The Service Enterprise
In an Op-Ed in the Chronicle of Philanthropy earlier this year, I outlined the challenge we face as a nonprofit sector in absorbing the influx of volunteers brought on by both the recession and the emphasis on service by the Obama administration. This past October, the challenge was expanded by the push of the Entertainment Industry Foundation to promote service across American media through a week-long campaign that featured volunteerism in the plots of America's most popular television programs.
Earlier this year, a number of service leaders recognized the challenges presented by the influx of volunteers and formed a group called Reimagining Service to look at how the capacity of the nonprofit sector to engage Americans in service should be built. The members, including Taproot Foundation, meet again on December 9th at the White House to launch several campaigns to help the sector.
As I have been wrestling with the issues of volunteer engagement and underutilization, it has occurred to me that we need a better system to classify the ways nonprofits use volunteers. Creating this framework would enable us to characterize nonprofits based on how they utilize volunteers, find appropriate strategies for each segment, and find paths for nonprofits to evolve their volunteer engagement methods. This system would also allow us to look more systemically and strategically at the role of volunteer service in the nonprofit sector.
Here is a potential framework for classifying nonprofits based on how they engage volunteers:
1) Ad Hoc Services Users
Ad Hoc Service Users are organizations that use volunteers whenever they find a need for extra hands or whenever an eager volunteer approaches them. They typically scramble to put these volunteers to use. This process rarely generates value and leaves both parties frustrated. It also creates a cycle where negative experiences lead to skepticism which leads to under investment which leads to more failure. This type of volunteer engagement is unreliable and offers little or no return on investment.
2) Centers of Service Excellence
These organizations have identified some regular volunteer needs and have built some infrastructure to set these engagements up for success. A typical example would be a nonprofit that hosts a big gala annually and has developed a reliable model for using volunteers to support the event. These organizations execute specific volunteer projects well, but do not have a greater infrastructure for using volunteers. This is an effective model and breaks the frustration cycle experienced by Ad Hoc Service Users but often only makes an incremental impact because effective volunteer engagement is siloed within the organization.
3) Service Enterprises
These organizations represent the Holy Grail of successful volunteer engagement with a high-impact on nonprofits (i.e. pay close attention). They have deeply integrated service into their work and their infrastructures and have thereby been able to radically reduce their cost structures and scale their work in new ways. For example, the Girl Scouts designed a program model that leverages volunteers (moms) to be scout leaders and thereby replaced the entire need for program line managers. Their model wouldn't be economically viable otherwise. The Executive Service Corps in Chicago uses volunteers to reliably cover a wide range of administrative, fundraising and program functions. They too would go under if they had to pay for staff to do all these tasks. These models take years to develop and are often tied to strong program alumni programs. Most scout leaders were girl scouts as kids. Building a service enterprise may take a generation, but we could significantly cut the cost of the sector and/or achieve new scale if more organizations evolved to become service enterprises.
This segmentation can help us focus the conversation and efforts around engaging the recent influxes of volunteers. In doing so, we can focus on the important questions such as:
How do Ad Hoc Service Users become Centers for Service Excellence? How do Centers for Service Excellence become Service Enterprises? What investment spurs this evolution? How do we quantify the value for nonprofits of being Service Enterprises and then use this measurement to help us convince nonprofits of the ROI from building volunteer management infrastructure?
If we can answer these questions and execute against the conclusions, we might just be able to realize the potential of volunteer service in this country.
Thanks so much for offering this thought-provoking post, Aaron. I think that the fundamental questions you raise here are essential topics of debate in the sector. Namely, that is, how we can advance the ways in which organizations engage and leverage volunteer talent pools.
I would probably want to debate with you, however, about the nature of the classification system that you are suggesting. For example, is there not a more substantial differentiation to be made between organizations that use volunteers as: (1) CORE STAFF for PROGRAM DELIVERY such as is the case with Girl Scouts and Citizen Schools; (2) SUPPORT STAFF for PROGRAM DELIVERY such as may be the case with parental engagement in an after-school tutoring program; (3) CORE STAFF for ORGANIZATIONAL OPERATIONS such as organizations that utilize the Encore workforce as accountants and strategists; and (4) SUPPORT STAFF for ORGANIZATIONAL OPERATIONS such as those organizations that have volunteers work annual fundraisers or take on ad hoc duties. In this model, you have segmented very different types of volunteers, with different skill sets and different time commitments, which would allow me to think more clearly in terms of pipeline development strategies.
Anyway, this is just another framework to consider, and there are probably 10 other good ideas along those lines.
In the end, though, we can’t fail to lose focus on your key point of advancing the sector’s capacity to engage larger groups in generating social good.
I think this is a discussion worth having. I want to expand on what James Weinberg said. I have been looking at this as part of my work with the Baltimore Community Foundation to increase the civic engagement of people over 50.
Organizational differences are extremely important to how volunteers are thought about and utilized. In all-volunteer organizations such as fraternal organizations, the League of Women Voters, etc. the volunteer is central to the purpose of the organization. Volunteers are valued because they make the organization function. At the next level are organizations that have some staff, but where volunteers are so essential to implementing the mission that they are greatly valued. Scouts and Big Borthers/Big Sisters come to mind as examples. Then there are more staff oriented organizations where volunteers are viewed as supplementary. Many nonprofits fall into this catagory and it is probably the group where the most new volunteers could be utilized, if the staff is able to recognize that their work can be enhanced, rather than threatened by the involvement of volunteers. Lastly, we have the staff-focused organization that really doesn't see a useful role for volunteers -- they would just take away paying jobs. Unfortunately, many school systems are in this catagory. In these organizations, volunteers are not valued and staff is not trained to work with them. Stories abound of people with wonderful skills whose help has been turned down by this type of organization.
To promote volunteerism, we need to recognize these differences in organizational culture and design various approaches for each of these models.
I agree that this is a great topic for conversation, and am very excited to see what comes out of the Reimagining Service initiative.
I'd like to pause for a moment in this conversation to ask what the purpose of these definitions of service are, though.
For larger organizations, such definitions that would then each get their own theories and training models are all well and good. But since the vast majority of organizations in the sector are small, is there a different way to approach increasing their capacity to engage volunteers?
If you think of volunteering as a spectrum - on one end is stuffing envelopes (manual labor) and on the other end is board service (knowledge philanthropy) - isn't it easier to simply talk to organizations about finding other points on their spectrum at which to involve volunteers?
Girl Scouts has a great model - but could they do more? If I'm moved by their mission, but don't want to be a troop leader, can they (will they) engage me? On the other hand, think of the local food bank. They regularly engage volunteers to organize food pantries, serve meals, etc. Can they pick another point on their engagement spectrum to engage a local CFO. Or even more, the local CIO.
I'm just not sure it's about everyone aspiring to the "ultimate" model - like Aaron's Service Enterprise described above. That's academic and nice, but I'd prefer if the organizations in my community could simply consider 2 or 3 different ways to work with volunteers than they're currently doing. I think that small step would exponentially increase the engagement the sector can offer today's volunteers.
Virginia Edelstein
Vantage Point
www.thevantagepoint.ca
I think there is a lot of potential for building an understanding of the different ways non profits integrate volunteers into their service delivery. William and James have both expanded the thinking from what Aaron has started.
I think there is a another category of volunteer-based organization where volunteers lead other volunteers and are supported by a small core paid staff. In the new Internet environment, volunteers for such organizations might be virtual, located in different parts of the country and the world. This is a mission based organization working with inner city kids. They are in elementary school or middle school when we connect with them. Our promise is to help them be starting jobs/careers by mid-twenties. Thus could be 10-15 years into the future, so the role of the organization is to integrate volunteers into long-term service to that mission, and find replacements when one leaves so that the work continues. In this organization the education and growth of the volunteer is understood as critical to the ability of the organization to achieve its mission.
In all of these discussions, it's important to understand that volunteering is not free. There is a cost to management and leadership and hosting of volunteer involvement, and there are skills and experiences that make some people more effective than others. If we can help people understand this, and differentiate between organizations, then perhaps we can attract greater, and more consistent, forms of talent and dollars to support such organizations.
Wow... Really valuable post! Have a good day!