Volunteering Goes Virtual

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an eye opening article titled Volunteering Goes Virtual,
describing how volunteers are finding new and highly productive ways to
volunteer from their homes.  Volunteers are knitting blankets for
mothers in need and even writing grants from the comfort of their own
homes.  Volunteermatch.com
has seen a sizable increase in the number of volunteers who are
interested in using e-mail and the Internet to benefit charities. Even
more beneficial is that the volunteers can be situated anywhere, and
their collective powers can be brought to bear on a single topic or
case.  The utilization of the Internet is multiplying the impact that a
single volunteer can have by giving them the opportunity to work in a
number communities from their home. As posted on Community Mobilization.

Self-Organizing Action part II

Right after posting on "The Selfish Volunteer", I noticed David’s post on Self-organizing action. My interest piqued, I popped on over to Emergency Communities and found a very interesting quote that dovetails nicely with my previous post and even more so with Ed Duke’s post, The New Unaffiliated Volunteers.

…in
the midst of all this devastation, something beautiful happened. Volunteers,
donations, medics, builders, and dreamers poured into the effected areas. Each
day that ticked by found more and more people working from empathy alone to
help save lives, clear debris, and rebuild. Relief kitchens sprung up across
the gulf. Teams of people, sometimes with nothing but a pick-up truck and a
chainsaw, went from house to house to help the elderly pull their possessions
from the rubble. Many of these people came down alone or in groups,
unaffiliated with any large organization. Many were frustrated with the slow
mobilization of volunteers that plagued many traditional relief organizations.
They braved the nights in tents, ate what they could, and slowly but surely
energized broken towns and desperate people. Over time, these independent
relief efforts became some of the most effective forces in the disaster
recovery.

The Selfish Volunteer

David was looking out for me today and sent me a short article on the rise of the selfish volunteer. Volunteers get both intrinsic and extrinsic value out of the act of volunteering. This article focuses on the extrinsic. From the article.

Volunteers are increasingly interested in what they can get out of volunteering, and nonprofits must adapt, a new study says.

…volunteers are looking for concrete returns on their efforts. That may include career experience, a chance to build their skills, or the opportunity to meet people, the study says.

The article also discusses the ever increasing demands on a volunteers time and suggests that

nonprofits should "productise" their volunteer opportunities by packaging and marketing them in a way that attracts today’s busy, discerning volunteers.

That involves packaging opportunities so volunteers are presented with specific tasks that are measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

For me, that last sentence hit the nail on the head. As a volunteer, I get very frustrated when I feel that a lot of time has been spent in meetings, etc. and very little has been achieved. I also think this, in part, explains why volunteers are going their own way. Making their own opportunities. They are in control, the tasks they carry out are created by them and inherently relevant to them.

As for volunteers becoming more selfish? I don’t see a problem with this. I am one of those selfish volunteers. Yes, I get strong intrinsic value out of what I do. In fact, the majority of the value I get is intrinsic. However, what I do also gives me an opportunity to put my education to work and get noticed for my abilities. However, if volunteering only lead to the extrinsic rewards, I wouldn’t be doing what I do. It’s the intrinsic that fuels my motivation, and I have to wonder if this isn’t common for most of us "selfish" volunteers.

Evolving volunteerism

Just to toss out there, I’ve been thinking about changes in the volunteer sphere over time. Back in the ’70s when I started work in this field, there seemed to be a core of what I’d now call "traditional volunteers," people (most often women) who adopted a cause and an organization and then proceeded to dedicate many hours over many years to their work. They patiently started at the grass-roots and worked their way up committee-by-committee to leadership positions.

About 10 years ago we began to use the term "episodic volunteers," people who tended to be interested in shorter-term involvements and who might have several volunteer activities with different causes. This seemed to be accompanied by some dimunition in the number of single-purpose volunteers.

Now we’re hearing about "unaffiliated volunteers" (and, I’d wager, unaffiliated donors), people who aren’t interesed in long term commitments to a single cause or organization. They seem to exist as potential actors who become involved when there’s a precipitating event like last year’s tsunami and hurricanes. They respond with donations and sometimes with active involvement when moved by events.

Seems to call for different organizing and communication principles than we’ve used in the past.