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Tags: volunteer management volunteerism
Categories: Volunteer Management Review
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Sitting across the desk from you is Cynthia. Cynthia is a woman in her early sixties. She is dressed in a suit and has an air of confidence about her. Cynthia has impressive qualifications. She holds an MBA and was a vice president at a local bank before retiring. You are delighted to have her as a potential volunteer. Cynthia listens politely as you describe the opportunities at your agency, but you can tell that none really excites her. In fact, you are beginning to feel a bit embarrassed that have nothing to offer someone like Cynthia. Not sure where to go next with the interview, you ask her, “What is it that YOU would like to do here.” All of a sudden, Cynthia comes alive. “What I really would like to do,” she says “is to become a mentor to one of your female managers. I have learned a lot about managing people over my 30-year career with the bank. I would love to share that experience with a promising manager in the nonprofit world.”

What Is the Entrepreneurial Volunteer?

Volunteer managers often don’t know what to do with people like Cynthia; they just don’t fit neatly into our position descriptions. That’s because she is what many are beginning to call an “entrepreneurial volunteer.” Within the context of a formal volunteer program, an entrepreneurial volunteer is someone who:

1. assumes an assignment outside of the established position descriptions of the volunteer program,
2. takes a more active role than the typical volunteer in defining the nature of the job s/he will do,
3. works with a greater degree of independence and self-direction than is typically allowed, and
4. is subject to a greater degree of personal accountability as a consequence.

You may not yet be encountering many entrepreneurial volunteers, but chances are you will. Baby Boomers, who tend to be individualists, suspicious of organizations and highly skilled, will probably be more entrepreneurial than the GI and Silent Generations.

Although the focus of this article is on Baby Boomers, the trend towards entrepreneurial volunteering may be more than merely generational. Some researchers believe that larger cultural changes such as declining social connectedness and competing cultural identities are resulting in a distinctly post-modern form of involvement that is less “collective” and more “reflexive” (short-term, automatic and self-referencing). For more on this, see Hustinx and Lammertyn, "Modernization Perspective," Voluntas, June 2003 as well as numerous articles by Mary Merrill and Nancy McDuff.

When an entrepreneurial volunteer finds his or her way into a formal program, the volunteer manager is faced with three choices:

1. turn the volunteer away because no position exists to utilize his or her skills,
2. try to convince the volunteer to settle for one of the existing positions, or
3. create a short-term, project-based opportunity to take advantage of what the entrepreneurial volunteer is offering.

This article recommends the third option. If we are going to attract Baby Boomers to our programs, we need to create a continuum of volunteer opportunities. The first step in that process is to restructure, where we can, our existing, traditional opportunities (see Part 1 of this series). The second step is to create higher-skilled, short-term, flexible, self-directed opportunities to balance out those traditional opportunities that will still make up the bulk of our assignments.

Creating Higher-Skilled, Project-Based Opportunities

A good bit of preparation needs to take place before introducing entrepreneurial volunteers into our organizations.

Get Organizational Buy-in. For example, it is very important that management buys-in to the idea. Entrepreneurial volunteers will work much more closely with management than do traditional volunteers. They will need access to information and to meeting time that managers may not be used to giving to volunteers. And, of course, entrepreneurial volunteers will want to relate to managers as equals and to have their suggestions given serious consideration. If management isn’t really open to the new ideas and change entrepreneurial volunteers can bring to the organization, then it is really better not to proceed.

Brainstorm Potential Projects. Identifying potential projects is not something the volunteer manager can do on his or her own, but it is a process we can facilitate. The ideal setting for such a brainstorming would be a management retreat. Della Stolsworth of the Pro-bono Consultant Program of the Volunteer Center of Montgomery County, Maryland suggests starting the process with a SWOT analysis. Once the current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the organization are identified, the next step would be to brainstorm how higher-skilled, short-term projects might begin to address these issue areas. Ideally, you want to identify significant projects lasting from two weeks to probably no more than three or four months. The range of projects that entrepreneurial volunteers can take on is limitless. Look at all aspects of the organization: management, personnel, organizational development, marketing, fund raising, financial management, public relations, legal, information systems, facilities management and volunteer management. Be creative in your brainstorming. Remember that there are many kinds of higher and specially-skilled people in the community that you may not initially think of. For example:

• A landscape designer might create a new building landscape,
• A military officer could develop an organizational disaster plan,
• An electrician could inspect a building’s wiring,
• A photographer might create a social issue photo exhibit,
• A law enforcement officer could advise on building security,
• A firefighter could do a fire safety audit,
• An interior designer might develop a plan for a more calming client waiting area.

Of course, not all projects that need to be done are appropriate for volunteers. If a project requires a considerable financial investment or must meet a crucial deadline, it might better be done by an employee or paid consultant. The organization does not have the leverage with a volunteer it might have with a staff member or consultant being paid for his or her services.

Rethink Forms and Procedures. The human resources management theory upon which much of what we do is based is probably more reflective of the world of work of the 1950s than today. Progressive corporations with their flat organizational structures, self-directed teams, project-focused job design and flexible working arrangements are not nearly as rigid today as the typical volunteer program. Colleen Kelly in her article “The Road Not Taken” contrasts the traditional “position-centered” approach to volunteer management with what she calls a “person-centered” one. Traditionally, what we have done is to create “slots” and then go looking for people to fill those slots. Ms. Kelly suggests that we should balance this approach with another in which we start first with people’s skills and then create opportunities that will best utilize those skills.

Incorporating entrepreneurial volunteers into our programs, a person-centered approach, will mean that we have to rethink much of our volunteer management infrastructure. Take position descriptions, for example. The typical position description is written by staff with little or no input from volunteers. Position descriptions are intended to be followed to the letter; there is little room for negotiation. In fact, the goal of a good description is to eliminate as much as possible any need for independent judgment or action. Obviously, such a tool will not work well for entrepreneurial volunteers. What might work better would be a “scope of the project” statement written by management to which is attached a project work plan developed by the volunteer. The work plan should include the volunteer’s understanding of the problem the organization is seeking to address, the potential solution and action steps the volunteer would take to implement that solution. Many volunteers would need help in developing their work plan, which would mean that we volunteer managers would have to develop new, project management skills. We would need to learn how to break a project down into manageable pieces, set timeframes and define deliverables.

Bringing entrepreneurial volunteers into our programs will mean a similar rethinking of interviewing, supervision, training, staff-volunteer relations and evaluation. We will have to learn how to involve the executive director and senior management into the process of utilizing entrepreneurial volunteers without loosing control of the volunteers. Most of us have already lost control of board members. We don’t want the same thing to happen with entrepreneurial volunteers.

Recruit. You may be lucky enough to have entrepreneurial Baby Boomer volunteers knocking on your door, but it is much more likely that you will have to recruit them. A recruitment strategy for entrepreneurial volunteers probably consists of two steps. First, we need to identify people with the specialized skills we are looking for. This will mean contacting the retiree programs of local corporations and unions. We can also recruit through the local chapters of professional associations. Another option would be the local institute of learning in retirement, if you have one.

Once you have located people with the necessary skills, the second step is to identify those among them who would be comfortable working in an entrepreneurial role. Vocational theorist John Holland in his book, “Making Vocational Choices,” has identified six occupational types: the realistic, investigative, artistic, social, conventional and enterprising types. Enterprising people like to organize, direct and control the activities of others in order to attain organizational goals. As a consequence, they develop good leadership, interpersonal and persuasive abilities. They enjoy initiating projects, making things happen and being in control. Enterprising people tend to value status, power and economic gain. They see themselves as popular, self-confident, ambitious, adventuresome and energetic. Others, however, may see them as domineering. Occupational fields dominated by the enterprising type include management, consulting, law, sales, entrepreneurship, politics, banking, contracting and real estate.

We are most likely to find successful entrepreneurial volunteers among people with enterprising characteristics. As we craft recruitment messages and interview prospective volunteers, it would be helpful to keep this profile in mind. We will want to underscore that the entrepreneurial volunteer has a special status and that he or she will work directly with the most influential people in the organization. We also want to emphasize that the volunteer will have the opportunity for initiating and carrying out the project. If clerical or other support is available to the volunteer, they will likely see this as a plus.

In Part 3 of this series, we will continue the discussion of creating a continuum of opportunities by looking at how formal volunteer programs can collaborate with loosely-affiliated, self-directed groups.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: What will it take for your organization to include these “entrepreneurial volunteers”? Please share your thoughts on this on the VOLUNTEER-ISSUES discussion list.