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Entrepreneurs in the Volunteer Corps: Building Capacity as Nonprofit Organizations Answer the Call to Serve

Jennifer Rackow - Summer 2009

Headlines are full of grim news about the economy, but these challenging times have inspired an extraordinary influx of volunteers into nonprofits. While many publications focus on the economic downturn, our clients report significant “upturns” in their volunteer pools. Now, along with reduced budgets and increased demand for services, nonprofits face the unexpected challenge of responding to this incoming tide of volunteers. We know that this convergence of economic constraints and abundant volunteers is, in fact, an unprecedented opportunity to transform the place of volunteers across the nonprofit sector.

First Lady Michelle Obama recently addressed this very issue at the June 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service, “[Volunteers] are eager to be part of this nation's recovery and renewal…As hard examples, applications to AmeriCorps have quadrupled. In the Peace Corps last year, there were three applications for every available position. 35,000 young people applied for just 4,000 spots in Teach for America…People across this country are ready to answer the call to serve. We just need to issue that call and provide them with the opportunities that are meaningful.” If not welcomed and meaningfully engaged, these volunteers will walk away, taking their skills, interests – and money – with them. Recent research and all of our work with clients shows that to successfully engage Boomers and the generations that follow, we must do so in entirely new ways: as entrepreneurs, leaders and members of self-directed teams, and sources of innovation.

A critical piece of entrepreneurial engagement is having volunteers lead other volunteers – in important projects and in mobilizing additional resources to fulfill strategic organizational needs. A traditional volunteer corps is typically well stocked with entry level volunteers and volunteers for Board positions, but has cultivated few between those ends of the continuum. In flush times, staff hiring fills that void; in this economy, hiring is rarely an option. Volunteers with extensive work experience, management skills, and leadership abilities can take ideas from inception through completion with minimal staff guidance and can not only lead other volunteers; they can also lead entire initiatives, increasing the nonprofit’s capacity to grow its services and relevance.

Over recent years we’ve guided hospitals, faith-based organizations, and volunteer centers as they embrace this entrepreneurial volunteer engagement. In the case of one library, volunteers supplied the idea, the expertise, the energy, the community connections, and ultimately a fully realized new program – and then things really started cooking. At the beginning, one staff member provided guidance and support: turning barriers into obstacles and clearing them away, letting go of control to discover that stewardship trumped directing.

The Case

Convening

Library Director Jennifer Baker calls a group of six volunteers together; she needs actionable ideas for regular adult and youth programs. As a California public librarian, she knows hiring additional staff is not an option. After an hour of conversation, she steps out of the planning meeting. She refills her coffee mug, worried this new task force won’t coalesce – that she made a mistake pleading for her small, rural library to be included in a high profile statewide push to redefine the very nature of library volunteer engagement. Reentering the small conference room, she finds the group huddled over the planning worksheet, scribbling plans to make the library an arts and culture destination. Now she has a new concern: she does not consider herself in any way artistic… How will she be accountable for this initiative given her lack of expertise?

Welcoming Entrepreneurs

Upon signing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (H.R. 1388) President Barack Obama said, “I’m not going to tell you what your role should be; that’s for you to discover.” He knows what Jennifer Baker found out that afternoon: the volunteers she’d assembled didn’t need staff leadership to tell them how to pursue the initiative; they needed to know the rules and foul lines; they needed a permission slip and some tools. Traditional volunteer management models teach volunteers to be dependent on staff, just as they teach staff to direct volunteers. Dependency and direction rarely yield breakthrough innovations, nor do they meaningfully engage the skills, talents, and passions of the volunteers.

The perception of volunteerism as “position centered”[1] has meant that traditional volunteer management works largely by prescription: staff members have a list of things that need to get done. They match volunteers’ skills, interests, and availability to these prescribed (and typically low level) positions. One problem with this approach is that, too often, one or two staff members direct hundreds or thousands of volunteers. In the corporate world, no organizational chart would show one person with hundreds (or thousands!) of direct reports. The result of this common structure in the nonprofit world is that paid staff members don’t have the bandwidth to cultivate volunteer leaders, uncover talents hidden in their volunteer pool, and launch innovative initiatives that leverage the skills of their constituents.

In entrepreneurial volunteer engagement, the paid professionals invest more time cultivating and supporting volunteer leaders, and those leaders take on most of the responsibility for managing teams of volunteers, many of whom the volunteer leaders recruit themselves. Ideas emerge and staff and volunteers collaborate to choose which initiatives to pursue, ensure alignment with broader organizational objectives, and develop work plans and measurable outcomes. This model is one that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials find much more intriguing and appealing.

Initial Results

Within two months of that initial meeting, Jennifer’s volunteers created and ran a new spring break arts camp for 150 children, received terrific local media coverage, and brought new families and volunteer groups (teens and local artists) into the library. They immediately planned a more complex summer program for youth of different ages; with four weeks left they’ve already seen 150 children. The library now has a different buzz with different results than the traditional volunteer management approach. Not long after that spring program, volunteers came up with another idea… and another…

Continuing to Say Yes

When Jennifer’s leadership volunteer Christine told her that she wanted to take famous art prints and related library books into local schools and talk with third graders about art, Jennifer thought it might be too risky to put such a highly visible school district partnership on the shoulders of an already busy and valuable volunteer. Fortunately, she thought it – and didn’t say it. What was to be a one-time event has blossomed into a school-wide vision. Christine recruited and trained three more art teachers and, at the Principal’s request, will bring the program to every third grade class with plans to expand and to include sixth and ninth graders over the next two years. Jennifer met with the Principal (once). Everything else was volunteer-driven: the Friends of the Library volunteer group even paid for the art prints. The library improved visibility, distributed library cards, and has a place to continue its vision of being an arts and culture destination and offering valued programs for the community.

TIP: Cultivate an entrepreneurial volunteer in your organization to be a leader. Volunteers can lead teams comprised of paid staff and volunteers… especially if the team leader has a title other than “volunteer.”

TIP: Increase a volunteer’s responsibility and customize meaningful work to the volunteer’s passions and skills. When you do, you’ll build your organizational capacity beyond what staff alone can accomplish and you will take the first step in creating a sustainable culture of entrepreneurial volunteer engagement.

The Entrepreneurial Style

Injecting a layer of non-traditional volunteer leadership into an organization means keeping an eye out for entrepreneurs – and inviting them to join you. According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review, entrepreneurship “… connotes a special, innate ability to sense and act on an opportunity, combining out-of-the-box thinking with a unique brand of determination to create or bring about something new to the world....”[2] The Ashoka Foundation adds that, “Every leading social entrepreneur is a mass recruiter of local changemakers – a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything.”[3]

We have found that entrepreneurial volunteers possess four key traits. They are:

• Integrationist: they weave seemingly unconnected threads from across their personal and professional experience, the result of which is a novel approach, perspective, or idea
• Passionate: they absolutely believe that the world must know, and will be much better for, their innovation; they will go to extraordinary lengths (long hours, personal investment, etc.) in service to this new entity
• Achievement Oriented: driven by accomplishment, they constantly evaluate, tweak, and acknowledge work and results; they’re much less likely to evaluate the person and may find a spotlight on themselves (rather than on the results) embarrassing
• Confident: they trust their perception and gut; in seeing what’s possible beyond “what is,” they are willing to let go of closed or overly centralized systems

Entrepreneurs seek the success of the venture, and they are committed to taking whatever actions are required to get there. They also stay disciplined: consistent in message, tone, and temperament. That predictability and steadiness allows volunteers on their teams to also take risks without the worry of being blindsided, off-message, or not supported. That greater unity and resulting success build trust among a larger group of staff members, creating more champions of volunteer engagement.

Results

Entrepreneurial engagement leads to innovations that make sense because an engaged entrepreneurial volunteer is doing meaningful work, and often:

• Brings friends, family, and professional colleagues to the organization
• Forms a relationship-based bond with the organization – its mission and purpose
• Is willing to do what’s necessary in service to the larger vision
• Gives financially… if not now, in the future
• Supports, sustains, defends and advocates for you – across your community, in good and in difficult times

Continuing to Say Yes

The short term goal of entrepreneurial volunteer engagement is for this new cadre of volunteers to show up, find meaningful opportunities, and enjoy how they’re treated, whether motivated by the call to service, the need for a job reference, or a desire to find community in difficult times. If they don’t have a positive experience, they are unlikely to return. The long term goal is that they continue to be a source of ideas, qualified volunteer leaders, and capacity to meet emergent, strategically important organizational needs. The key is meeting volunteers where they are – not expecting the volunteer to meet the organization where it is. It involves important conversations about how the volunteer’s skills might align with strategic priorities. The person you turn away today is unlikely to ever become a financial supporter. Say yes and you get time, money, and access to everyone they know.

So when another of Jennifer’s volunteers, Robyn, said she wanted to have a library event that involved food and wine, Jennifer thought, sure. When she mentioned she’d like Chef Keller from Napa Valley’s five star restaurant, The French Laundry, to lead the event, Jennifer let go and said yes. All she had to do was introduce him the night of the event. Robyn hand delivered an invitation, worked with Chef’s Public Relations staff, recruited her own volunteer crew to create flyers, move tables and chairs, and, as it turned out, dismantle and reassemble bookshelves and computer stations. Chef Keller came, with his own staff, served wine and appetizers, and signed books at what turned into the best attended program in the library’s history.

TIP: Integrate innovative thinkers from your volunteer corps into your organizational and departmental strategic planning processes.

TIP: Explain – to the volunteer or team – the results you want, how they connect to the organization’s strategic plan, and why you think a particular team is a good fit to carry out the initiative. Avoid telling them how to do it. 

“Once one or two people get it, all you have to do is get out of their way.”

All of this began in December 2008. It is now July 2009. A virtual volunteer does the weekly library newsletter, saving Jennifer three hours each week. Three graphic artists also work virtually. Adult programming went from non-existent (no staff, no money, and no space) to once and now twice each week – such dramatic and successful growth that Jennifer and her volunteers have agreed to present their models to their state association this fall. The new poetry program went from annual to monthly and is now overseen by the County’s Poet Laureate. The city employee who was contracted to work for two hours each week on the library’s technology and information systems now volunteers an additional eight... When he asked if he could record the Chef Keller event, Robyn checked with Chef’s PR folks and they said yes.

In addition to the quote above, Jennifer would tell you that the initial pilot proved that volunteers can be trusted to come through on high impact, highly visible assignments – and prepared staff to be more receptive to new ideas, more willing to say yes and empower volunteers to take control of the projects that excite them. Because volunteers build and lead their own teams, this small library can keep up with the growth.

TIP: Highlight the changes high level volunteers make, rather than simply how many hours they volunteer.

TIP: Train volunteer leaders and paid staff to work effectively with entrepreneurial volunteers and demonstrate an organizational commitment to the effort by widely communicating the successes and encouraging others to innovate and collaborate.

Conclusion

Volunteers will show up today, tomorrow and the next day with ideas, hope, skills, and a personal network of valuable connections. When you learn to use entrepreneurial volunteers and to empower self-directed teams, you will gain new perspectives and have resources to pilot new structures and initiatives. You no longer have to be an artist to imagine and then oversee, grow, and measure every aspect of an art program. Rather than reducing programs and services in the face of a challenging economy, focus on bringing more skills, talent, energy, and other resources into your world and apply them where you most need them. Engage your community members and start small: point them toward something with a high chance of success and build momentum from there. Volunteers are not merely a nice (and ultimately dispensable) program. Supporting the volunteer asset is a key strategic business decision: welcoming entrepreneurial volunteers – and the innovations and teams they bring – brings sustainable abundance to the organization, in good times and bad.