by Michele Ober
A year ago, a volunteer inquiry came across my desk with name, contact information, and interest in three different areas in the organization. I proceeded to contact the volunteer leaders of each area asking that they send welcome emails and invitations to join their committees/projects. Within four months, the volunteer had experiences in each of those three areas and he proceeded to get involved in a couple more as he felt his professional skills and talents could be beneficial. At that four-month mark, a volunteer survey was completed at which time he commented on the lack of knowledge of his capabilities provided to the volunteer leaders, the lack of work in one area, and the overall lack of communication and appreciation. In one area, he stated that he “took the initiative to get things moving.”
After seven months, the volunteer had resigned from the original three areas in which he expressed his initial interests and was becoming active in three other areas. He was able to complete short-term projects in two areas but, in the third area, he felt progress in ongoing projects was not forthcoming. This past week, after little/no communication between the volunteer leaders and the volunteer, an email came to me which stated his grievances and his final goodbye.
After contemplating this volunteer’s experience over this past year, I became so much more aware of the need to truly engage volunteers, not just manage them. I referred to “Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow“, by Jill Friedman Fixler and Sandie Eichberg, with Gail Lorenz, CVA. I concentrated on the chapter entitled “Nurturing the Relationship” and especially Friedman Fixler’s tool, the Individual Volunteer Plan (IVP). While she states this tool is not for everyone, I think it would have been appropriate for this volunteer. “For the Boomer who wants meaningful work with definable impact, an IVP can be written to promise increasing impact over the volunteer’s career… an IVP may offer a future of professional development and increased responsibility.” For this volunteer, the most important opportunity that the IVP could create is “new possibilities for those who have a terrific volunteer history but seem to be losing interest, decreasing commitment, or verging on problematic behavior.”
The basic structure of an IVP is that a supervisor or support liaison and the volunteer meet. Together they discuss current competencies (which may include communication, team building, collaboration, and technology), goals and benchmarks to improve skills, competencies, or experiences as well as project planning (which may include vision, resources, training, and additional needs), and updates to review progress and to revise the plan as needed. Lastly, it is advised to keep lines of communication open especially to check in on progress.
As I transition from a volunteer coordinator to a volunteer engagement professional, I will continue to look at strategies to support the volunteer’s “desire for autonomy, authority, impact, and opportunities to be creative and innovative.” Had a proper plan for engagement been in practice, this volunteer certainly could have added value to the organization and could have felt successful and appreciated.
Michele Ober is the Volunteer Coordinator for Habitat for Humanity / 7 Rivers Maine. She is a guest blogger.
What a powerful sharing! And don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s partly the responsibility of the volunteer to make his own desires known from the outset. Many volunteers really don’t know what they want or which of their experiences are really the most valuable to an organization until they have a chance to feel out the organization. That’s when the check-in part becomes important. Important learning and a wonderful new tool.