We’ve got the power

Long-term readers will know I am a fan of Seth Godin, writer, marketer and inspirational thought leader. In the past, I have riffed off Seth’s writing for this blog (see “Belief And Knowledge” and “What Is Excellence?” for example) and I’m doing that again here, thanks to an article published on his blog back in January 2024, simply titled, “Unaware”. Here it is:

”If you don’t realize that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak up, to participate, to invent, to lead, to encourage, to vote, to connect, to organize, to march, to write, to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’. It’s tempting to imagine we have less power than we do. It lets us off the hook. For now.”

Very often that’s us, isn’t it?

We Volunteer Engagement Professionals either don’t realise we have power — or don’t believe we do — and so we don’t exercise it. We may not speak up, invest, lead etc. We buy into the belief that because we don’t have a seat at the table, we have little or no power, little or no agency.

If that’s part of our self-belief and self-talk, then we have two responses.

Response one

Listen to it and believe it. We’re in an isolating profession. We’re the only one who does what we do at our organisation. We can’t affect change. Nobody would understand.

We maybe take comfort in our powerless narrative so we don’t have to face up to the bigger challenges of our role — sitting back in our comfort zone rather than trying to change the status quo. We just need to keep our heads down and do the best we can for our volunteers.

At its worst, we adopt a victim mentality — that all the issues we face, problems we encounter, and challenges that obstruct us, are someone else’s fault, and we are powerless to address and overcome them.

Response two

We hear the voice telling us we have no power, no influence, and we choose to ignore that voice and do something about it.

We look for ‘teachable moments’ to educate others about the power and potential of volunteering.

We challenge stereotypes and prejudice that cast volunteers in a negative light.

We tell stories and share meaningful data that demonstrates the multiple impacts of volunteers.

We keep going because we know that volunteering has the potential to change the world.

I know I have been firmly in the first response category, especially early on in my career. I’ve played the victim card. I’ve kept my head down. I’ve even left jobs because of that mindset, hoping that the grass is indeed greener in different pastures. Honestly, it’s sometimes the easier option.

Now I’m more often in the second response category. That doesn’t mean I’m never frustrated, or annoyed, or demotivated by events. But it does mean I choose my reactions to those events, and focus on the power, the influence, and the agency I do have, to try to make change happen.

So today, no long lectures or philosophical navel-gazing about our profession. I’m keeping this simple.

Ask yourself, which response category do you sit in today? Number One or number two.

If it’s response category one, then what can you do to realise and seize the power you have, to become aware of it and take action? What support might you need in making a change? Who can you reach out to for that support? If you’re stuck, please let me know.

If you’re in response category two, then I have three simple asks of you.

Find another Volunteer Manager in response category one and offer to mentor them.
Write about your journey from response category one to response category two. Share how you’ve seized and exercised the power you realised you have, and what change you’ve enabled as a result.
Publish what you write. Share it on LinkedIn. Send it to me as a guest post for this blog. Write it up for Engage. Those of us who are aware of our power and use it to try to make change happen, have a responsibility to help those who don’t to act.

So, come on. Don’t delay. Before today is over, decide which category you are in and set yourself a goal to act accordingly.

Let’s work together to acknowledge our power, and exercise it effectively to realise our vision for volunteering.

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

Across the divide

Now, more than ever, volunteering can play a crucial role in connecting us across our increasingly divided societies.

In almost every study I read about why people get involved in volunteering, one of the strongest motivations is around meeting people, connecting with others and making new friends.

We’re perhaps all familiar with the stereotype of the 1950s ‘ladies who lunch’ — women who came together, often with a purpose to fundraise for a good cause, but whose gatherings were as much about social connection for the participants as they were for the causes they supported.

Then there are the protestors, campaigners, and advocates for change, who unite together in a wide array of organisations to help change our world. Importantly, these associations are also about building and strengthening connections between people with shared values and beliefs.

And there are today’s young people who, according to the 2019 Time Well Spent study, value volunteering as a way of combating the social isolation they experience.

I could go on, but I won’t.

The point is that the act of volunteering, whether formally or informally, has always had a strong element of human connection, a sense of belonging, and an association with being part of something bigger than oneself.

Today’s world can be a scary place. We are more divided than ever. We delve into our devices for solace and escape, often reinforcing the division by entering our online echo chambers. We keep our heads down and our mouths shut, retreating into a safe space we feel comfortable in. And, not that long ago, we were required to stay apart, compounding that sense of isolation and helplessness that many feel.

As one commentator recently put it:

”We are become a decentralised human race. And that’s a scary thing. While we may be closer together with the technologies that bring us close, we are further apart than ever before.” — Rahim Hirji, ‘The Blur Of Society’

This sense of disconnection, of divide, of difference seems to dominate so much of what we read, hear and see in the modern world.

But I think volunteering can offer small, green shoots of hope.

I’m seeing a theme in some of what I read and hear, a theme that centres volunteering as a powerful antidote to this fracturing of our world and our relationships.

Of people setting aside their differences to unite behind a particular cause or movement.

Of people coming together to dialogue, to share and to build connections that fly under the radar of a mainstream media that seems intent on stoking division for gain.

How can we, Volunteer Engagement Professionals, embrace this?

How can we fan these flames of connection?

How can we be the antidote to division in our world?

These are big questions, but there are three things I think we can all do in our work:

Let’s look at how we can bring our volunteers together in ways that deliberately foster connection, especially across divides. With National Volunteer Week season almost upon us, let’s explore ways to connect people at the events we have planned. Mix people up rather than allowing them to cluster in cliques. Use icebreakers that get people to share something about themselves that isn’t related to their volunteering. Get people talking and engaging.
We need to step out of our comfort zones as Volunteer Engagement Professionals. That could be as simple as speaking to someone different next time we are at an event. It could be about going beyond the audiences are comfortable connecting with and engaging with new groups of potential volunteers. It could be about changing our ways of work to intentionally connect people through volunteering.
Let’s explore the potential for intergenerational volunteering. So much of the division we see in our world is being stoked between the young and the old. Yet rarely do we see how much the generations have in common. The baby boomers changed the world in the 1960s (think civil rights, sexual equality, Vietnam War protests etc.), similarly to how young people are striving to change the world today (think climate crisis, LGBTQ+ rights, anti-war protests etc.). Let’s find ways to bring these different ages together, to share and learn from each other.

What would you add to that short list?

What are you doing to build connections between people through volunteering?

Leave a comment below and let’s share ideas and approaches to put volunteering at the heart of the struggle against a divided society.

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

Schrödinger’s profession

”Imagine you’re at a party, and you ask the person next to you what they do, and they reply: “I’m a professional doctor.”

LOL!!!

Here’s the thing…

….No doctor (or lawyer or accountant or architect or civil engineer or a dozen others) would ever qualify their profession as “professional” because it is inherently obvious that they’re a professional.

So why do photographers (and models and musicians and actors and writers and others) do it?”

Great question!

Why do we do it?

That opening to this article came from a daily email by somebody I follow called Jonathan Stark. He’s not a volunteer management person (he helps business owners), but his email really resonated with me as someone who works in the field.

For as long as I can remember, Volunteer Managers have debated whether we are a profession, whether we are professionals, and what that might actually mean.

We’ve also engaged in debates about amateurs vs. professionals when it comes to the roles and work done by volunteers, exploring definitions and their relevance to what we all do.

Many people have explored these themes through blog and journal articles over the years, including me. Here are just a few of the articles from this blog that I have written on these themes:

During my working life, the language around what we are and do has evolved as well.

Whilst terms vary around the globe, broadly speaking, we have gone from volunteer administrators, to volunteer co-ordinators, to volunteer managers, to volunteer programme managers, to volunteer resources managers, to leaders of volunteer engagement, to the current spirit of the times title of Volunteer Engagement Professionals.

Perhaps we have often gone along with these changes without really thinking them through. I know I have. That’s why Jonathan Stark’s article made me pause for thought — it prompted me to consider why have we now included the word ‘professional’ so explicitly when we talk about our roles?

Is it because we are so tired of arguing for legitimacy, of attaining the mythical seat-at-the-table, that by saying up-front that we are professionals, we think it’ll get us fast tracked to the status we believe we deserve?

If it was for that reason, then I’m not sure if it worked. I’m not aware of anyone who has started calling themselves as a Volunteer Engagement Professional and then magically got included in strategic planning, along with a commensurate pay rise and plaudits from their peers.

In fact, Jonathan Stark’s email suggests that if we have to state up front that we are Volunteer Engagement Professionals, then we actually undermine our desire to be considered a professional.

Instead, he implies that we should strive for it to be inherently obvious to anyone that we are professionals, in the same way that lawyers or accountants or architects or civil engineers are understood by the public to be professionals.

That circles us back to questions I posed almost ten years ago about what we want to gain from being considered professionals:

Do we want more money?
Do we want more credibility? If so, who with? HR? CEOs? Boards? Managers? Staff? Volunteers? The public?
Do we want to be held in higher regard? By whom?
Do we want to be better understood? By whom?
Do we want something else? What? Why?

Or is it all of the above? Or something else?

These are questions I don’t think we have ever collectively answered, nor have we collectively agreed on how we might achieve some (or all) of these goals.

Is it through credentialing? Or setting entry requirements to join the ‘profession’? Or lobbying for better pay? (which might make us a Union rather than a profession!).

Are these debates themselves unhelpful. Should we just believe and act as if we are professionals? Is that enough? Is that why we started calling ourselves Volunteer Engagement Professionals?

There are no simple answers to these questions. It is a debate as old as our field. And perhaps that’s my point. For almost thirty years, I’ve been involved in these discussions as we strive for some sort of higher status in the organisations and sectors within which we work.

If we are honest, all of this debate, discussion, and writing hasn’t really got us anywhere. Sure, it’s a fun conversation for volunteering nerds like me, but it hasn’t had any tangible impact on our status our the effectiveness of what we do, which is help others to make a difference through giving their time to causes they are passionate about.

Perhaps 2024 is the year we need to retire this whole debate about our professional status, and just focus on doing the best job we possibly can.

Maybe that will get us the status we deserve, whatever that looks like individually and collectively?

Perhaps volunteer management is, to use an analogy from quantum physics, Schrödinger’s profession? We are both a profession and not a profession at the same time. It is only when others observe us in the sense of the outcome and impact we have that one status or the other is bestowed upon us?

What do you think?

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

The best of 2023

I’m trying something different for my last blog post of 2023.

Instead of my usual ‘annual round up’ approach looking at big issues in the volunteering world, I thought I’d share some of the articles and podcasts that from 2023 and that I have found to be particularly helpful and insightful.

Most are firmly focused on volunteer engagement, but some are a little broader in scope, focusing on subjects like productivity and leadership.

I usually have such a list of helpful resources in every issue of my newsletter, so I thought it might be a nice way to end the year to highlight some of my favourites.

Oh, and I also have a fun question for you, but more of that in a minute.

Here is my list:

Now, to that question I promised.

2023 has been the year of Artificial Intelligence, with AI tools like ChatGPT becoming more common in how many of us work.

In light of that I want you to tell me:

Which of the articles published on this blog during 2023 were written by ChatGPT (with some editing from me)?

Hint: There are two.

Post your answers in the comments below. No prize, it’s just for fun.

The answer will be included in my first article of 2024.

Now, back to my list of resources.

What would you add to the list? Which articles and blog posts have you found valuable? What have I missed?

Leave a comment below and share the resources you’ve found helpful this year so others can benefit.

This is the last article on the Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd blog for 2023.

The first article of 2024 will be published on Friday 19th January.

Have a great break over the holidays and see you in the new year.

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

My volunteering story

How did I first get involved in volunteering?

That’s a question I’ve been asked a few times, and a topic I discussed in the recent episode of the TeamKinetic podcast where I was interviewed. So, in this article, I want to provide a slightly fuller account of my volunteering story for those who might be interested.

To give this some further context, back in June 2021 I published an article outlining my career journey. This took readers through my employment history working in the volunteering movement, but didn’t touch on the volunteering I’ve done over the years. Then, quite recently, my Canadian friend and colleague, Adam Janes, published a LinkedIn article all about his journey in volunteering and volunteer management. That reminded me I’d never talked about my own volunteering.

So here goes.

My first proper taste of volunteering came through senior school back in the 1980s. We had a teacher who was what we’d now call an early productivity pioneer. In reality, this meant he was a big fan of personal organisers systems, like the then ubiquitous Filofax. This teacher saw the potential of such organisers to help GCSE students manage their studies, and he asked for a group of volunteers from the student body to help develop a solution.

I put my hand up and volunteered.

We went on to work with a company called Time Manager International (I think, it was about thirty-five years ago!) to develop something that was rolled out across the school. I’ve still got my system — in its 1980s utilitarian grey plastic folder — somewhere in the house. I guess this formative volunteering experience also spawned my interest in productivity, and it’s where my tendency to be pretty well-organised comes from.

Come to think of it, I had probably done some volunteering before this school experience but, like many people, never really associated it with the V-Word. I was a Cub Scout, a Scout and in the Air Training Corps, so activities like bob-a-job week and various other badge-related activities would have been even early volunteering experiences for me.

At University in the early 1990s, I got very involved as a volunteer in various groups. For example, I was a member of the Students’ Union stage crew, volunteering to help put on events, concerts, club nights and more. I was also active in Student Rag, serving for a while on the committee.

My enthusiasm for the student experience far outweighed my enthusiasm for my course, which, as I explain in the article about my professional career, is what started my journey in the wonderful world of volunteer management. But my volunteering continued regardless.

When I lived in East London, I helped lead a youth group for 10-13 year olds, putting on weekly meetings and activities, taking young people on summer camps and the like.

I also became a trustee at my local Volunteer Centre and, as my professional career developed, I have been involved in various work related extracurricular volunteering roles and projects, including:

In 1997, I founded UKVPMs, the first online networking forum for Volunteer Engagement Professionals, and now exists on LinkedIn.
I volunteered to chair a working party for the Institute of Fundraising, which developed the first-ever code of practice on volunteer fundraising across the UK. This led to me serving two terms on their Standards Committee.
I wrote articles for newsletters and professional journals, such as e-Volunteerism. I joined the board of that journal in 2000 and, in 2019, became the Editor-In-Chief (a paid role) where I led the re-launch to its new format as Engage.
I co-edited a free ebook (link opens a PDF) on volunteer engagement with Andy Fryar and Fraser Dyer, two long-standing friends and colleagues.
I joined the Technical Working Group which developed the original National Occupational Standards for the management of volunteers in England.
Most recently, in 2017, I volunteered to get involved in the Heritage Volunteering Group where I now serve as an Executive Board member.

My volunteering hasn’t just been work related though, it has also been tied to my local community.

Almost twenty years ago, not long after I moved to Lincolnshire, I got involved as a parent governor in my local primary school. That volunteering developed over time, and I went on to see out my time with the school over a four-year period as Chair of the governing body.

Bringing things completely up-to-date, earlier in 2023 I was elected Political Education Officer for my local Constituency Labour Party, and joined the Lincolnshire County Local Government Committee as a Labour Party Delegate.

That, then, is a potted history of my volunteering over some thirty-five years of my life. I might earn my living in the volunteering world, but I love being a volunteer as well.

What’s your volunteering story?

Leave a comment below and share your experiences.

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

“We’ve got to get better at this stuff” — Ten personal reflections on getting started as a volunteer

For this latest article, I’m welcoming Helen Timbrell as guest contributor to the Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd blog. Helen is a respected leader in Organisational Development and Volunteer Engagement and let me just say you are in for a treat with her article. Enjoy!

Image shows a tweet from Ed Holloway outlining the efforts his wife is making to volunteer, how the processes don't work, and saying that we have to get better at this stuff.

In June I saw this tweet from Ed Holloway, and it really resonated. For the past few months, I’d been in volunteer recruitment processes with three organisations and I’d found that many of the things we might think are givens in volunteer recruitment and onboarding are simply still not consistently in place. I was involved with two national charities with long-established and large-scale volunteering programmes and one smaller local organisation, much newer to volunteering. In all three there was some good stuff in the experiences I had, but also some not-so-good stuff. And, frustratingly, that not-so-good stuff was mostly really easy to fix.

I’m sharing these experiences here not to criticise volunteer managers and leaders (I know how challenging those roles are) but because I’m curious to hear thoughts on why this stuff is still happening and what we can do about it. And maybe also as a reminder to us that while it’s right and proper to invest time and energy in volunteering strategy, new ways to volunteer and all the shiny, sexy developmental stuff that we sometimes get attracted to, spending time fixing the basics matters. A lot.

The not so good stuff

1. OK Computer

OrgOne is a large, national organisation with tens of thousands of volunteers. The first stop for me was their web pages listing all of the opportunities by postcode and proximity. Brilliant. Except it didn’t work. Consistently, for about two weeks. And with no information to tell me they were aware of the problem and fixing it and no information on alternate ways to find out about volunteering opportunities. Because I knew the organisation and really wanted to volunteer with them, I stuck with it. My guess is many others wouldn’t have bothered.

We have to get better at responding to the very first action expressing an interest in volunteering and converting this into a meaningful engagement. How many potential volunteers do we let slip through our fingers because our systems fail?

2. Let’s get together

OrgOne subsequently required an interview prior to being appointed. Perfectly reasonable and also a good opportunity for me to meet key staff and understand more about the role. Except they insisted on a face-to-face interview. Which delayed the process by several weeks as I didn’t have a big enough gap in my work diary to travel and do the interview. I asked for an online interview. Nope. I explained I was used to interviewing and being interviewed online. No change. I asked for information on why a face-to-face interview was needed. No explanation.

So, several weeks later I went to the interview, during which I was asked nothing that couldn’t have been covered online and wasn’t asked to do anything that required face-to-face attendance. In fact, the person who insisted on a face-to-face meeting was probably with me for about ten minutes. Again, I stuck with this, but I wonder how many others would? When we’re planning our recruitment and selection processes do we scrutinise enough the purpose of each stage and who we’re serving by doing it in a particular way?

3. Show me the money

Travelling to the interview for OrgOne was a one-hour round trip. For OrgTwo the round trip is around 45 minutes. In both cases, no-one at either organisation proactively spoke to me about the process for claiming expenses or even explained that expenses are available. I know they are available in OrgOne (there was some information included in the induction pack I received at my first training session) but it’s not been raised by my Manager, and no-one has checked whether I understand the process or encouraged me to make a claim. It also wasn’t clear on the recruitment website or at the interview that expenses would be offered. In OrgTwo (a local events company) it turns out expenses are not offered. It’s just not an option. I’ve stuck with it (there’s a theme here…!) but for how many others is the absence of reassurance about not being out of pocket a barrier to even making contact, let alone getting actively involved?

4. Mean Girls

I’m now up and running at OrgOne and I love it. I particularly love how warm and friendly the staff and volunteers in my department are. If only that was the case with the wider community of volunteers. We have a shared volunteer’s room for breaks. My experience is that if you’re new or “unknown” that space can feel distinctly chilly. Maybe the volunteers in other departments are shy. Maybe they’re tired of talking to people and need a break. But they rarely speak or engage with me, even if they are talking with other volunteers who they know. I’m not actively brought into conversations or encouraged to join in. It feels that as a newbie I don’t quite belong or that I’m not quite welcome. I’m sorry to say this is more the case with women than with men.

In OrgTwo the initial seasonal training for volunteers brought returning and new volunteers together. In theory. Returning volunteers actually sat largely by themselves, at the back of the room, spoke over the trainer, constantly talked about the previous season and didn’t engage with new volunteers. It didn’t feel welcoming or like one team. I’m pretty resilient and confident in volunteering so, guess what, I stuck with it, but should we be more explicit with existing volunteers about the important role they play in helping us welcome and retain new volunteers?

5. Overload

For OrgTwo we were asked to show our availability through the season and then received a rota of our shifts. All done via email. When my shifts came through there were SO many. In any one week, I could have been on the rota for two performances on a Saturday (daytime and evening) plus two more afternoon or evening shifts in the same week. It was a lot. I’d indicated all the times I could be available (as I’d been asked to) but I absolutely hadn’t expected that they would all be taken. All of a sudden, having never volunteered with this organisation before, I was signed up to be on site three or four times a week. It was too much.

In addition, on days when I would have been on duty from 9.30am to 11pm there was also no information about breaks or food being provided. It felt overwhelming and unreasonable. And maybe a bit exploitative, given this is a commercial events company (probably the topic of a whole other blog…). This time I didn’t stick with it. I withdrew from volunteering.

While organising shift patterns and rotas by email had initially seemed efficient, the absence of any conversation, at any stage in the process, about how much time I was seeking to give overall led to an entirely unworkable arrangement. How do we make sure we don’t lose sight of the whole person when we’re working hard to cover our activities and that we continue to authentically honour the voluntary nature of the relationship our volunteers want to have with us?

Good stuff

1. Speed

In all three organisations the speed of initial response, after I had made contact to express an interest in getting involved, was fantastic. While this then stalled in OrgOne (because of the interview requirements) in OrgThree (a national organisation with volunteering at its core) an online interview was arranged very quickly, and in OrgTwo an interview wasn’t even required: I went from application to invitation to attend training, without having any conversation with an organisational representative. We know now that wasn’t necessarily ideal in the long term (see above) but overall, the speed and warmth of responses in all three places was great. It increased my motivation to get involved and my level of trust in the organisations. Pace matters.

2. Someone like me

In OrgOne the initial training I received was co-delivered by a member of staff and a volunteer. It was fantastic to see a volunteer so actively involved in welcoming and training new volunteers. It was inspiring to hear from her and see the organisation valuing and centring volunteers in this way. I loved it. Another volunteer also led the tour for new volunteers, reinforcing the sense of teamwork between staff and volunteers in this organisation.

3. Food Glorious Food

After my application to OrgTwo I went straight to training – there was no selection process, simply applying and then being invited to the training. At the time this felt delightfully process light, and also an expression of the high levels of trust and confidence OrgTwo had in its volunteers. It felt refreshingly adult-adult.

The training was clear and comprehensive, all done and dusted in about ninety minutes and supported by a straightforward manual. It also took place in the evening, making it easy for working volunteers like me to attend. It was easy. It was, to use a word Rob often uses to describe what volunteering should be, frictionless.

But perhaps the most impressive thing was the provision of a free bar and full dinner at the training evening. The venue has an on-site bar and restaurant. Drinks were available on arrival and through the evening and at the end of the training all of the volunteers were invited to stay for a fantastic two-course meal provided by the restaurant.

I felt incredibly valued and well looked after and at this stage in the process I felt overwhelmingly positive about the hassle-free experience I was having, the extent to which I felt trusted, and the degree of recognition being offered. Do we think enough about how to create really positive supporter experiences through the volunteer recruitment and selection process, or are we sometimes too focussed on working through tasks?

4. Self-control

I’ve been active in OrgOne for several months now and one of the best things about it is the absence of any expectation that you will come every week, or at the same time every week, and the ability to book yourself on and off of shifts via an online rota system. It’s easy to use, and enables you to plan months ahead (and also amend those plans) quickly and easily without having any contact with the organisation itself.

The flexibility and the self-managed nature of the involvement I have is key to me staying involved, but I wonder how much of that benefit is clear to potential volunteers? I’m not sure I knew how flexible and self-managed the experience would be before I got involved. Do we promote clearly enough the really positive elements of our volunteering, and particularly those that might help reduce barriers to volunteering for some people?

5. Stupid Girl

I’ve also been active in OrgThree for several months. It’s a committee-based role and all our meetings are held in the evenings – super helpful for those of us who are working.

I’m volunteering alongside people who have been active on the committee for several years and the level of support I have received as a newbie has been fantastic, particularly the repeated encouragement to ask questions and explicitly being told there are “no stupid questions”.

After the interview there was no training, other than the opportunity to sit in on a meeting before becoming a full member, so again I felt trusted and encouraged to just get stuck in. This contrasts significantly with OrgTwo where I had to complete three online training modules and one three-hour in-person training session before I even stepped foot in the department in which I had applied to volunteer. Department-specific training then followed.

Do we make the process of getting started too complicated in some cases? Are we too risk averse? Do we lack confidence in volunteers? Lack trust? Is the way we offer initial support really the most effective?

Final thoughts

I’m an experienced volunteer with a really high level of commitment to the ethos of volunteering. Being an active volunteer matters to me, so despite some of these frustrations and challenges I’ve stayed involved with two of the three organisations. On the whole, I really enjoy those experiences.

I am left wondering though, in a time when levels of volunteering are dropping and recruitment and retention are regularly described as increasingly challenging, are we paying enough attention to these basics? Do we value potential and current volunteers enough to really tackle some of these simple things that could make a big difference?

I think not and so I’m with Ed, “we’ve got to get better at this stuff.”

Dr Helen Timbrell is a People and Organisational Development Consultant, Researcher and Coach. She was previously director of People and OD at Versus Arthritis and Samaritans and Director of Volunteering at the National Trust. Helen describes volunteering as part of who she is, rather than what she does, and much of her work continues to focus on supporting individuals and organisations to realise the full potential of volunteering.

Contact Helen by email (helen@helentimbrell.com) or on Twitter / X via @HelenTimbrell.

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

A midlife crisis?

In 2024, the UK’s Volunteers’ Week will be forty years old. It’s a well-established fixture of the sector’s calendar, occurring between 1st and 7th June every year. But is Volunteers’ Week having a bit of a midlife crisis? Has it lost its way? Does it need some new energy and direction?

I think it does. And in talking to others, I know I’m not alone.

Before I start, let me be clear that my observations are about Volunteers’ Week in England because that’s where I experience the week. I can’t comment on what Volunteers’ Week is like in the other home nations of the UK. I say that because, for those that don’t know, Volunteers’ Week is a devolved responsibility like all things volunteering, with WCVA, Volunteer Now and Volunteer Scotland organising the week in Cymru, N Ireland and Scotland respectively. In England, NCVO takes the lead, and all four organisations co-ordinate to some degree through the UK Volunteering Forum (UKVF).

With all that said and out of the way, here are some things I think we need to consider when we think about the future of Volunteers’ Week.

What is it for, exactly?

In the past, Volunteers’ Week had a clear focus: Recognise, Reward, Recruit. Those three words summed up the purpose of the week.

I’m not sure ‘celebrate and inspire’, the current strap-line, does the same job. I, personally, find it a bit vague and actually not very inspirational.

More broadly, who is Volunteers’ Week for? Volunteers? Volunteer-Involving Organisations? Small organisations that don’t get much media airtime over the rest of the year? Big organisations who want a handy week to formally acknowledge their tens of thousands of volunteers? Volunteer Managers? The media, so we can raise awareness of the contribution of volunteers across society? The government, so they develop more volunteer-friendly policies and legislation? Funders so they can get better at supporting volunteering?

Who is being invited to ‘celebrate and inspire’, how, and why?

If it’s everyone, then we need more nuanced messaging, so we convey the right messages to the correct audiences.

Is ‘celebrate and inspire’ what we actually want to achieve? What about Invest and resource? Anything else?

All of this is to say that I don’t feel the audience, or call to action, is actually clear any more and maybe requires a change.

Has it become an afterthought?

With apologies to those who work hard to lead Volunteers’ Week, but it increasingly feels (to me and others I have spoken to) like we get to the end of April and all of a sudden, we remember Volunteers’ Week is just a month away, and we need to come up with a plan.

Volunteer Engagement Professionals and Volunteer-Involving Organisations can be guilty of this too, especially this year when so much effort was going into The Big Help Out a mere three and a half weeks before Volunteers’ Week started.

In the past, planning for Volunteers’ Week started around January with Volunteer Centres, Volunteer Managers, and Volunteer-Involving Organisations actively engaged in the process. Now it feels like the website gets a minor refresh, dates get changed on the handful of resources available, and some social media posts go out a few weeks before the start of June, and then people are just left to get on with it.

The timing sucks

Is there really any value in Volunteers’ Week always being from the 1st to the 7th of June? I mean, in 2002 it got moved because the week clashed with the England vs. Argentina World Cup football match, so it clearly doesn’t have to be held between those dates.

Keeping it to fixed dates also means that sometimes the week kicks off on a weekend. Volunteers’ Week 2024 will start on a Saturday, outside the usual working week for many. Some might see that as a benefit, for others it’s a pain. If we just said the first full week of June, then the dates may vary, but it’d always kick off on the same day of the week — that’d be Monday 3rd June in 2024.

Every year, the half-term school holidays intersect to some extent with Volunteers’ Week. Given how many people (paid staff and volunteers alike) take at least some time off during this school break, it always affects events planned for the one week of the year dedicated to volunteers.

In 2023, Australia, Ireland, and Romania all celebrated their national volunteer weeks in mid-May. The USA and Canada have theirs in April, with our USA cousins labelling the whole month Global Volunteer Month. New Zealand goes for late June. The UN celebrates volunteers globally on 5th December.

Do we have to stay tethered to the 1st to the 7th June? If so, why? If not, why not?

Getting lost in The Month of Community

Speaking of timing, Volunteers’ Week is at the start of what is now called The Month Of Community. This initiative of The Eden Project has only been running for three years and lumps together all the community-focused campaigns, such as:

Neighbourhood Watch Week
Carers Week
Loneliness Awareness Week
Refugee Week
Care Home Open Week
Windrush Day
Small Charity Week
The Big Lunch
Thank You Day (surely this is the focus for recognition?)
The Great Get Together

No doubt The Big Help Out will get added to this list if it happens again.

Now some of these events come later in June than Volunteers’ Week but some clash with Volunteers’ Week — Carers Week being the prime example. All of which means media attention (if that’s what we want for Volunteers’ Week) gets diluted.

I get that there may be a benefit to having Volunteers’ Week in a wider Month of Community, but there are also downsides. It dilutes the focus, and takes the attention away from volunteers and volunteering.

Don’t volunteers deserve more? Shouldn’t they have a separate focus rather than getting lost in a mishmash of unrelated events and campaigns that, I would add, rarely seem to celebrate the contribution volunteers make to their causes?

Others are doing it so much better

When I look at Volunteers’ Week in England, it looks really bland and uninspiring compared to what others are doing.

The 2023 National Volunteer Week theme in Australia was around Change Makers. It clearly linked to their new National Strategy for Volunteering, the equivalent of England’s Vision for Volunteering. That gave them the chance to raise public awareness of the strategy, not keep it hidden to just the nonprofit sector.

Volunteering Australia produced resources acknowledging different kinds of Change Makers. They had a range of gifts and merchandise available. They provided key messages linked to supporting research. Not only that, but they ran a social media campaign.

Volunteering New Zealand ran the Big Shout-Out to celebrate volunteers and volunteering in the run-up to their national volunteer week, which had the theme this year of “A Time To Shine”.

Compare the resources in Australia and New Zealand to those in England. We’re just not in the same league. Volunteering New Zealand and Volunteering Australia are not big, well-resourced organisations. They have staff teams of ten people or fewer. They just seem to care more about their national volunteer week than we do.

This article is not a swipe at NCVO (or their sister bodies across the UK) who organise Volunteers’ Week. They do great work for the volunteering movement and the wider sector, and I have the utmost respect for the team there and the work they do.

I’ve written this a challenge to all of us who care passionately about volunteers and the people and infrastructure that make volunteering happen, to ask whether we are really making the most of Volunteers’ Week, or just letting it stumble and fade into a midlife crisis of lost direction and purpose.

Volunteers’ Week should be about celebrating volunteering in all its diversity, the impact volunteers have on society and, through all that, educating others about volunteering and so potentially helping to get new people engaged.

Rather than letting the week slip deeper into a midlife crisis as it hits its forties, can we use the anniversary in 2024 to breathe new life and purpose into the week? Can we throw off the shackles of history that might be holding us back? Can we find a fresh passion and enthusiasm for using the week to make a positive difference to volunteering across the home nations?

What do you think?

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

Composer, Conductor, Performer, Dancer

In March, I wrote an article about the Big Help Out which concluded with these words:

”My cynical side says a lot of effort will be (is being) diverted into the Big Help Out, with the very real possibility that all that effort will result in little benefit, at a time when we could be putting our energy into things that might really move the needle on volunteering. Whose tune exactly are we dancing to, why, and is it the tune we want and need to hear?”

In this article, I will expand on that point about dancing to someone else’s tune, and suggest that we, as Volunteer Engagement Professionals, can fall into four categories: Composer, Conductor, Performer, and Dancer.

Yes, I am drawing an analogy between volunteer engagement and the work of Dave Arch and his band on Strictly Come Dancing!

Composer

The composer writes the tune. It’s their creation, their passion project — putting together music that others will want to listen and dance to.

In the context of Volunteer Engagement Professionals, being the composer means having ownership of all aspects of volunteering across our organisation or setting. Just like a composer of music, we might collaborate with others (co-writers) to pull it all together but, ultimately, the buck stops with us. We make the decisions, manage the budgets, set the strategy, and equip others with the product of our work (effective volunteer roles, support structures, policies and procedures, etc.) so that they can make it work for of others.

If you are the most senior accountable person for volunteering in your organisation or setting — Director of Volunteering, for example — then chances are you are a composer.

Conductor

The conductor takes what the composer has produced and organises the musicians to perform the piece that the dancers will dance to.

In the context of Volunteer Engagement Professionals, the conductor organises the resources needed to make effective volunteering happen across the organisation or setting. The conductor doesn’t set the direction, they follow the instructions set out by the composer, but they do have the freedom to decide how best to make those instructions a reality.

If you are the person tasked with making the volunteer strategy a reality, either on your own or as part of a team (if you’re lucky, a volunteering department), but you don’t have ultimate accountability for all the volunteer engagement work in your organisation or setting, then you are a conductor.

Performer

The performer takes the composer’s work and, under instruction from the conductor, plays the tune that the dancer will dance to.

In the context of Volunteer Engagement Professionals, performers are perhaps the front-line, hand-on volunteer managers, doing the day-to-day, direct work with volunteers. They may be paid but, sometimes, they may themselves be volunteers. They take the composer’s work and, under the leadership of the conductor, make the magic happen.

If you are a fairly junior Volunteer Engagement Professional, or someone who wouldn’t ever consider themselves to be a Volunteer Manager but does actually line-manage volunteers in your organisation or setting, then you are a performer.

Dancer

The dancer dances, typically to someone else’s tune.

In the context of Volunteer Engagement Professionals, dancers are perhaps pretty obvious — they are the volunteers themselves. They take the work of the Composer, Conductor, and Performer and deliver something that takes our breath away.

I would, however, suggest that the dancer label can apply to Volunteer Engagement Professionals as well. That’s why I used that line in the Big Help Out Article“Whose tune exactly are we dancing to, why, and is it the tune we want and need to hear?”.

Because Composers, Conductors, and Performers can all be Dancers too. In the context of our work, we can end up being led by the work of others.

In the context of the Big Help Out, some of us had work plans in place that others told us to tear up, so we could focus on delivering for the 8th May. What we had already planned would probably have made more of a difference to our ability to engage volunteers than the Big Help Out, but someone else called the tune, and we danced to it.

To use our musical / dancing analogy, perhaps such an external influence who affects how we dance to the composers’ music should be a choreographer?

This may play out in other ways too, driven by internal issues within our organisation or setting, rather than by external drivers.

We may just accept that there is no money for volunteer expenses this year, rather than push the finance team to make it a priority. We may just accept that the learning and development budget has been slashed, rather than insist that at least some of it is retained because, without professional development, we can’t support our organisations as effectively as we’d like in a rapidly changing world.

In these contexts, what gets cut — and by how much — is always a choice, not an inevitability. If it’s someone else’s choice, and we simply follow their direction, then we are dancing to someone else’s tune.

Of course, we don’t all stay in one of the four categories all the time. We can (and do) move between them depending on the circumstances we find ourselves in.

We can also be in two categories at once. You might be senior enough to be a composer in your organisation and have a team you lead (conductors) who do the delivery (performers). And then a decisions comes down the line you cannot (or choose not to) influence, so you become a dancer to someone else’s tune.

Whatever situation you are in, I hope you find these four categories of Composer, Conductor, Performer, and Dancer a helpful way for you to reflect on your situation and to perhaps take steps to be more proactive in influencing others for the good of your volunteer engagement work.

Finally, please do feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts on this article. Do you agree with what I have said? Would you add anything? Is there another way of looking at this that we could all benefit from? I’d love to hear from you.

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

Gloom and hope

As I write this, it is the 2nd of May 2023.

I’ve just finished reading summary information from NCVO’s forthcoming Time Well Spent 2023 report and the associated media coverage from yesterday.

If you’ll forgive me for offloading on you, I’m pretty gloomy. Compared to the last Time Well Spent report in 2019:

Volunteer numbers have dropped
Volunteer satisfaction has decreased
Volunteers are now more likely to think their volunteering is becoming too much like paid work
More volunteers felt their volunteering group or organisation had unreasonable expectations of how much they did
People are less likely to continue volunteering
Volunteering is getting less diverse
Volunteers are worried about out-of-pocket expenses
Potential volunteers think volunteering will take up too much time and be too inflexible

After almost twenty-nine years working in volunteer engagement, it appears that any gains we have made have vanished thanks to the changes brought on society by a decade of austerity, Covid-19, the cost-of-living crisis and the like.

Sure, there are some glimmers of positivity.

First, only 10% of people are unhappy with the way their volunteering group is managed and organised. Well done, Volunteer Engagement Professionals! I can remember when this figure was a lot higher than that — back in 1997 the comparable figure was 71%!

Second, virtual volunteering has become firmly established during the pandemic after years of wandering in the volunteering wilderness. And people who volunteer online are as satisfied with the experience (95%) as those who volunteer in person (93%).

But the overall picture is not a positive one, hence my gloominess.

And it isn’t surprising.

In England, local and national volunteering infrastructure has been decimated by over a decade of funding cuts resulting from the Westminster Government’s austerity agenda. This has had serious consequences:

Significantly weakened support for Volunteer Involving Organisations to understand and respond to the changes they have faced
Fewer opportunities for Volunteer Managers to network, learn and develop the skills and approaches needed to respond to our changing world
Lower public awareness of volunteering and how people can get involved
It has become harder for people to find appropriate volunteering opportunities, especially those who face barriers to engaging in formal volunteering
The local and national policy voice on volunteering has been reduced

Don’t get me wrong. Those infrastructure organisations that have weathered the storm do great work and should be commended for it. The overall picture, however, is one where the volunteering support infrastructure is weaker than it was fifteen years ago.

Just look at the Big Help Out. Regular readers will know I’m not a massive fan, but I do acknowledge the challenge the organisers faced in pulling the campaign together in five months when the on-the-ground and virtual infrastructure to support it was (in England) so much weaker than it used to be.

Our approach to volunteering infrastructure needs a rethink.

Volunteer Involving Organisations have some responsibility here too:

There is continued undervaluing and under-investment in volunteer engagement work
There remains a lack of senior-level understanding of, and attention, to the importance of effective volunteer engagement
Leadership commitment to greater diversity in volunteering is lacking
Senior leaders still focus more on fundraising than people raising, with a mindset that the donated Pound is of more value than the donated hour
Volunteers are all too often viewed as nice, not essential, and an existential threat to the security of paid work in the sector

Just took at what happened in the first lockdown. Those vital volunteers who ‘we can’t do our work without’ weren’t just stood down, but their support was taken away as Volunteer Managers were furloughed and legally banned from speaking to the volunteers. That left many volunteers – quite a lot of them elderly and vulnerable – isolated and afraid as organisations cast them aside overnight. No wonder so many of them haven’t come back after the lockdowns ended.

Again, it’s no surprise that the situation we are in right now makes me gloomy.

Yet, there is a tinge of hope, a way out of this malaise.

Hopefully, the Big Help Out will kickstart a change. I’m not so sure, but I am hopeful.

Even if it doesn’t, in England we have a Vision for Volunteering to unite behind, and an Action Plan in Scotland too.

We have a community of brilliant Volunteer Engagement Professionals, represented by associations like AVM, AVSM, NAVSM and the Heritage Volunteering Group. Together, we make change happen.

We have a passionate and committed team at NCVO, as well as at the national volunteering bodies across the home nations of the UK — WCVA, Volunteer Now and Volunteer Scotland.

And in the despondency of where we find ourselves, we have the circumstances ideal for creativity and innovation. For new solutions to age-old problems.

Yes, right now, it might look pretty depressing for volunteering.

But, as the wise philosopher Yasmin Evans once said, “The Only Way Is Up”.

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

Dum Tee Dum – An Archers Volunteering Story

BBC Radio Four’s long-running show, The Archers, is a much-loved British institution. In this guest post, fellow Volunteer Engagement Professional Annie Bethell shares the story of when The Archers chose to focus on volunteer management.

Like many people, I have a morning routine. I get up and start the day with a walk around the river by my home. Crucially, I take this quick morning time out to catch up on a pastime that I never thought would fully form in my life – listening to last night’s episode of The Archers.

I tune in eagerly to hear what’s been happening to some of England’s best-known (if under-appreciated) characters. And over the years, the Archers have done a wonderful job of addressing some of the most current, emotive and important topics – with more recent stories including abortion, modern slavery and coercive control.

So, imagine my absolute delight when earlier this year, The Archers chose to start talking in earnest about volunteer management – yes! Fantastic. As we all know, the heady heights of volunteer leadership don’t come up anywhere very often, especially not as its very own storyline.

I listened intently, giving a critique and messaged a couple of pals from the sector about it. It wasn’t until I saw a post on LinkedIn from friend and sector colleague, Alice Chadwick about it (and the reaction on Twitter — which in itself is fascinating and deserves a thorough read!) that I realised how many of us really do listen to the Archers — and the surrounding conversation that followed.

It’s led me to a couple of questions.

First of all, was it accurate? And second of all, what advice would I be giving to the two (yes two!) leaders of volunteers involved!

Sadly, it’s been so long since I made my initial notes that you can’t catch up on the episodes, so I am hoping my descriptions live up to some incredibly talented scriptwriters (sorry)!

The story followed two leaders of volunteers:

Susan Carter, Postmistress in the local Community Shop and absolutely legendary gossip, who works with a group of shop volunteers. Along with volunteer Jim “The Prof” Lloyd, Susan was looking to recruit some new volunteers.
Freddie Pargetter, heir to the local stately home, Lower Loxley, who has done a great job of becoming quite a lovable character through his journey to rehabilitate his character locally after serving a prison sentence for drug dealing and newly crowned Temporary Volunteer Coordinator by his mother who manages the estate, as a response to his request for more management experience.

Now, both of these stories have so many moments I could talk about here, but I want to look at four (with a view to this not taking all day to read).

Not a real job

To start with, Freddie is pretty appalled that his management experience is as a Volunteer Coordinator and describes it as not a real job (more in relation to the fact a job has been created on the spot than specifically to the profession, but I’m going to run with this!).

“I’m a volunteer manager”

“What, you don’t get paid?”

Has anyone had that conversation before? I bet you have! For as long as I have been a volunteering specialist, we have struggled to have ourselves recognised as a proper profession. There has been some incredible work done by AVM, amongst others, to move this conversation along. Volunteer leaders are a skilled bunch, with huge amounts of expertise and transferable skills, and it’s an incredible way to develop your management experience (as well as experience in a very wide variety of other skills.

The Importance of blending process, flexibility, and clarity

Both Susan and Freddie needed to recruit volunteers, Freddie was determined to recruit some younger volunteers to the team (and this my friends is a WHOLE OTHER BLOG POST!) and Susan was just determined to get someone in, as long as it wasn’t Joy (Joy is just too chatty for Susan’s taste — which given that Susan is the village notice board, is a little bit rich!). But despite both having good-sized volunteer programmes, they seemed to be making it up as they went along.

Now we all know the importance of a good solid process, transparency and clarity, but because in both cases, they were trying to use smoke and mirrors to turn down a potential volunteer in the process, they tripped themselves up hugely.

Freddie recruited Chelsea Horrobin – who would have made an incredible guide and I would love to see her in our Shout Out Loud team at English Heritage, but she wasn’t aware she was applying for a voluntary rather than a paid role. Meanwhile, Susan recruited, local business-man and never-doing-anything-to-benefit-anyone-but-himself, Justin Elliot – and we now know he was just doing it to be nominated as a Business Angel!

I’m doing this, and this is why!

For me, rule one of volunteering is to provide great refreshments. Rule two is tell people what you are doing and, more importantly, why. This was (mostly) well demonstrated by the curious case of Oliver and Neil. Two new guides at Lower Loxley, they decided that the positions they had been given in the house were a bit boring, and they were definitely perfectly capable of delivering a booked tour for a group from the local nursing home, they just couldn’t see why Freddie couldn’t understand that…and they would show him! So, Oliver persuaded two more experienced guides delivering the tour to swap……

Well, it wasn’t a nursing home, but a school visit and the education officer had also got stuck in traffic and so needed the volunteers to cover. So, two untrained volunteers were stuck with a school group. Elizabeth Pargetter pointed out that it was all their fault, and they just needed to get on with it.

Thankfully it went off without a hitch, and they were well received by the children, but blimey, it’s like a textbook site nightmare!

Much of this could have been pre-empted with a good induction which outlines what training you need to undertake to do certain parts of the role and why
A decent morning site brief to all people off-site would help deal with any issues
Don’t station a volunteer guide in one place all day – it’s enough to drive anyone to mischief! When you do have guides in spaces, think about what else you could train them to do in that space, so they don’t get bored.
No Elizabeth, dealing with your accountant, was not the most critical thing for you to do that day – and it might not be your job, but it certainly wasn’t the role of two untrained volunteers to “just do your best”
Yes, Elizabeth, Oliver, and Neil were in the wrong, but speaking to them like the muck on your shoe, isn’t doing your job (and it really gets you a bad rep on Twitter!)

Making use of people’s skills

It always amazes me how often folk think volunteers come to us as a crash test dummy-esque blank person. As if by applying to volunteer, they have been cleansed of all of their previous experiences and have become people who will automatically make bad choices no matter what.

Instead, Susan (after some persuasion) let Justin make use of his business acumen around upselling to great success and once Joy joined the team, realised that her previous experience in retail was also incredibly useful.

Volunteers come from all walks of life, some want to use existing skills, others want to develop new ones. What’s important is talking to them and finding out – you are most likely to learn something yourself!

Now to come back to my original questions… Was it accurate? Absolutely. Volunteer leadership is a hard job – often done my people who are doing it as part of another role, like Susan, without training. Did Freddie and Susan get some stuff wrong – 100%, but I am pretty confident that every volunteer leader out there has got it wrong before now. Does it highlight some really critical things for people in our profession and managing volunteer leaders – you bet it does!

For now, the conversation on the Archers has shifted its focus to representations of the transatlantic slave trade, but it really was amazing to hear the stories of volunteer leaders in popular culture – let’s have more of it please. And if anyone writing a script needs an adviser from the sector – there are an awful lot of us around (and thankfully more appearing), and we’re a pretty knowledgeable and friendly bunch, drop us a line and say hi.

Annie Bethell is the Volunteering and People Development Manager at English Heritage, where she leads a team of incredible volunteering, participation and community specialists, who work with over 4,500 volunteers. She has previously held posts at the National Trust, Alzheimer’s Society and Workers Education Association.

Annie lives in Belfast and is currently volunteering with Another World Belfast in her spare time.

You can contact Annie via Twitter or email.

You can find out more about volunteering with English Heritage on their website.

Find out more about Rob and Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd on the website.

Response one

Response two

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The not so good stuff

1. OK Computer

2. Let’s get together

3. Show me the money

4. Mean Girls

5. Overload

Good stuff

1. Speed

2. Someone like me

3. Food Glorious Food

4. Self-control

5. Stupid Girl

Final thoughts

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What is it for, exactly?

Has it become an afterthought?

The timing sucks

Getting lost in The Month of Community

Others are doing it so much better

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Composer

Conductor

Performer

Dancer

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Not a real job

The Importance of blending process, flexibility, and clarity

I’m doing this, and this is why!

Making use of people’s skills

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