After leading a youth organization for a few years, I decided to tell parents to commit to a volunteer job [...]]]> As I was sitting at a picnic for one of my son’s activities, a leader stood up and proceeded to describe all the volunteer duties for parents. “O boy,” I thought, “This is entirely my fault.”

After leading a youth organization for a few years, I decided to tell parents to commit to a volunteer job on an index card and hand it to me along with their membership payment. One night in a parking lot as we were leaving a meeting, this leader talked about how certain parents were overburdened with a few jobs each, while other parents did nothing. I told her about my new system for my group and she was intrigued.

If you have ever volunteered for your school’s PTA, a scout organization, youth group, or sports team, you know how volunteering usually goes. The leaders do all the activity coordination themselves, a few other parents step forward on their own, or the leaders beg the same few volunteers to help. Eventually people don’t want to step forward as leaders because the job is overbearing.

The burden must be evenly spread across all members so everyone feels like they are doing their fair share. When I implemented the system, I worried about parents’ reactions to being forced to do an activity. What I found is that parents went overboard in their responsibility. Since they knew it was their “one thing” for the whole year, they threw themselves into the job. We almost had to hold them back. My leaders knew they could concentrate on their real responsibilities without additional time requirements. The quality of all our activities improved.

After the presentation at the picnic, the leader came to me and confirmed my earlier thought. Her presentation was due to my suggestions. All I could do was laugh. She talked with the leaders and came up with the plan to encourage more parent involvement.

Taking my idea a step further, she had taken a collage of photographs of the kids, cut it into puzzle pieces, and put a volunteer job on each piece. She encouraged the parents to take one puzzle piece and create the full picture together. When some did, she was delighted.

Perhaps mandatory volunteering will help your organization. Don’t be timid when you ask.

As I began to start a new community website, I caught myself thinking I’d need to jettison real life commitments in order to maintain it. Then it hit me, I was actually thinking about quitting my volunteer work with other people to sit at my laptop.

In the last week I’d volunteered at our elementary school [...]]]>

As I began to start a new community website, I caught myself thinking I’d need to jettison real life commitments in order to maintain it. Then it hit me, I was actually thinking about quitting my volunteer work with other people to sit at my laptop.

In the last week I’d volunteered at our elementary school festival and field day then participated in a cub scout service project. Between my family, work, church and a city commission, my days are booked. Something would have to give.

Should we really reduce our real life community time in order to have one online?

When I confided my dilemma to a friend, he told me about his six years maintaining a national website for train enthusiasts. After a while, the site took up so much time that he realized he wasn’t fixing trains anymore. All he wanted was to grab tools and scrap paint to repair old engines in the museum, but he’d spend his weekends on the website. He stopped.

For people who don’t have volunteer or community activities, online groups and interactions provide a sense of community. Anyone can spend time blogging and commenting to provide a place for like-minded people to participate from the comfort of their own computer screen.

But what if your time is filled volunteering in the flesh? Even if you streamline, you still need to have the time to do a good job and respond to others online. It’s unavoidable.

Now I’m seriously considering the benefits from all of my activities by asking myself four simple questions.

Does the organization have a positive influence on a priority in my life, such as my children?

What do I get out of the experience personally?

Am I truly helping a broader good or cause?

Will the online interaction improve an aspect of my real life community or career?

When I find the answers, I still have to prioritize whether an online effort with the same benefits outweighs a real life effort with people physically in the same place at the same time. It’s amusing to even consider it.

More and more, time spent online truly competes with real life interactions. How many times have you been dragged away from your computer or internet cell phone connection by someone standing in front of you?

A fellow mom sent me a piece of Flair on Facebook, “Not now sweety, mommy’s on Facebook.” I read it out loud with my 7-year old in the room and he said, “That’s alright mommy.” I spun around in shock and explained that I was only reading something. Was I ignoring him for the computer? At that moment I hadn’t thought I was. Though I often say, “Just let me post this blog real quick and we’ll do something together.”

I can’t imagine quitting as a volunteer to spend my time on my laptop no matter what the reason.

What we all need are online clones to handle our internet duties, blogging, programming and design. Our look-alike avatars could handle everything for us. Who’s working on THAT kind of robot?

Wow! I didn’t know what to say to this volunteer. We had just sat down to celebrate the success of my organization’s annual fundraiser, but these simple [...]]]> “I know this is going to sound dumb, but I’m really going to miss all the emails, editing, and back-and-forth of working with you the last few weeks.”

Wow! I didn’t know what to say to this volunteer. We had just sat down to celebrate the success of my organization’s annual fundraiser, but these simple words meant so much more to me than the event.

He had lugged all his professional video equipment to three different locations to tape my interviews for our award winners. A friend of our organization had asked him to help. He’s an up-and-coming videotographer who produces videos for athletes seeking college scholarships. Our project demanded a substantial time commitment. He had to make sacrifices in his schedule to accommodate our taping. This was my first attempt at creating videos and he had obvious technical talent. Along the way we discovered that we were an excellent team. People from all walks of life were comfortable with us and the conversations produced meaningful footage.

I do a great deal of volunteering and manage many volunteers, so I’ve experienced it from both sides. I’m never in it for the glory or recognition. Since that evening, I’ve been thinking about what makes volunteering special. Why do people continually give of themselves? What makes me personally want to continue?

1.) The cause has to be meaningful. If a volunteer is not familiar with your organization, you need to introduce them. In this case, the volunteer had never been involved with the population served by my organization. The first time the two of us sat down together, I talked about what we did. I knew what impressed me and told him.

2.) A volunteer has to have support from others in their personal life. A parent praising the work or a friend already volunteering make a big difference. Since volunteer time commitments can impact family and socializing, it’s no small matter to make sure volunteers are encouraged by the important people in their lives.

3.) The experience needs to be fun. Recently a co-worker told me about working in a car assembly plant for three years. The experience sounded terrible but he enjoyed it because of the other workers. The task doesn’t matter but the interpersonal relationships do. My video guy and I compared notes on many aspects of our lives, our community, and our dreams. We became friends which made our success all that much better.

4.) You need to make sure the volunteer winds up having the time to get the job done. We only have so much time and sometimes our jobs or commitments change. Never assume or demand that a job be completed. Continually ask if the work is possible. Volunteers need to know that they can change the project or timeline to fit their schedule.

5.) Your expectations need to be reasonable. Since I didn’t know how difficult it would be to switch out certain footage or change pictures, I asked the volunteer what could be done on the tight timeline then respected his expert answers.

6.) Make sure the volunteer job is a good fit. Obviously, someone who creates videos for a living likes the job but sometimes people get tired of volunteering for the same duties they perform professionally. In this case, a wonderful variety of people were interviewed so the project was a tremendously different experience. We both were enlightened by the people we interviewed.

7.) Volunteers should grow either professionally or personally. My volunteer needed to overcome a strange sound problem near the end and he discovered a cutting-edge program to fix it. Any technical geek will appreciate this reward. The volunteer gained valuable knowledge that will come in handy professionally. Many volunteers talk about wanting to become better pubic speakers or learn a new communications skill. Volunteering can create safe environments to improve or discover hidden strengths.

Each experience bestows new insights, so I’m sure there’s plenty more to add.

The [...]]]> This morning I was waiting for our PTA President to finish talking with the mother who is chairing a school activity. I would step outside then back in again while waiting to wave to my son’s class before school started. So I overheard parts of the conversation and was REALLY glad I wasn’t having it!

The PTA President is a warm and caring woman who I consider a friend. She grew up in Puerto Rico and reminds me of a girl from my childhood. When I was in grammar school Addie would exert a great deal of time trying to get me to look better. She was very open and honest and pulled you right in. By the way, it never worked. I was hopeless and just didn’t care about what I looked like.

So here is our volunteer President who is a very special, caring person and she’s being told in a forceful voice that if this Chair doesn’t get exactly what she wants, somebody else can chair the event next time.

I was reminded of the kids yelling at each other “If you don’t do it, I won’t be your friend anymore!” We try to teach the kids that they shouldn’t threaten this and now a parent is doing it!

We all get caught up in our projects and work. Her overreaction indicates just how dedicated she is to this project. The President continued to talk to her and explain and look for a way to make the situation better. We all know I admire talking to stop negativity.

After the Chair left, the President wanted to know if the proper word was “threaten”. Was that a threat? Yes it was! This issue is far from over and no doubt will take up some official meeting time.

As a volunteer, you don’t need people threatening you. You need team players with positive attitudes. It’s this type of situation that gives PTAs a bad reputation! Please take a step back before lashing out at a fellow volunteer.