Good Deeds to find love: a new take on volunteering

This post is the latest in our (very) occasional series of guest articles. Hannah Whitehead is our contributor this time. I met with Hannah in early September, intrigued by her organisation, Good Deed Dating, I invited Hannah to explain the concept for the readers of the Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd blog and that's just what she does here.

Enjoy.

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As volunteer managers, we are all on the lookout for exciting and innovative ways to engage new audiences in our volunteering opportunities.  It’s a constant battle between getting the core work achieved and providing people with one off, commitment-free opportunities.

The challenge

What people want is an easy way to volunteer.  We all know that.  We’re not talking about the incredible volunteers who keep us all going on a day to day basis; those stalwarts who have volunteered every Tuesday morning since 1994. 

We’re talking about those people who would never volunteer.  The word doesn’t even enter their vocabulary.  They don’t want to commit, they don’t want to fill out endless forms, and they think opportunities are going to be boring or only available while they’re at work. 

And here’s the problem for volunteer managers: none of that suits our needs.  Not only do we have to make time and space to run these special activities, we also have to recruit the volunteers.

So what does that mean?  You end up with a team of volunteers who are dependable and reliable, yes.  But where are your new members and supporters going to come from next year, and the year after that? 

We need to find exciting ways to pull in that next generation of supporters. We have to start listening to those people who don’t volunteer.  Why aren’t they volunteering?  Just because they don’t do it now, doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t.  We just need to give them the incentive and an easy way to dip their toe in.

It was exactly these challenges that I was facing as a volunteer manager, which spurred me on to create a social enterprise that would not only support charities to access that tricky non-comital audience, but more importantly, engage them on a level that would speak to their needs and interests. 

Enter Good Deed Dating

Good Deed Dating works with charities in London to co-ordinate volunteering events for single people.  We combine good deeds with great dates; providing single Londoners with the chance to meet someone who shares their values whilst they do something positive with their spare time. 

Our website provides information on our brand and our story.  It also showcases the work of our charity partners with their own profile pages.  Our customers can purchase their subscription and set up their account details.  The main element of our website is our events page which lists all the upcoming Good Deed Dates, where people can purchase tickets.

But how did it all happen? 

One morning last year I was reading an article entitled “Forget Tinder, Volunteer Instead”, scoffing to myself, “of course volunteering is an amazing way to meet people, everyone knows that”.  When it dawned on me that although those of us who work in the third sector know that volunteering holds the power to introduce likeminded people to each other, the rest of the world might not think that way.  Volunteering is still seen as a selfless act where you give and you don’t get.  When in fact, we all know that volunteering should always be a mutually beneficial process where you gain as much as you give.  All I needed to do was to re-brand volunteering as something appealing and relevant to single people.

For starters, don’t call it “volunteering”, call it “a good deed”.  Stop talking about “volunteers”, our customers are called “Deeders”.  Make it all about meeting people, doing something fun and getting out there.  What you end up with is the good deed being seen as a by-product of the date.  Imagine that, volunteers who want something out of their experience.

The result is a group of people engaged in your charity, who would never have been involved otherwise, and you, the charity, have three or four hours of golden time to convince them that your cause is the one they should support.  This is your opportunity to engage the next generation of your supporters, on their level and at their pace.

Following a significant amount of market research and several focus groups, the idea of Good Deed Dating became a reality.  We launched our website in June 2016 and have been blown away by the response.  People love the idea.  We’ve found that over 70% of our Deeders wouldn’t have considered themselves a volunteer before their first date.  And when asked whether their experience of a Good Deed Date has encouraged them to continue their involvement with the charity hosting their event, over 85% said yes.

Our success so far has led to significant seed investment recently and the expansion of the team at GDD HQ.  We will soon be looking to diversify our offer, developing new products and services.  We are looking forward to running events for LGBT groups very soon too.  There is so much potential for our events to expand to include charities outside London or even the UK.

Moving forward:

For me it’s all about looking at volunteering from a different angle and modernising the way we engage people.  What else can you offer?  What are they going to get out of it?  That feel-good factor just isn’t enough anymore! 

Think about the millions of people out there who don’t volunteer.  Let’s aim for them!

Hannah Whitehead, Founder and CEO of Good Deed Dating

We are always happy to hear from charities who are keen to get involved with Good Deed Dating.  Check out our website: www.gooddeeddating.co.uk to find out more, or get in touch to chat about how we might be able to work together.  Email us: hello@gooddeeddating.co.uk.

Three key steps to developing meaningful volunteer roles

“Attempting to recruit volunteers without first having developed worthwhile positions to offer them is equivalent to attempting to sell a product to people who have no need for it.  It can be done, but the buyer may well become unhappy later.  And when volunteers are unhappy, they don’t stay around long.” Steve McCurley, Rick Lynch and Rob Jackson, The Complete Volunteer Management Handbook (2012)

Developing roles for volunteers is one of the aspects of working with volunteers that those leading and managing them sometimes spend the least amount of time on. Despite the fact that we know we pay with volunteers with meaning, not money, many of us can skimp on the investment of time needed to craft really meaningful and motivating roles that will deliver a great volunteer experience. Instead, under pressure to get volunteers recruited and put to work, we develop roles geared around lists of uninspiring sounding tasks, often using a similar format to a paid role’s job description.

This is why the Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd course on Developing Meaningful Roles for Volunteers continues to be popular. The course gives participants a chance to step back, explore volunteer role design afresh and actually work on creating a new role to help them in their work.

Here are three quick insights that might help you improve your volunteer roles.

1. When talking to colleagues in order to identify new ways volunteers can help them in their work, do not ask, “What do you think volunteers can / could / should do to help?”. As soon as you ask this question people censor their responses based on their past experiences or prejudices about volunteers. So if your colleague thinks volunteers will be unreliable they will not suggest a role where reliability is important. Instead, work with colleagues to identify what their work actually involves, ideally in as much detail as possible. Then work with them to suggest ways volunteers could contribute their skills, talents and experience to get that work done.

2. Games are fun activities people enjoy playing. People like spending time and effort playing and getting good at games. There are four elements present in all games that we should make sure are also present in our volunteer roles so that people will like spending their time and effort doing the volunteer work. First, ownership - does the volunteer feel they own their role and the work within it? Second, responsibility for results - is the volunteer held responsible for actually achieving something in the course of their volunteering (remember, people want to make a difference). Third, authority to think - is the volunteer controlled and micro-managed or are they actually allowed to use their own brains to figure out the best way to get the role done, perhaps bringing new ideas and insights to the work? Fourth, keeping score - does the volunteer know how they are doing and whether they are making progress towards that difference they (and you) want to make?

3. Don’t use the typical task-oriented paid staff job description format for volunteer roles. Why? Here’s a quick question for you - when did you last pull out your job description, look at it and get really excited by what it contain, so much so that you can’t wait to get to work tomorrow? If you’re like most people, you probably haven’t looked at your job description since you were recruited or had your last annual appraisal. Why then do we think that format will inspire volunteers, people who we need to remain passionate about our work so we can re-recruit them everyday whilst meeting their motivational paycheque? Instead, think about constructing volunteer role descriptions around the results you want volunteers to achieve, giving space for people to develop their own ideas about how to do things rather than just doing a list of uninspiring tasks.

So, over to you. What are your top tips for developing meaningful volunteer roles? Please leave a comment below and share your insights with us and with your colleagues in the field.

If you’d like to know more about this topic and get further details on the Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd course on Developing Meaningful Roles for Volunteers please contact Rob direct by email or call +44 (0)7557 419 074.

Influencer marketing and volunteer recruitment

I am a regular reader of the Buffer Blog. Produced by social media scheduling company Buffer, the blog regularly shares practical, inspiring content about social media, a key marketing tool in our 21st century world.

Social media is a topic I train and write on regularly. It’s a subject I find many people who lead and manage volunteers can be uncertain about or even afraid of. Yet, whilst it won’t completely replace more traditional ways to promote volunteering in our organisations, it is an increasingly important way to reach out to people, and not just those under the age of 30 - some of the biggest growth in social networks like Facebook is from those aged 50 and above.

So I want to share with you an excellent recent Buffer blog post by Ash Read on Influencer Marketing.

Ash starts the blog post by arguing that marketing is essentially about the spread of ideas. In volunteering terms this means we want to spread that idea that people should volunteer for a given cause or organisation. This is what Ash says [with some contextualising for volunteering from me]:

“Success in marketing often comes down to one simple concept: getting your ideas [that people should volunteer with you] to spread. Traditionally, mass-media adverting is the go-to way to spread ideas. Here’s how it works (in theory): you buy some ads, put those ads in front of your audience [potential volunteers], and that’s how your idea spreads. The problem with this approach is that we live in a time where choice is abundant and time is sparse. Consumers [potential volunteers] are spoiled for choice when it comes to what to spend their money [time in our context] on and have too little time to consume content and engage with adverts. What this means is that most advertising is just ignored.”

Just read that last line again.

Most advertising is ignored!

That means those recruitment posters and leaflets you lovingly crafted to. It means that swanky new TV or radio campaign your organisation has spent a small fortune on to get people to volunteer or donate money. They aren’t simply dismissed but ignored altogether.

So what do we do instead?

As Ash’s points out, we’re more likely to buy a product if it’s recommended by a friend than pushed at us by an advert. In volunteering parlance that’s word of mouth.

We’ve always known that word of mouth is one of the most powerful forms of volunteer recruitment. Simply put, if I have a great volunteering experience then I want to tell others about that. So I share enthusiastically with friends and family and encourage them to get involved so they can enjoy the volunteering experience too.

Social media, as Erik Qualman puts it in his book Socialnomics, is word of mouth on digital steroids. Or, another way he puts it: word of mouth to world of mouth.

Think of it like this: when I share my great volunteering experience with friends and family, that includes posting about it on social media. My friends (all around the world!) see this. Some will like or react to it. Some will share it. Either way word spreads about how great volunteering with that organisation is without the organisation doing anything other than delivering a great experience and perhaps encouraging me to tell my friends.

Now you may be sceptical about the idea that anyone - especially a stranger who might happen across my social media post via a friend who shared it - would respond to my enthusiastic posting by enquiring to volunteer at the same organisation. But why not? As Ash points out in his article, “92% of consumers trust recommendations from other people—even if they don’t know them personally—over promotional content that comes directly from brands.”

Just think for a minute about when you’ve bought something online. You probably read a review online, for example from someone on Amazon or TripAdvisor who also bought that book or CD or booked that hotel or ate at that restaurant. Did their review sway you to go ahead with your purchase or not? The answer is probably yes. Did you personally know them? The answer is probably no. So if our online buying decisions are influenced by someone we don’t know why wouldn’t someone trust my enthusiastic review of volunteering and want to get involved themselves?

Back to Ash’s blog post - what then is influencer marketing? Simply put, it’s word of mouth but focused through someone who will be an influencer to that audience. So if you want to more young people to volunteer with your organisation you find someone who has influence within this group to share your volunteer recruitment message on social media. That doesn’t have to be a member of One Direction but someone who has influence within their peer group, for example another young person. As Ash puts it, “influencers act as a mutual friend connecting your brand with your target consumers”.

Ash’s post goes on to explain more about influencer marketing in his blog post which I encourage you to read and reflect on. I’d also love to hear your thoughts about this topic and how we can apply the concepts of influencer marketing to volunteer management.

Over to you.

Please, no more research into volunteer motivation

Just the other day I was browsing volunteer management stories online and came across an article published by ProBono Australia entitled, “QLD to investigate volunteer numbers”.

To put the article in context, earlier this year the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported the first ever drop in the numbers of people volunteering in Australia: 31 per cent of Australians volunteered compared to 36 per cent just four years ago[1].

In response to this decline, the recent ProBono Australia article states that:

Researchers at Cancer Council Queensland and Griffith University have received a $220,000 Australian Research Council grant to improve understanding of motivations for volunteering. Cancer Council Queensland CEO and lead researcher Professor Jeff Dunn AO said the study could help to improve social and economic well-being by stimulating volunteering.

This grant is one of only nine awarded the ARC Linkage Grant nationally (in Australia) in the field of psychology, and one of two in Queensland.

Professor Dunn is quoted as saying:

“Not for Profits such as Cancer Council Queensland rely heavily on volunteers to carry out work in cancer control, ensuring the delivery of vital community services and fundraising events - which is why it’s imperative we invest time and research into this area.”

“Our aim is to address knowledge gaps about short-term volunteering, to improve uptake of regular volunteering, and to evaluate the economic and social impacts of volunteering."

“It is critical that we understand how we can make short-term volunteering a satisfying experience to encourage longer-term relationships."

“The findings will inform recommendations for sectoral policy and practice on volunteering.”

“At the moment, little is known about why people take up volunteering, and the factors that inspire them to volunteer on a short or long-term basis."

I think these aims are laudable ones. Much more work needs to be done to develop better ways of measuring the impact of volunteering. Research that helps Volunteer Managers and volunteer involving organisations transition people from shorter-term to longer-term (i.e. regular) volunteering is also needed. Both are topics I have blogged about before[2].

However, I do have a major issue with that last quote from Prof Dunn, “At the moment, little is known about why people take up volunteering, and the factors that inspire them to volunteer on a short or long-term basis."

What, you mean like these studies and articles?

• Developing the Volunteer Motivation Inventory to Assess the Underlying Motivational Drives of Volunteers in Western Australia
• Helping others, helping ourselves
• Want better volunteers? Understand their motivation
• Understanding and Assessing the Motivations of Volunteers: A Functional Approach
• An analysis of volunteer motivation: implications for international development, VAJ 2008 (Vol 9, number 1)

Or perhaps Prof Dunn means the 260,000 search results from Google Scholar when you type in “volunteer motivation research”!?

The fact is that the motivation of people to volunteer is the most over-researched topic in volunteering research. In my opinion it also one of the least helpful areas of research to help Volunteer Managers in their day-to-day work. Why? Because such studies are so generic they actually help you when you have a mix of people wanting to give time all of whom have differing motivations and interests.

As Susan J Ellis says:

“I question the relevance of the question why do people volunteer?; when asked generically. Too many studies (not only those on motivation, I might add) approach volunteers as if they are indistinguishable from one another and are interchangeable parts of some monolith. After all, do we think it’s interesting to ask, why do people take paying jobs?”

I firmly believe that all anyone needs to know about volunteer motivation can be summed up in five points:

1. Every person’s motivational mix is different
2. Every person’s motivation mix changes
3. Every person has a differing mix of altruistic and egoistic reasons for volunteering
4. Nobody wants to have their time wasted, not matter how little or how much they give
5. Everybody who volunteers wants to make a difference

So please researchers, no more studies on motivation.

Please funders, no more giving significant amounts of money to study topics that have been explored to death already.

Instead, I encourage anyone who wants to do some academic research on volunteering to take a look at this blog post by Susan J Ellis from 1998 and the associated article Susan wrote for the Journal of Voluntary Action Research back in 1985!

I’ll end with three questions for you to consider and respond via the comments below:

1. What research questions would you like to see studied?
2. If you could communicate with academics, what would you want them to know that would be helpful to you?
3. Have you read any studies that you were able to apply to your work?

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1. For an excellent analysis of the decline and what it might mean for volunteering in Australia take a look at Volunteering Tasmania CEO, Adrienne Piccone’s, excellent blog post, “Is the decline in volunteering cause for panic?”.  ↩

2. See these three blog posts for example: Five things I’d like to say about calculating the economic value of volunteering; Volunteering: measuring what counts; and Short-term thinking on long-term volunteering.  ↩

Five tips for recruiting volunteers

Regular readers will know I mainly use this blog to look at topical or important issues facing the volunteering field. Every now and again I like to throw in a more practical, how to, post so here are five top tips when it comes to recruiting volunteers.

1. Target

A big mistake people make is to recruit by indicating that anyone could do the role you want volunteers for. This is sometimes called warm-body recruitment because the message put out is that anyone can volunteer, so long as they are alive.

It’s a technique that can work but is only really appropriate for roles where really the only criteria for being a good volunteer is you have a pulse. For any other roles, target, target, target.

Here are some questions to ask:

• What do you want the volunteer to do? It’s a question that’s often ignored or very little time gets spent on it. Make sure you give proper attention to the work you want volunteers to do so you can answer the next question.

• Who would be the ideal volunteer for this role? If you need a driver, then you want people who can drive and who probably have a clean licence. Maybe they also need access to a car. If the driving is to collect furniture for a charity shop then the person probably also needs to be fit and healthy to cope with the lifting. Get as a specific as possible. Avoid saying, anyone can do it. That may be the case but if you segment that broad audience into categories you will be better placed to answer the final question.

• Where are you likely to find them? Avoid the old staples like advertising in doctors’ surgeries and libraries unless you think the ideal volunteer is likely to be found there. To continue our driver example, why would you want a driver who’s at the doctors or think you’ll find drivers hanging out at the library? Where might you find fit and healthy drivers? If you need them during the day, where might they be?

2. Ask

Once you’ve got your target group identified, do not forget to actually ask them. Sounds stupid I know but research consistently shows that people who don’t volunteer feel like they haven’t been asked to give time.

Ask, ask, ask.

Keeping asking.

And when you’re done, ask some more.

Don’t just recruit a couple of times a year. I may see that recruitment call but not be available then. Three months later when I can give you some time you’re not asking and I’ve forgotten you ever did.

3. Sell

Please, no adverts for volunteers that say, “Help! We need volunteers”, or “Help! We urgently need volunteers”. That is all too common an approach and it stands out from all others forms of advertising which explain how buying a product will make us fitter, happier, healthier, more attractive etc..

Sell your volunteer opportunity like a business would sell its products. Focus on the benefits of someone volunteering, not the features. When we buy something we don’t just look at what it can do but how it will help us. Same with volunteering - show people how volunteering will meet their needs not just tell them what they will do or how desperate your are for help.

Oh and please don’t say “Make A Difference” when recruiting. Everyone says that. Why would I make more of a difference with your volunteer programme than someone else’s? If you want to say your volunteers will make a difference then say what difference they will make and how it will be of benefit to them.

4. Respond

At this point nobody has actually become a volunteer. All you’ve done it clarify what needs doing, who would be the ideal person to do that and communicated your offer to them. Hopefully people will respond. Hopefully the ‘right’ people will respond, saving you countless hours wading through unsuitable applications.

What happens when they do?

Do they get a speedy response (including outside usual working hours) thanking them for their interest in volunteering, explaining the next steps and being clear about timeframes? Or do they hear nothing as their enquiry vanishes into an over-full inbox until someone get rounds to responding, maybe a week or two down the line? Do they get a friendly voice on the phone or might a disinterested colleague answer who doesn’t even know about the organisation’s need for volunteers?

Far too many times potential volunteers get the disinterested colleague or the wait for days for an email reply. Volunteer Managers then claim nobody wants to volunteer or it’s getting harder to recruit.

Put simply, if you are going to ask for some of people’s precious spare time make absolutely sure you have the capacity to provide great customer service[1] to them when they do get in touch. Make use of simple tools like out of office email and voicemail messages so people instantly know when you’ll reply. Check out volunteer management software that can automatically email people who apply with a welcome message - we recommend Better Impact.

5. Scale of engagement

The days of people signing up to regular, long-term volunteering on day one are pretty much gone. People don’t thrill to that kind of commitment anymore. This is often misinterpreted as the days of long-term, committed volunteering being over.

I disagree.

We can get people to make the kind of regular commitments we want but we have to be patient and plan for it. We offer a scale of engagement, with regular, committed, long-term volunteering at one end and shorter term, bite-sized, easy to access opportunities at the other. We then start them at the easy end and, as we get to know them, we try and encourage them up the scale. It may take weeks, months or even years but some of the volunteers will climb the scale to give you the committed service you desire.

By the way, this approach can also be great if your volunteers have to be DBS / criminal record checked before they start volunteering. If you have some quick, easy, time limited opportunities available they can get stuck into those whilst the result of the check is awaited.

So, there you have it, five quick tips on recruiting volunteers.

If you’d like to get better at volunteer recruitment then Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd can help. Get in touch today for more information.

Now it’s over to you. What are your top tips? Please share them below.

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1. For more thoughts on customer service and volunteer management take a look at my previous blogs on the topic. You might also want to read more of my writing on recruitment.  ↩

Three lessons for volunteer programmes from customer service

Dan, a colleague of mine at the volunteer management software provider, Better Impact, recently recommended a new blog to follow called "Win The Customer". Initial impressions have been good so I've added it to my already lengthy list of blogs I follow.

Here I want to share one early highlight, a post entitled Three Retail Experience Trends That Will Change Your Service Approach.

I highly recommend reading this article before you go any further with my post as I want to highlight three parallels for leaders and manages of volunteers. So, off you go and I'll see you back here in a couple of minutes.

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Right, I hope you liked that. Here's my thoughts on three applications of those lessons for us in our work with volunteers.

The Rise Of The Mobile Wallet

In retail the use of mobile devices as a method of payment seems to be growing. How is is or could this be manifesting in volunteer management?

Well, online searching for volunteer opportunities is nothing new. The soon to be re-launched Do-It is a teenager already and similar sites exist across the globe.

What is less common is online signup to volunteering. So many organisations, if they even have a good webpage dedicated to their volunteer programme, still ask people to download a form and submit it via email in order to apply to become a volunteer. 

The aforementioned Better Impact system enables volunteers to fill in a form online and apply directly into the organisations volunteer database. No more print and send. What’s more volunteers can do this, and manage there profile, sign up for shifts, log hours etc., via a smartphone.

Mobile use of the web is skyrocketing and the expectations we all have to manage our lives on to the go - from banking to online shopping - continue to grow too. Volunteering is not immune. Volunteers want to manage their volunteering online and not being able to do so could increasingly turn people off your organisation.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned things like paying you volunteers’ expenses via mobile payment systems like PingIt or people applying to volunteer direct from Facebook with their applications populated automatically with the data Facebook holds on them (which is probably more than they even know about themselves!). 

Brick-And-Mortar Gets Interactive

The point the original article makes here is how can we enhance a shopper’s experience in store via mobile technology? For example, wan we give them free wifi and augmented reality apps so they can virtually try on that item of clothing and see all the different colour choices available, perhaps including those not available inshore?

In volunteer management terms I think there are two ways we can consider this trend, both relate to that period between the volunteer signing up and actually starting their role, a period that can be drawn out if intensive screening is involved.

First, how can we use online and mobile technology to provide or enhance the induction and any training we offer. Could volunteers take a virtual tour of the site via a YouTube video? Is there online learning material specific to their role that they could be working through? 

Second, if the vetting period takes a while, are there roles volunteers could be doing online that would be suitable for them until vetting is completed? What needs doing that could be packaged as a short-term, bite-sized opportunity that could lend itself to mobile? For example, monitoring the social media feeds of similar organisations to broaden the new volunteers awareness of the issues they will deal with (whilst at the same time perhaps gaining insights into ‘competitor’ behaviour for you).

Harnessing The Power Of Social Shopping

We’re all used to rating our shopping experiences online. Amazon has provided that facility for years and whether its a war and peace review or one of those “quick delivery” two-worders, chances are most of you reading this have rated something somewhere online.

I remember the idea being mooted a few years back that volunteers should be able to rate their experiences online on sites like Do-It. The reaction from Volunteer Managers and Volunteer Involving Organisations was less than enthusiastic. Perhaps because the Volunteer Involving Organisations involved are all too aware that what they offer volunteers is far from satisfactory and their ratings would reflect this?

Social media has opened this up regardless of whether a formal rating system exists. If someone has a bad time volunteering with you they can be straight onto their social network of choice ensuring their friends, family and colleagues don’t repeat their mistake.

Conversely, however, give volunteers a great time and they may be all to happy (perhaps with a little encouragement) to share their positivity about your agency with their networks.

Erik Qualman, in his book Socialnomics, refers to this as both ‘Word of mouth to world of mouth” and “Word of mouth on digital steroids”. In other words, social media is not to be feared so much as embraced as a key way to enhance the form of recruitment that consistently comes out as most effective around the world - word of mouth or personal recommendation.

You can do simple things like give your volunteers a hashtag to put on any posts they make about their volunteering, or give them some simple guidelines on what is appropriate for them to post on Instagram or Pinterest when they are volunteering?

So, there you have it, my three lessons for volunteer programmes from customer service, or at least adapted from the blog Dan shared with me.

What lessons can you share from customer service for volunteer programmes?

Specifically, what ideas do you have for how the customer service experience we give our volunteers can be enhanced via online and mobile technology?

Finally, if you’ve embraced online and mobile in this way, what did you do and what did you learn?

I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts.

The Story of a Glasgow 2014 Volunteer

In our latest blog, friend and former RNIB colleague Adrian Hare shares his experience of being a volunteer at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Our thanks to Adrian for taking the time to write about his experience and give us all a little insight into the organisation, management and fun of volunteering as a Clydesider.

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My Glasgow 2014 volunteering journey began around 18 months or so ago, when I applied via the Glasgow 2014 website to become one of their volunteers, officially known as Clydesiders.

What inspired me to apply to volunteer was a love of sport, and a love of Glasgow itself.  I had missed out volunteering at London 2012 despite living on that Game’s doorstep due to being involved with the Paralympic Torch relay.  I was therefore determined not to miss out this time around.

I applied through their website and thought nothing more of it.  That is until I got asked to attend an interview up in Glasgow during the middle of 2013.  Then there was another nerve-wracking wait to find out if I had been accepted.  Imagine my joy when I got an e-mail to say that I had been successful.

To put the Glasgow 2014 volunteer requirements into context, this was bigger than London 2012 for volunteers.  They had 50,000 applications from around the world (I had heard of people travelling from Australia and New Zealand), they interviewed 25,000 and selected 15,000 lucky individuals.

Move on a year and we are coming up to the games.  The training has been done, the uniforms have been sorted out and we have all arranged our travel and accommodation and have received our shifts, although these have been changed at least once between issue and the games themselves.

I was working within Spectator Services, and as its name suggests, I was involved with being the face of the games at two of the stadiums, Celtic Park and Hampden Park.  I had the honour of being on duty at both the opening and closing ceremonies and so saw the Queen, Rod Stewart and Susan Boyle (don’t laugh at the last one).

Being disabled, I was a little unsure about how they would accommodate volunteers with special needs.  However, I needn’t have worried about this.  I can honestly say that the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games were one of the most inclusive sporting events that I have ever attended.

Walking around Celtic Park and Hampden Park, I can hand on heart say that I have seen a number of volunteers (we were officially called Clydesiders) with various special needs.  From people with learning difficulties to those in wheelchairs and those who are blind or partially sighted like myself - I have been partially sighted since birth.  I saw several people in wheelchairs working the same shifts as me as well as people with white canes and guide dogs.  What was very impressive was that they were working the same shifts as everybody else, and they were in the same public facing roles as everybody else.  One of my team leaders for one shift was in a wheelchair as well, and we had lots of fun finding our way around with a blind bat pushing him, neither of us having a clue where we were going.

There were lots of good points, but also some less positive areas.

The good points were a great atmosphere amongst the volunteers and everybody helped each other.  This was combined with the attitude of the venue management teams, the games organisers, etc, who were determined to make the games and venues as inclusive as possible.  This gave volunteering the image of being inclusive and that everybody can be a volunteer.

What were the less positive things?  First, although financial support was available, this was very hard to access and to be honest, did not really help at all.  We were left to fend for ourselves when it came to travel and accommodation and this had to be funded by us (the same as with London 2012).  Also, the volunteers were left a little underwhelmed when it came to break time.  We were only given sandwiches over the days we were working, and they were the same fillings every single day.  Quite often they did end up running out of food for us, but that was perhaps not such a bad things, as we had stopped really eating anyway.

If I was to be asked if I had enjoyed my time in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games, it would be a resounding YES!!!  I love volunteering and love being involved with sport.

I also loved the inclusive nature of Glasgow 2014 and have made many friends whilst there, hopefully I will remain in contact with a few of them.

Adrian Hare

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In our next blog (coming soon) guest writer Mel White shares her reflections on the differences between the volunteering movement in the UK and Australia when it comes to mandated volunteering as part of workfare schemes. Watch this space!

Can the voluntary sector learn from the army?

Just a few days ago colleague Kirsty McDowell published and excellent posting on her blog, “Can the army learn from the voluntary sector”. Kirsty rightly argues that the challenges faced by the military to recruit more reservists (volunteers) to the army could have been reduced if they had taken time to learn from what works in volunteer recruitment.

Good customer service, speedy responses to enquiries, an online applications that works, well briefed frontline staff - we all know that these things make a big difference to effective volunteer recruitment and, where they aren’t present, can act as a significant barrier to prospective volunteers.

But can it work the other way? Can the voluntary sector learn from the army?

The answer is yes.

Consider for a moment that much volunteer recruitment is still focused on messages like “help, we need volunteers”, or “help, we urgently need volunteers”. All the good systems and processes in the world won’t be worth much if we can’t inspire people to consider giving us their time in the first place.

The army, on the other hand, may not have the best systems for handling new reservist recruits but they do have a compelling and inspiring way of marketing their roles. Let’s face it, they have to if they are going to convince people to sign up for something where they may well find themselves laying their lives on the line - just like this famous advert Ernest Shackleton used to recruit volunteers to his Antarctic expedition:

No “we desperately need your help” there, instead it challenges, it inspires and it makes it abundantly clear to many (including me) that they are not the ones to volunteer for that particular challenge!

Beyond the front end of the posters, radio, internet and TV adverts the Army uses to attract their kind of people, their recruitment website highlights some lessons many volunteer involving organisations could learn:

Training and development - the army is up front that its recruits have a wealth of opportunities available to them from apprenticeships & learning a trade to a multitude of specialist roles. Do our organisations explain how we can help our prospective volunteers to learn their role and develop during their time with us?


Roles tailored to the interested of the individual - army recruits have access to thousands of jobs, and hundreds of careers. Do we offer choice and flexibility to our prospective volunteers during their 'career' with us or do we lock people into the role we need and keep them there forever?


Information for families - the army are very clear about how they can provide welfare and support services to their troops, family care for their dependents and how they can helping people move on at the end of their army career. Do we explain what support we’ll give to the volunteer? Do we show that we can be flexible and adaptable to the other needs in their lives (family, friends, work etc.)? In particularly emotionally demanding roles, do we explain the welfare and support we’ll provide to volunteers? Do we ever offer them support to find new volunteer roles when they decide to leave?


Socialising and fun - the army explicitly promote events, activities and leisure to their recruits, showing that a career is more than just the job but the social side of what they offer? Are we explicit about this with potential volunteers? Do we involve them in social activities? Or are volunteers expected to just turn up, do their role and then disappear rather than becoming a part of the team?

So yes, the army can definitely learn from us. But we can also learn from them. I’ve only touched on a few areas here - I haven't even touched on leadership - so please do comment and let me know how else we might learn from the army (and other armed forces) when it comes to working with volunteers.

The CEO as board chair - my response

Thanks to the team at Vantage Point I recently became aware of an article in the US publication Non-Profit Quarterly. The author, Mike Burns, asks whether non-profit CEOs should also serve as chairs of their boards. 

It’s a good article and well worth a couple of minutes to read. Mike is a consultant in non-profit governance and planning with 35 years of experience so I assume he knows his stuff, he certainly provides a sensible take on the issues involved. He doesn’t seem to resort to crude assumptions that paying people results in better quality work than relying on volunteers, an ingredient of almost every argument put forward by advocates of paid charity governance here in the UK.

The blog by Vantage Point that drew me to Mike’s article contained their own response to his thoughts. The core of their response was that the core os the issue was not about organisational structure but engagement. I agree.

For me, the centre of Mike’s arguments in favour of CEOs chairing boards is that most CEOs he has encountered seem to think that it would be much easier and more effective to work with the board if they ran it themselves, rather than having a volunteer chair do it for them. 

This argument isn’t new to leaders and managers of volunteers. Most Volunteer Managers (VMs) will have worked with paid staff colleagues to develop volunteer roles and heard them say something along the lines of “but it will be so much quicker and easier if I did it all myself”.  The difference in Mike’s article is that the paid staff concerned is the CEO not the office manager, social worker, team leader or other more junior colleague. The CEO-as-chair argument suggests it’d just be quicker, easier and more effective if the CEO did it themselves.

Extending the argument further would seem to suggest the question, ‘shouldn’t CEOs do all the important roles if they think they can be more effective at them?’ Of course in small agencies where the CEO is the only employee - or may in fact be a ‘senior’ volunteer - then this is perhaps an inevitability. However, in organisations with paid staff teams, the implication would be that CEOs shouldn’t need fellow senior executives, heads of department etc. if they think they could do the job better. 

Of course in practice that’s ridiculous, no CEO in a sizeable organisation would ever seek to do everything themselves. When an organisation gets to a certain size, competent people are hired to lead certain key functions within the organisation such as fundraising, finance, HR, volunteer management (!), service development etc.. CEOs realise that delegating these key responsibilities to someone capable of addressing them is preferable to doing it all themselves.

As a wise person once said:

"Learning to work with volunteers is like learning to ride a bike. At first it is awkward and difficult and it would be quicker to walk but, once you get the hang of it, riding a bike is far superior to walking."

So, let’s return to the issue of chairing the board. Why should the board chair’s position be any different from that of, say, Director of Finance? If the management and leadership of the governance function is as critical to an organisation as effective management and leadership of its finance function, why should the CEO feel they have to step in and run it themselves yet not feel the same need to do that with the finance department?

To answer that, let’s return to a I sentence I used earlier: 

“When an organisation gets to a certain size competent people are hired to lead certain key functions within the organisation”. 

The key word here is competent. When paid staff are hired to lead a function, it is a given that they should be competent at that role. Why then is it assumed that someone recruited to be a volunteer board chair would not be competent? Why would the CEOs think they should do that role, not find a competent person to do it on a voluntary basis instead?

In fairness, Mike addresses this issue at the end of his blog when he says:

“By and large, the volunteers selected to be board chairs do not have the core experiences and skills necessary to effectively manage a board of directors. Clearly, training could inform and prepare those who would be, or are, Chairs, which might make the idea of replacing them with the CEO unnecessary.” 

But why is this only a training issue? Why is it not a recruitment issue? Why is the advice not to recruit competent people, people with the right mix of skills and / or experience, to do this important role in the first place? Why is the CEO stepping into this more preferable as a solution?

I think there are two possible reasons (at least).

First, despite what I suggested earlier when I said Mike didn’t pursue the ‘employees = competent, volunteers = incompetent’ argument, there may be some prejudice about volunteers at play here, even if it is subconscious. Why else would the competence of a volunteer board chair be seen as something trainable rather than something selectable, something to be found in the right candidate?

Second, perhaps CEOs see volunteer management as beneath them. Just as many paid staff still view volunteers as nice-to-haves not essentials for an organisation, as the people who do the menial make-work not the core tasks to fulfil the mission, perhaps CEOs (and other senior executives?) see leadership and management of volunteers as similarly menial and non-core to their role.

I’ve long held that some of the issues CEOs want to solve with boards - diversity, effectiveness, challenges finding people to join the board etc. - could be solved with the application of good volunteer management. After all, they are the same issues Volunteer Managers deal with day-in, day-out. But CEOs don’t turn to their VMs. They don’t turn to volunteer management consultants either. They go to governance consultants instead. Yet the problems don’t ever seem to get solved. Interesting.

So is the answer for CEOs to chair the board? In some circumstances the answer may be yes. But I’d much rather see real effort by CEOs to apply the principles and practice of good volunteer leadership and management first before we go down the road of blurring the boundaries of executive / board responsibilities in the non-profit world with little regard to the potential long term implications.

What do you think?

Six ideas from online dating to help with volunteer recruitment

One of the things I've noticed in the last couple of years is the increasing use of dating as an analogy when people talk about volunteer recruitment and retention.  So, when earlier this year I found myself back in the single life once again, I thought that I might have an opportunity to use this change in circumstances to write my own blog on dating and volunteering.

After being with my ex-partner for nearly twenty years, getting back into the dating game was and is a daunting prospect, not least because one of the common ways to meet new people these days is through online dating sites.  Not only did they not exist the last time I was single, the internet didn't even exist, at least in a form accessible to the general public in the always-connected way it does now (and I'm still the younger side of 40!). So my take on dating and volunteering is to look at six things I think online dating sites can teach those of us recruiting, engaging and leading volunteers.

Sites get to know people first and then using processes to match up people

When you sign up for dating sites you are prompted to tell them all about yourself.  For the bigger sites this includes quite extensive questioning about your interests, tastes, preferences in a partner and so on.  For me there are three takeaways for volunteer management arising from this extensive questioning by the site:

1. Dating sites use a process to help learn about the individual.  They then use that knowledge to help match the person to others.  Critically, the process supports the person, helping to learn about them and their motivations. Sadly, many people who are volunteering encounter bureaucratic, impersonal processes that seem to ignore the individual, partly because their purpose is to cover the organisations backside if things go wrong. How much more attractive volunteering would be if we focused on getting to know the potential volunteer and their reasons for giving their time more than whether they've filled our forms in correctly.
2. People are not averse to filling in forms because they expect the payoff at the end of it will be worth it.  Those of us on dating sites have a bigger purpose and if we view the process as an inconvenience then we'll put up with it because we hope the results of doing it will be worth the time spent.  Is that the experience volunteers have of giving their time to your organisation, or do they just give up when faced with your processes and go off and do something less boring instead?
3. The whole process can be done easily online.  If you can't finish the form on a dating site in one sitting - and some are rather long - you can save them and come back later.  It is a seamless, joined up and easy process.  It might almost be said that filling these forms in is a pleasure (see my last point about payoff) - would that this were true for volunteer applications!

Selling yourself online

One of the most difficult things about online dating is writing a pithy personal advert. Aside from the fact that we Brits are not the best at speaking about or promoting ourselves, many people really seem to struggle with this task. In fact, cast your eyes over many such personal adverts on dating sites and you'll notice that many follow the same format, make the same kinds of points and don't really stand out.

One that caught my eye recently - out of professional rather than personal interest! - started, as many of these statements do, by saying that the lady concerned had no idea what to write about herself. Her solution? She gave it to a friend to write instead! A brave move but an inspired one.

Sadly, many volunteer recruitment adverts - both online and offline - resort to the the same formula, making them hard to stand out to prospective volunteers. What's more, they invariably advertise the volunteer opportunity by stating what the organisation seeks to gain from someone volunteering, not what the volunteer might gain. Imagine that on a dating site - how going out with someone would make their life better but no regard given to your experience, feelings or interests. Or going on a date with someone who only talks about themselves.  Both those scenarios sound like a shortcut to lifelong solitude.

So, how can we write more engaging and distinctive personal adverts for our organisations and our volunteering opportunities? How can we come across as engaging, interesting and worthy of someone's precious time? Would you be brave enough to hand this task over to someone else - an existing volunteer perhaps - and see what they write about you?

The power of pictures

Personally, I don't respond to an online dating profile that contains no pictures. It's not that looks are everything to me in a potential date - they're not - but they are a crucial element of the wider 'sell' of someone's profile. If I can't see the person then all the words in the world won't make a difference because I feel like I'm missing a key element of the wider picture, of who they are.

In the US a social network called Pinterest is showing the value in volunteer recruitment of visual storytelling. By uploading images of happy volunteers enjoying their work, organisations are seeing interest from others who 'want some of what they're having'.

So when we recruit volunteers, perhaps we should give some serious thought to the imagery we use. Do we show engaging images, images that show that real people volunteer here and have a great time doing so? Or do we rely on lots of text or, heaven forbid, job descriptions to try and hook people in? Even worse, do we use attractive images to hook people in that bear no relation to the reality they actually experience volunteering with us?

Levels of engagement

One thing dating websites understand is that you don't want to rush into a date with a total stranger without having built some rapport first. Making first contact with someone and instantly asking them out for a meal risks coming across online as desperate or making people run in fear that you may be some complete nutter.

Dating sites get round this by providing different ways to engage with people. You can simply 'like' or 'favourite' a profile to signify your interest. Or you give a digital 'wink', although personally I find this a bit creepy - would you wink at a stranger in a bar as your first contact? Then you can email and/or instant message with someone, developing that rapport to the point that you both might feel comfortable to meet face-to-face for a date.

There's a definite parallel with volunteer recruitment here. Often our recruitment efforts come across like asking someone to marry us the first time we meet. We ask for a long term intensive commitment from day one. Then we wonder why people run for the hills!  Instead, could we provide a scale of engagement, giving people easy, no/low commitment ways to try us out, see if they like us, build rapport and perhaps move to a point in the future where they feel comfortable making a longer term commitment? It may take longer to get people to make the commitment we want, but investing that time early in the relationship with our volunteers will yield dividends later on.

Not knowing where you stand if people don't reply

One of the most frustrating experiences for me with dating sites is finding someone you really like the look and sound of, plucking up the courage to drop them a line a say hello, and then never hearing back from them. Did they get my message? Did they not like my profile?

The same applies to volunteering. Someone plucks up the courage to get in touch and enquire about volunteering with you. And they hear nothing back. Did you get their email or voicemail? Were they not suitable? Why not? What could they have done that might have caught your attention?

Too many organisations seem to think that it is totally acceptable to respond to people within a few days or weeks - or even never - after their enquiry. Yet we live in an immediate world. People expect a reply, even just a holding reply, within a few hours at most. 28 days delivery might have met consumer expectations twenty years ago but next day delivery is the benchmark now.

How can you ensure you respond quickly to enquiries from potential volunteers? Can you use email 'out of office' messages to provide instant holding replies? Perhaps you could involve volunteers to help you manage the prospective volunteer enquiries?

Advice on how to get the most of the experience

One thing I liked after being on a certain dating site for a couple of weeks was that they sent me an email giving me suggestions for how to get the most from my membership. OK, it was a template, impersonal email but the advice was really good and helped me to find my feet in this new online world I had entered.

Do we, should we, or could we do something similar for volunteers? Do we help people new to our organisations to find their feet, settle in and feel at home? Or do we just drop them in at the deep end, let them get on with it and then get frustrated when they don't do what we want them to?


So there you have it, my thoughts on what volunteer managers can learn from dating websites.  Now I'd love to hear your thoughts, preferably about what leaders of volunteers can learn, how have you dealt with these issues, what's worked and what hasn't worked.

That said, I'm open to dating tips too!