Ivan H. Scheier, first proposed in his book, When Everyone’s a Volunteer, back in the 1990s. Scheier called it “time tithing” – and maybe, after two decades, its time has come. This feature story helps readers learn more about this innovative initiative and how their organizations can use it. 

It’s a challenge that leaders of volunteers have always faced: how to retain productive volunteers. According to Volunteering in America 2008, one in three American volunteers dropped out in 2007, and this lack of retention can be costly. True, some turnover is expected and even projected. Oftentimes though, good volunteers are lost because of exceedingly preventable reasons. In addition to general retention issues, burnout is often cited as a reason for volunteer attrition. Volunteer resources managers would benefit from understanding the causes of burnout; ways to mitigate and prevent burnout; and how to identify burnout in their unpaid staff members.

This issue of Along the Web can help volunteer resources managers maintain a strong volunteer base. Written by Erick C. Lear, it begins with general information regarding volunteer retention, includes academic literature on the subject, and then offers specific suggestions and strategies for improving retention and preventing burnout among volunteers. Finally, threeunique self-tests are included to help volunteer managers identify those volunteers who may be at risk of burnout. 

The expression “work-life balance” was first used in the UK in the late 1970s to help explain the unhealthy life choices that many people were making. According to one definition, people “were choosing to neglect other important areas of their lives such as family, friends, and hobbies in favour of work-related chores and goals.” In the 30 years since there has been research and discussion around the topic of work-life balance, taking on increased importance as the pace of life in developed countries becomes faster and faster.

As a volunteer manager, have you ever explored how volunteering fits into the balance of the lives of your team?  Many people talk about their lives as a ‘juggling act,’ in which they feel pulled in many directions by the demands of paid work, family care, community involvement, physical fitness and emotional health. Whether volunteers or employees, not all people have appropriate balance or clearly established boundaries in their lives. This Training Design is an opportunity to explore how the work-life balance of volunteers impacts your organisation.

If you watched the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, you no doubt recall the “blue jackets” – the 25,000 passionate, talented and dedicated members of the Olympic volunteer team who worked at every event and venue leading up to, during and following the Games. In this e-Volunteerism feature, Olympic volunteer Olga Pazukha takes us behind the scenes at the Olympics in Vancouver and describes what it’s like to volunteer at one of the largest and most-watched events in the world. Pazukha shares her enthusiasm about her volunteer experiences and also casts a critical eye on what can be learned from the things that needed improvement.

During this economic downturn, volunteer experience and accomplishments may be pivotal to getting a foot in the door for a paid job interview.  It's important that volunteers know how to present relevant volunteer experience in a "business light" on a resume — whether it's a student seeking that first real job, a retiree looking for part-time work or someone actively job hunting after a layoff. In this e-Volunteerism feature story, we review resume recommendations and four resume examples to see how job seekers incorporate their volunteer experiences into stronger resumes.

A never-before published draft excerpt from Carol Weisman’s upcoming book, Raising Charitable Children: Kids Who Give as Good as They Get (anticipated for publication in late 2005). The chapter previewed here explains the concept – and how-to’s – of a “Joy and Sadness Meeting” as a technique of helping parents and children discover the possible causes on which to focus their charitable attention. The written material is accompanied by an audio interview with Carol, as she shares three real-life examples of how to encourage family philanthropy.

Hong Kong has a long history of developing volunteer services. People from all walks of life are familiar with the concept of volunteerism while a wide variety of specific volunteer opportunities have been opening up, ranging from management roles to the execution of specific projects and tasks. The quality of volunteers and the sustainability of volunteer participation have become significant concerns within many volunteer organizations. It is expected that volunteers shall be well trained and equipped with adequate knowledge and appropriate skills to serve the needy. Further, it is believed that the enhancement of volunteer competencies and increased job satisfaction will lead to a higher commitment to volunteering.

The Agency for Volunteer Service (AVS) maintains a pool of over 10,000 volunteers and, in order to address some of these issues, established its Volunteer Training and Development Centre in 2003. A new initiative of the Centre is the “VQ Sustainable Training Scheme,“ promoting “Volunteer Quotient towards Volunteer Quality” – an attempt to provide progressive training to enhance the quality of AVS volunteers as well as to sustain their commitment to and aspiration of helping others.

This article provides an overview of what VQ is, how the training is structured, the three levels of achievement, who is being trained and who is doing the training, and other elements of the pilot project underway.