Perhaps part of the problem LinkedIn has is that it’s waiting for non profits to figure out what problems they have, then figure out how to solve them, at which point they need to define what they need in a way that pro bono volunteers might respond. Many small and medium size non profits probably struggle to do this.
I have proposed an alternative for many years. I think volunteers in business, professional groups, universities, etc. should adopt causes, and organizations within these cause areas while at the same time identifying geographic regions where these causes are concentrated.
By adopting a cause, members could build their own understanding of problems facing non profits. They could build libraries showing how volunteers had helped organizations solve specific problems, which would provide starting points for other volunteers to solve the same problem in different places. They could even host forums where volunteers, donors and non profits talk to each other. Finally, they could provide the on-going manpower to implement a solution, rather than expect that the non profit is going to have the resources needed.
I’ve been following the Boston Indicators project for several years because of the ways it identifies 10 issue areas important to Boston. In the past year or so the Boston Foundation created a Giving Common, with the same 10 categories as shown on the Indicators site. I wrote about this at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com/2014/09/using-data-to-support-fund-raising.html
It seems to me that Linkedin or other pro bono providers could build on this to encourage interested volunteers to pick a cause, a zip code(s) and then begin to build a relationship with organizations doing work in that geography. In this on-going relationship building the volunteers, or the pro bono facilitators, become real partners helping those organizations do great work.
In many ways what I’m describing is what teams in the corporate office of big companies do to support multiple stores operating in different places. By aggregating data about causes and organizations serving these causes, pro bono volunteers could become virtual corporate office teams.
John, thanks for this thoughtful look at what has been Taproot’s biggest quandary in 13 years of doing pro bono. We know that most nonprofits get some pro bono already—90% of organizations we speak to report engaging pro bono work of some kind in the past year—so the concept isn’t strange to the market. And 92% of organizations tell us they want more pro bono—so the market isn’t tapped.
Still, as you know from the 1% Program, nonprofit uptake can be unexpectedly light. Why aren’t nonprofits flocking to these services? As Kyle Reis says, maybe we haven’t yet found the right formula for the majority of the market—the community-centered design that will help nonprofits to overcome their main obstacles of scoping (how do I clearly articulate what I need?), securing (how do I find, approach, or field the right resources?), and managing (how can I make sure we get to success?).
At least, we haven’t yet found the answer that works for most pro bono providers in a low-touch, high-scale way. But as Taproot explores some new lower-touch models, and works with our peers from LinkedIn, the 1% Program, NPower, DataKind, and others to move the market forward, we’re learning more and more about what can help bring pro bono to scale. On the face of it, too much supply seems a far better problem to have than too much demand—but it isn’t a problem we can afford to have for long if we want to help pro bono change the way nonprofits engage the resources in their community. Here’s to more human-centered design efforts and to all our peers working toward that vision.
Thanks for bringing this issue to light, John. Alethea’s point is a good one, as we at TechSoup Global believe it is key to strike the right balance between high-touch and low-touch, similar to the approach we have taken with our product philanthropy program. We are already working with partners to pivot and apply this approach to other critical resource needs that are inconsistently available in the nonprofit sector worldwide, including the pro bono space. We think that some of our experience and relationships can be brought to bear on the pro bono demand problem. We’ve already learned a great deal from the initial LinkedIn for Good collaboration as well as other efforts that have exposed the complexities of volunteerism in a vastly diverse set of cultural contexts in the more than 100 countries we serve. The community-centered design approach taken by the TechSoup Global division, Caravan Studios, can offer a workable solution to what is essentially a delivery problem though it requires a market by market approach. More importantly, though, rather than just supply and demand we also think of this in the context of a broader nonprofit resource ecosystem, one where members across multiple sectors contribute in different ways. All of our partners, whether nonprofits, corporations, foundations, governments or individuals, now ‘pay forward’ into this ecosystem, with products, services, contributions and time. And this, ultimately, is what we seek at TechSoup and are eager to work with others to support: a larger overall pie of resources for members to offer and nonprofits to tap around the globe.
I’ve been thinking about this issue for quite a while—since 1986, when the idea for CompuMentor (now TechSoup Global) emerged for me after positive experiences on the WELL. There was no Web in 1986 and not all that much Internet use in the nonprofit world. Surely, the emergence of the Web would make it possible for everyone who wants to volunteer to do since obviously there is infinite need! But it hasn’t quite worked out that way, as John’s post makes clear.
I think the problem has several parts.
• Techno-Panacea’ism Part 1 — aka the belief that if you have to explain to users how to use the technology, you have designed the wrong technology. I think the most successful tech companies, and certainly LI is high on that list, have a core belief that their stuff just flat out works. And they’re right of course. You don’t need a hand holder or even a tutorial to be a LI user. But using LI to share your resumé is one thing. Effectively utilizing a LI volunteer at a nonprofit is something else again. I think LI should invest in something along the lines of a global ‘on boarding’ program. They might select a handful of quite different countries and invest in a local capacity building NGO to actively market the program, and to work with volunteers and nonprofits to troubleshoot, fine tune, and call out success stories. (Yes, I know, it’s a bit counterintuitive to have to market free volunteer labor, but for all kinds of well-documented reasons, some of them actually quite reasonable (e.g. It takes time to work with volunteers, time that may have to be taken from providing direct services to people in need) nonprofits often don’t take readily to volunteer availability, as LI has discovered.) I think that a set of success stories across different environments would ‘sell’ the program globally.
• Techno-Panacea’ism Part 2 — aka the assumption that that our cool tech tools make it possible for impactful high-skilled volunteer interventions to be organized without equally high-skilled project management. Taproot is certainly the leader in demonstrating the tremendous value add of paying attention to the need for serious project oversight and management. Unfortunately, project management actually takes time and resources, driving up the cost of the volunteer intervention, and acting as a brake on scaled solutions like LI’s campaign. Maybe LI should organize volunteer project managers who will take responsibility for connecting other LI volunteers with the right projects, documenting results, promoting success stories. LI would still have to figure out how to market the program to NGOs, but having meaningful success stories to talk about would help a lot.
• The ‘one size fits all’ delusion, about both nonprofits and volunteers — Nonprofit status covers a multitude of organizational conditions. And different kinds of needs match up with these different conditions. A two-person NGO needs different kinds of help, and a different kind of helper, than the International Red Cross. LI could come up with templates of different kinds of needs and make the services that match those needs distinct and apparent. Some volunteers want to go in once and fix a problem. Some want an ongoing relationship with the org. If it’s left on the level of “Be a volunteer” or “Get a volunteer” it’s too vague and hard to act on.
I know and admire the team at LIFG. They have opened a box of volunteer talent with tremendous implications for the social sector worldwide. But the ‘last mile’ will continue to prove challenging unless there is some investment (not necessarily huge! LI can afford it, I think.) in understanding the complex dynamics of high skilled volunteerism and, yes, intermediating the relationships so as to achieve a baseline of success.
Both the article and the comments are excellent. The only thing I would like to add is this. After 10 years at the Salesforce.com Foundation where community service is part of every Salesforce.com employee’s work plan and performance review I learned that skills based volunteering is as much a supply and demand problem as is employment in general. These are short term employees that need vetting and on-boarding just like a consultant or project based employee would. Skills based volunteers are not widgets. Starting on the nonprofit side to define the need and the volunteer profile in my experience worked the best.
Great article and interesting discussion going on here. I was not aware of LinkedIn’s program but do not find it very surprising that the difficult part was getting nonprofits onboard as opposed to the highly skilled individuals willing to help. If anyone could convince nonprofits of the value of partnering with other agencies to access more resources, I would have thought LinkedIn would have the highest chance for success!
I think we need to stay committed to these opportunities for nonprofits. I’m not sure I would consider the LinkedIn for Good to be a failure. After all 839 organizations are participating. Do we really need 1.5 million organizations in the U.S.? I think we need to shift the conversation around the impact and results created and not on the number of organizations.
A contributing factor to this situation is that there are many different platforms for nonprofits to be a part of: LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, VolunteerMatch, Catchafire, TapRoot. It is overwhelming for the sector that as a whole is very far behind in technology to be aware of the unique value proposition from the many different online networking opportunities. As the article mentions, how does the organization know what they need? What will the organization do once matched with a volunteer?
I’ve run volunteer based programs here and abroad, and I serve on the board of a large international NGO that uses volunteers as a core service delivery approach. In every case, there is *always* more volunteers than organizational uptake. The issue is not gross numbers.
Taking on a volunteer is just as time-consuming and demanding as taking on staff. They may not cost the same in dollar terms, but they certainly cost the same (or more) in time, which often equals money, an always-scarce resource with NGOs. Time to develop the “job” description, to recruit and vet, to train, and to motivate and manage. And lacking the traditional carrot of employment and stick of unemployment, volunteer management can be tricky, to say the least.
And to the bigger picture, this post sets up the issue as some how the NGOs fault for not taking volunteers, as if its role is to deliver feel-good points to volunteers. No. Volunteers are not the point. Service delivery to the NGOs’ constituents is. So bummer that LI has too many volunteers. Its their fault for not managing expectations, not the NGOs fault (or even concern).
So before we fret about LI, ket’s start and end with who really matters here - and its not the volunteer.
Great article and comments. These all resonate with our experience at Reach, over here in the UK.
As we see it, the challenges are demand side, supply side, and in bringing convergence to the two.
Demand side - I agree completely with Wyan that the driver has to be what non profits need, not what volunteers want to do, but I still think that many organisations could be more strategic about resource-raising rather than just money raising, and therefore more creative about how skills-based volunteering could help them achieve their goals. They also need support in translating this into effective recruitment and management.
Supply side – there is quite a long journey to travel between a vague intention to volunteer and a clear and informed commitment to engage productively with a specific non profit. This is one of the challenges of recruiting though frictionless channels such as LinkedIn because the ease of applying does not filter out the less serious.
Creating shared expectations between volunteers and non profits of what they should expect of each other, and a mutual understanding of the assumptions they are making of each other, the work in question and what want to achieve is another crucial part of the jigsaw. We aiming to tackle this by peer advisors, online resources, and piloting a ‘community agreement’. I’m sure that these won’t solve the issue but they should help.
This all amounts to quite a lot of legwork, not least because, as Daniel Ben-Horin says, there is no one size fits all, and the needs of NGOs (and volunteers) vary wildly. That said, the ability of the internet to match supply and demand and to create online hubs makes a scaleable service much more viable . We are building a new site which will try and make inroads on these issues in the UK. It will be positioned somewhere in the middle of the light/ high touch spectrum: a vetted community of charities and skilled volunteers, supported by advice and guidance, but providing recruitment through self-service.
Well said Wayan. I work for a voluntary organisation which serves the voluntary organisations in our area. We provide training in things like trusteeship, fundraising etc and we also help with writing bids for bigger pots of funding, co-ordinating big contracts that involve multiple voluntary agencies (and millions of £) and helping organisations find the right volunteers. We are very businesslike in our work and so are all of the charities we work with. We are all driven though by different motives from the profit sector - providing amazing services for people in tremendous need, preserving our heritage or ecosystem etc. Most of us work for way less than we would earn elsewhere because we want to work for something that means a lot to us.
Volunteering is not a bolt on “feel good” service we provide for volunteers (though nearly all volunteers get a huge amount out of it). It has to be driven by the needs of charities. I would ask companies how often they give a person a job just because they submitted their CV. When someone submits a CV on spec there might not be a job or the person may have no fit with the jobs available - this probably applies in 99 out of 100 cases at least.
There is a bizarre expectation of the Voluntary Sector that we should be grateful for everything anyone gives us. But how many companies would thank you if you sat in their foyer waiting for work to turn up? Of course we want and need volunteers but often they need to be flexible or have very specific skills or be willing to be trained over a period of time or commit to regular hours. Often these requirements are not what people in work are able to give. Sure there are many people in work who give huge amounts of time but I have experienced again and again as a corporate fundraising manager (in a previous role) that company employees often have very specific ideas of what they want to do which makes managing that relationship very difficult. Sometimes it works brilliantly of course but the volunteer must be flexible.
Having said all that, the voluntary sector is always crying out for financial wizards who are willing to become trustees and anyone who is willing to commit large amounts of time to drive strategy by sitting on the board.
Good ideas from all. I’ve been part of some MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) over the past couple of years, which have focused a large group of people on a specific topic for a period of 4 to 6 weeks, using Google communities as a meeting place. Here’s a link to one titled Deeper Learning. http://dlmooc.deeper-learning.org/
I feel that if different parts of the non profit sector sponsored events like this 3 to four times a year, with a goal of engaging volunteers and donors along with program leaders, researchers, media, and even clients, there could be a great deal of idea sharing, and a great amount of learning, understanding and relationship building.
The goal of such events would be to not only help program learn from each other, but to provide and on-ramp for volunteers and donors who over time build a deeper understanding of what the issues are that a sector addresses, as well as the financial challenges many organizations face along with the infrastructure needs of most organizations within a sector.
As this understanding grows volunteers could begin to offer skills based on their understanding of a NGO’s needs and commitment to a cause, as well as their own assessment of their talent (or financial resources) and the amount of time they are willing to commit to helping a NGO fill a need.
In my own sector I focus on helping inner city youth connect with extra learning and a network of extra mentors via organized non-school programs. I’d love to see some sponsors/universities begin to organize a MOOC to help connect organizations, volunteers and donors within our sector, and to engage resource providers in the planning stage so they begin to offer help based on what the organizations need.
Janet and Fiona are on point. I wonder how easy it was for LI volunteers to sign up? Just a click, or three? So about the same commitment as “liking” on Facebook, and we know how effective that is in actually solving a problem.
I would bet that all those millions of volunteers certainly are not thinking through the time commitment when they sign up at that scale. They are thinking a few hours here or there - soup kitchen help once a quarter type thing. Most NGOs are past that slackactivism these days. They want volunteers who put in real time - at least 1/2 day week if not more. I wonder how clear LI was on that point?
Anyway, good on them for adding the option, bummer they didn’t adapt faster to the realities of volunteer management. It’s not something that can be automated,
To be clear: LinkedIn For Good are not signing people up for a programme - they are making it easier for people and causes to notice each other and connect. It’s really useful - primarily because of the vast network that is LinkedIn - and we find it especially helpful when trying to find someone with less common, specialist skills. So, as a channel for recruiting, it is phenomenal.
However, LinkedIn For Good does not address the other issues raised above - of ‘on boarding’ volunteers for example, and there is inevitably a high attrition rate from applicants. To be fair, LinkedIn recognise this and are supportive of organisations which do this work. My frustration is how seldom other players (government, corporates, funders etc) see this broader picture.
I run a talent platform in India where we have a clear mission to “not” focus on volunteers, but rather build a space for people to commit to working in the sector by investing their skills and experience full-time.
You generally do not see volunteers working for free for corporations. I believe there is a reason for that. Like Wayan said, corporations do not invest in on-boarding volunteers as they understand that investment is as much as, if not more than, full-time staff. And the returns are often far less. So why should nonprofits suddenly take all of these people that just want to “feel good” for some short period of time, rather than looking for people willing commit to working in the sector for as an actual career alternative to the corporate sector?
I am not saying all volunteers are bad, but honestly, when things get chaotic in their lives, volunteering is the first thing they put on the backburner. This “attrition” is almost always as detrimental to an already resource-constrained organization, as is losing a full-time stall member.
So perhaps the issue is that nonprofits have recognized this need for staff over volunteers and do not actually want volunteers?
We need to stop looking at this sector as a charity space. It is indeed actually a very challenging and viable career option. If LI could focus more on the breaking the misconceptions of this sector as just a “feel good sector” that you give back too when you have time, I think it could really switch the paradigm of the work.
Shweta - I love the idea of shifting it away from the ‘feel good sector’ model. Not only is this a viable career sector, I also think volunteerism can be especially valuable IF it is done as part of a cause that one is deeply committed to. For example, my one cause is helping refugee’s who have been recently resettled. I’ve done this for some time, and while it is not a career path for me, it is a cause I’ve been deeply involved with on a long-term basis.
The challenge with LI and other systems is they put an emphasis on ‘feel good’ programs at the expense of long term engagement. So, I agree that misconceptions need to be broken - I think one of the major ones is this over-focusing on short term volunteer commitments at the expense of long term involvement - whether for pay or not.
Thanks to all for your thoughtful and insightful comments. One thing that’s become clear from some of these comments is that I should not have lumped volunteering and pro bono together. As Taproot would rightly note, the two, though similar, hold important distinctions, particularly with respect to the specificity of the skills on offer to nonprofits. And I absolutely agree that any successful model will require that all interested parties - volunteers, nonprofits and intermediaries - bring skin to the game beyond a ‘feel good’ impulse to help. On the volunteer side, what and how much time do I have to offer? On the nonprofit side, what do I really need done and how much am I willing to put into an engagement that might enable me to get these needs met? And, ultimately, someone needs to manage and scope the engagement and see it through to fruition. Our question then is can this be done in a lighter touch and more systematic way to enable it to succeed at a larger scale? I believe it can and appreciate this candid feedback, feedback that will help all of us who seek to get more resources to nonprofits to identify the barriers to doing so. Send more!
COMMENTS
BY Daniel F. Bassill
ON September 15, 2014 09:53 AM
Perhaps part of the problem LinkedIn has is that it’s waiting for non profits to figure out what problems they have, then figure out how to solve them, at which point they need to define what they need in a way that pro bono volunteers might respond. Many small and medium size non profits probably struggle to do this.
I have proposed an alternative for many years. I think volunteers in business, professional groups, universities, etc. should adopt causes, and organizations within these cause areas while at the same time identifying geographic regions where these causes are concentrated.
By adopting a cause, members could build their own understanding of problems facing non profits. They could build libraries showing how volunteers had helped organizations solve specific problems, which would provide starting points for other volunteers to solve the same problem in different places. They could even host forums where volunteers, donors and non profits talk to each other. Finally, they could provide the on-going manpower to implement a solution, rather than expect that the non profit is going to have the resources needed.
I’ve been following the Boston Indicators project for several years because of the ways it identifies 10 issue areas important to Boston. In the past year or so the Boston Foundation created a Giving Common, with the same 10 categories as shown on the Indicators site. I wrote about this at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com/2014/09/using-data-to-support-fund-raising.html
It seems to me that Linkedin or other pro bono providers could build on this to encourage interested volunteers to pick a cause, a zip code(s) and then begin to build a relationship with organizations doing work in that geography. In this on-going relationship building the volunteers, or the pro bono facilitators, become real partners helping those organizations do great work.
In many ways what I’m describing is what teams in the corporate office of big companies do to support multiple stores operating in different places. By aggregating data about causes and organizations serving these causes, pro bono volunteers could become virtual corporate office teams.
BY Alethea Hannemann
ON September 15, 2014 01:35 PM
John, thanks for this thoughtful look at what has been Taproot’s biggest quandary in 13 years of doing pro bono. We know that most nonprofits get some pro bono already—90% of organizations we speak to report engaging pro bono work of some kind in the past year—so the concept isn’t strange to the market. And 92% of organizations tell us they want more pro bono—so the market isn’t tapped.
Still, as you know from the 1% Program, nonprofit uptake can be unexpectedly light. Why aren’t nonprofits flocking to these services? As Kyle Reis says, maybe we haven’t yet found the right formula for the majority of the market—the community-centered design that will help nonprofits to overcome their main obstacles of scoping (how do I clearly articulate what I need?), securing (how do I find, approach, or field the right resources?), and managing (how can I make sure we get to success?).
At least, we haven’t yet found the answer that works for most pro bono providers in a low-touch, high-scale way. But as Taproot explores some new lower-touch models, and works with our peers from LinkedIn, the 1% Program, NPower, DataKind, and others to move the market forward, we’re learning more and more about what can help bring pro bono to scale. On the face of it, too much supply seems a far better problem to have than too much demand—but it isn’t a problem we can afford to have for long if we want to help pro bono change the way nonprofits engage the resources in their community. Here’s to more human-centered design efforts and to all our peers working toward that vision.
BY Kyle Reis
ON September 15, 2014 02:29 PM
Thanks for bringing this issue to light, John. Alethea’s point is a good one, as we at TechSoup Global believe it is key to strike the right balance between high-touch and low-touch, similar to the approach we have taken with our product philanthropy program. We are already working with partners to pivot and apply this approach to other critical resource needs that are inconsistently available in the nonprofit sector worldwide, including the pro bono space. We think that some of our experience and relationships can be brought to bear on the pro bono demand problem. We’ve already learned a great deal from the initial LinkedIn for Good collaboration as well as other efforts that have exposed the complexities of volunteerism in a vastly diverse set of cultural contexts in the more than 100 countries we serve. The community-centered design approach taken by the TechSoup Global division, Caravan Studios, can offer a workable solution to what is essentially a delivery problem though it requires a market by market approach. More importantly, though, rather than just supply and demand we also think of this in the context of a broader nonprofit resource ecosystem, one where members across multiple sectors contribute in different ways. All of our partners, whether nonprofits, corporations, foundations, governments or individuals, now ‘pay forward’ into this ecosystem, with products, services, contributions and time. And this, ultimately, is what we seek at TechSoup and are eager to work with others to support: a larger overall pie of resources for members to offer and nonprofits to tap around the globe.
BY Daniel Ben-Horin
ON September 16, 2014 11:04 AM
Terrific post, John.
I’ve been thinking about this issue for quite a while—since 1986, when the idea for CompuMentor (now TechSoup Global) emerged for me after positive experiences on the WELL. There was no Web in 1986 and not all that much Internet use in the nonprofit world. Surely, the emergence of the Web would make it possible for everyone who wants to volunteer to do since obviously there is infinite need! But it hasn’t quite worked out that way, as John’s post makes clear.
I think the problem has several parts.
• Techno-Panacea’ism Part 1 — aka the belief that if you have to explain to users how to use the technology, you have designed the wrong technology. I think the most successful tech companies, and certainly LI is high on that list, have a core belief that their stuff just flat out works. And they’re right of course. You don’t need a hand holder or even a tutorial to be a LI user. But using LI to share your resumé is one thing. Effectively utilizing a LI volunteer at a nonprofit is something else again. I think LI should invest in something along the lines of a global ‘on boarding’ program. They might select a handful of quite different countries and invest in a local capacity building NGO to actively market the program, and to work with volunteers and nonprofits to troubleshoot, fine tune, and call out success stories. (Yes, I know, it’s a bit counterintuitive to have to market free volunteer labor, but for all kinds of well-documented reasons, some of them actually quite reasonable (e.g. It takes time to work with volunteers, time that may have to be taken from providing direct services to people in need) nonprofits often don’t take readily to volunteer availability, as LI has discovered.) I think that a set of success stories across different environments would ‘sell’ the program globally.
• Techno-Panacea’ism Part 2 — aka the assumption that that our cool tech tools make it possible for impactful high-skilled volunteer interventions to be organized without equally high-skilled project management. Taproot is certainly the leader in demonstrating the tremendous value add of paying attention to the need for serious project oversight and management. Unfortunately, project management actually takes time and resources, driving up the cost of the volunteer intervention, and acting as a brake on scaled solutions like LI’s campaign. Maybe LI should organize volunteer project managers who will take responsibility for connecting other LI volunteers with the right projects, documenting results, promoting success stories. LI would still have to figure out how to market the program to NGOs, but having meaningful success stories to talk about would help a lot.
• The ‘one size fits all’ delusion, about both nonprofits and volunteers — Nonprofit status covers a multitude of organizational conditions. And different kinds of needs match up with these different conditions. A two-person NGO needs different kinds of help, and a different kind of helper, than the International Red Cross. LI could come up with templates of different kinds of needs and make the services that match those needs distinct and apparent. Some volunteers want to go in once and fix a problem. Some want an ongoing relationship with the org. If it’s left on the level of “Be a volunteer” or “Get a volunteer” it’s too vague and hard to act on.
I know and admire the team at LIFG. They have opened a box of volunteer talent with tremendous implications for the social sector worldwide. But the ‘last mile’ will continue to prove challenging unless there is some investment (not necessarily huge! LI can afford it, I think.) in understanding the complex dynamics of high skilled volunteerism and, yes, intermediating the relationships so as to achieve a baseline of success.
BY steve wright
ON September 16, 2014 10:28 PM
Both the article and the comments are excellent. The only thing I would like to add is this. After 10 years at the Salesforce.com Foundation where community service is part of every Salesforce.com employee’s work plan and performance review I learned that skills based volunteering is as much a supply and demand problem as is employment in general. These are short term employees that need vetting and on-boarding just like a consultant or project based employee would. Skills based volunteers are not widgets. Starting on the nonprofit side to define the need and the volunteer profile in my experience worked the best.
BY Andrew Stanley
ON September 17, 2014 06:52 AM
Great article and interesting discussion going on here. I was not aware of LinkedIn’s program but do not find it very surprising that the difficult part was getting nonprofits onboard as opposed to the highly skilled individuals willing to help. If anyone could convince nonprofits of the value of partnering with other agencies to access more resources, I would have thought LinkedIn would have the highest chance for success!
I think we need to stay committed to these opportunities for nonprofits. I’m not sure I would consider the LinkedIn for Good to be a failure. After all 839 organizations are participating. Do we really need 1.5 million organizations in the U.S.? I think we need to shift the conversation around the impact and results created and not on the number of organizations.
A contributing factor to this situation is that there are many different platforms for nonprofits to be a part of: LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, VolunteerMatch, Catchafire, TapRoot. It is overwhelming for the sector that as a whole is very far behind in technology to be aware of the unique value proposition from the many different online networking opportunities. As the article mentions, how does the organization know what they need? What will the organization do once matched with a volunteer?
BY Wayan Vota
ON September 17, 2014 07:39 PM
I’ve run volunteer based programs here and abroad, and I serve on the board of a large international NGO that uses volunteers as a core service delivery approach. In every case, there is *always* more volunteers than organizational uptake. The issue is not gross numbers.
Taking on a volunteer is just as time-consuming and demanding as taking on staff. They may not cost the same in dollar terms, but they certainly cost the same (or more) in time, which often equals money, an always-scarce resource with NGOs. Time to develop the “job” description, to recruit and vet, to train, and to motivate and manage. And lacking the traditional carrot of employment and stick of unemployment, volunteer management can be tricky, to say the least.
And to the bigger picture, this post sets up the issue as some how the NGOs fault for not taking volunteers, as if its role is to deliver feel-good points to volunteers. No. Volunteers are not the point. Service delivery to the NGOs’ constituents is. So bummer that LI has too many volunteers. Its their fault for not managing expectations, not the NGOs fault (or even concern).
So before we fret about LI, ket’s start and end with who really matters here - and its not the volunteer.
BY Daniel Ben-Horin
ON September 17, 2014 08:59 PM
what Wayan said!
BY Janet Thorne
ON September 18, 2014 07:43 AM
Great article and comments. These all resonate with our experience at Reach, over here in the UK.
As we see it, the challenges are demand side, supply side, and in bringing convergence to the two.
Demand side - I agree completely with Wyan that the driver has to be what non profits need, not what volunteers want to do, but I still think that many organisations could be more strategic about resource-raising rather than just money raising, and therefore more creative about how skills-based volunteering could help them achieve their goals. They also need support in translating this into effective recruitment and management.
Supply side – there is quite a long journey to travel between a vague intention to volunteer and a clear and informed commitment to engage productively with a specific non profit. This is one of the challenges of recruiting though frictionless channels such as LinkedIn because the ease of applying does not filter out the less serious.
Creating shared expectations between volunteers and non profits of what they should expect of each other, and a mutual understanding of the assumptions they are making of each other, the work in question and what want to achieve is another crucial part of the jigsaw. We aiming to tackle this by peer advisors, online resources, and piloting a ‘community agreement’. I’m sure that these won’t solve the issue but they should help.
This all amounts to quite a lot of legwork, not least because, as Daniel Ben-Horin says, there is no one size fits all, and the needs of NGOs (and volunteers) vary wildly. That said, the ability of the internet to match supply and demand and to create online hubs makes a scaleable service much more viable . We are building a new site which will try and make inroads on these issues in the UK. It will be positioned somewhere in the middle of the light/ high touch spectrum: a vetted community of charities and skilled volunteers, supported by advice and guidance, but providing recruitment through self-service.
BY Fiona Cooper
ON September 18, 2014 02:56 PM
Well said Wayan. I work for a voluntary organisation which serves the voluntary organisations in our area. We provide training in things like trusteeship, fundraising etc and we also help with writing bids for bigger pots of funding, co-ordinating big contracts that involve multiple voluntary agencies (and millions of £) and helping organisations find the right volunteers. We are very businesslike in our work and so are all of the charities we work with. We are all driven though by different motives from the profit sector - providing amazing services for people in tremendous need, preserving our heritage or ecosystem etc. Most of us work for way less than we would earn elsewhere because we want to work for something that means a lot to us.
Volunteering is not a bolt on “feel good” service we provide for volunteers (though nearly all volunteers get a huge amount out of it). It has to be driven by the needs of charities. I would ask companies how often they give a person a job just because they submitted their CV. When someone submits a CV on spec there might not be a job or the person may have no fit with the jobs available - this probably applies in 99 out of 100 cases at least.
There is a bizarre expectation of the Voluntary Sector that we should be grateful for everything anyone gives us. But how many companies would thank you if you sat in their foyer waiting for work to turn up? Of course we want and need volunteers but often they need to be flexible or have very specific skills or be willing to be trained over a period of time or commit to regular hours. Often these requirements are not what people in work are able to give. Sure there are many people in work who give huge amounts of time but I have experienced again and again as a corporate fundraising manager (in a previous role) that company employees often have very specific ideas of what they want to do which makes managing that relationship very difficult. Sometimes it works brilliantly of course but the volunteer must be flexible.
Having said all that, the voluntary sector is always crying out for financial wizards who are willing to become trustees and anyone who is willing to commit large amounts of time to drive strategy by sitting on the board.
BY Daniel F. Bassill
ON September 18, 2014 04:53 PM
Good ideas from all. I’ve been part of some MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) over the past couple of years, which have focused a large group of people on a specific topic for a period of 4 to 6 weeks, using Google communities as a meeting place. Here’s a link to one titled Deeper Learning. http://dlmooc.deeper-learning.org/
I feel that if different parts of the non profit sector sponsored events like this 3 to four times a year, with a goal of engaging volunteers and donors along with program leaders, researchers, media, and even clients, there could be a great deal of idea sharing, and a great amount of learning, understanding and relationship building.
The goal of such events would be to not only help program learn from each other, but to provide and on-ramp for volunteers and donors who over time build a deeper understanding of what the issues are that a sector addresses, as well as the financial challenges many organizations face along with the infrastructure needs of most organizations within a sector.
As this understanding grows volunteers could begin to offer skills based on their understanding of a NGO’s needs and commitment to a cause, as well as their own assessment of their talent (or financial resources) and the amount of time they are willing to commit to helping a NGO fill a need.
In my own sector I focus on helping inner city youth connect with extra learning and a network of extra mentors via organized non-school programs. I’d love to see some sponsors/universities begin to organize a MOOC to help connect organizations, volunteers and donors within our sector, and to engage resource providers in the planning stage so they begin to offer help based on what the organizations need.
BY Wayan Vota
ON September 18, 2014 05:22 PM
Janet and Fiona are on point. I wonder how easy it was for LI volunteers to sign up? Just a click, or three? So about the same commitment as “liking” on Facebook, and we know how effective that is in actually solving a problem.
I would bet that all those millions of volunteers certainly are not thinking through the time commitment when they sign up at that scale. They are thinking a few hours here or there - soup kitchen help once a quarter type thing. Most NGOs are past that slackactivism these days. They want volunteers who put in real time - at least 1/2 day week if not more. I wonder how clear LI was on that point?
Anyway, good on them for adding the option, bummer they didn’t adapt faster to the realities of volunteer management. It’s not something that can be automated,
BY Janet Thorne
ON September 19, 2014 01:51 AM
To be clear: LinkedIn For Good are not signing people up for a programme - they are making it easier for people and causes to notice each other and connect. It’s really useful - primarily because of the vast network that is LinkedIn - and we find it especially helpful when trying to find someone with less common, specialist skills. So, as a channel for recruiting, it is phenomenal.
However, LinkedIn For Good does not address the other issues raised above - of ‘on boarding’ volunteers for example, and there is inevitably a high attrition rate from applicants. To be fair, LinkedIn recognise this and are supportive of organisations which do this work. My frustration is how seldom other players (government, corporates, funders etc) see this broader picture.
BY Shweta Sharma
ON September 21, 2014 07:10 AM
I run a talent platform in India where we have a clear mission to “not” focus on volunteers, but rather build a space for people to commit to working in the sector by investing their skills and experience full-time.
You generally do not see volunteers working for free for corporations. I believe there is a reason for that. Like Wayan said, corporations do not invest in on-boarding volunteers as they understand that investment is as much as, if not more than, full-time staff. And the returns are often far less. So why should nonprofits suddenly take all of these people that just want to “feel good” for some short period of time, rather than looking for people willing commit to working in the sector for as an actual career alternative to the corporate sector?
I am not saying all volunteers are bad, but honestly, when things get chaotic in their lives, volunteering is the first thing they put on the backburner. This “attrition” is almost always as detrimental to an already resource-constrained organization, as is losing a full-time stall member.
So perhaps the issue is that nonprofits have recognized this need for staff over volunteers and do not actually want volunteers?
We need to stop looking at this sector as a charity space. It is indeed actually a very challenging and viable career option. If LI could focus more on the breaking the misconceptions of this sector as just a “feel good sector” that you give back too when you have time, I think it could really switch the paradigm of the work.
BY Josh Schukman
ON September 24, 2014 01:48 PM
Shweta - I love the idea of shifting it away from the ‘feel good sector’ model. Not only is this a viable career sector, I also think volunteerism can be especially valuable IF it is done as part of a cause that one is deeply committed to. For example, my one cause is helping refugee’s who have been recently resettled. I’ve done this for some time, and while it is not a career path for me, it is a cause I’ve been deeply involved with on a long-term basis.
The challenge with LI and other systems is they put an emphasis on ‘feel good’ programs at the expense of long term engagement. So, I agree that misconceptions need to be broken - I think one of the major ones is this over-focusing on short term volunteer commitments at the expense of long term involvement - whether for pay or not.
BY Kyle Reis
ON September 24, 2014 05:12 PM
Thanks to all for your thoughtful and insightful comments. One thing that’s become clear from some of these comments is that I should not have lumped volunteering and pro bono together. As Taproot would rightly note, the two, though similar, hold important distinctions, particularly with respect to the specificity of the skills on offer to nonprofits. And I absolutely agree that any successful model will require that all interested parties - volunteers, nonprofits and intermediaries - bring skin to the game beyond a ‘feel good’ impulse to help. On the volunteer side, what and how much time do I have to offer? On the nonprofit side, what do I really need done and how much am I willing to put into an engagement that might enable me to get these needs met? And, ultimately, someone needs to manage and scope the engagement and see it through to fruition. Our question then is can this be done in a lighter touch and more systematic way to enable it to succeed at a larger scale? I believe it can and appreciate this candid feedback, feedback that will help all of us who seek to get more resources to nonprofits to identify the barriers to doing so. Send more!