Boomers Seeking Personalized Volunteering

Reader Comments
Back to blog

Please i need help about the role volunteering

Princelaw Mosweunyane of IL 6:43AM March 24, 2010

Robert here from VolunteerMatch. The writer forgot to mention that ALL nonprofits can get their volunteer listings into Create the Good site simply by posting them at www.volunteermatch.org.
VolunteerMatch is the biggest primary source of listings for Create the Good, which is just an aggregator, and today about 70,000 organizations post to www.volunteermatch.org. We then distribute them far and wide to a network of hundreds of sites, including Create the Good. It's free to join for any organization.
Here's where nonprofits can get started:
http://www.volunteermatch.org/nonprofits/gettingstarted/
Keep up the good work!
Robert Rosenthal
VolunteerMatch

Robert Rosenthal of CA 2:42PM March 23, 2010

It's precisely because skilled volunteers might replace or supplant staff that nonprofit staffs have such a hard time welcoming and incorporating them. Who wants to train a replacement who can always undercut you on price? It's unreasonable to expect, and therefore useless to argue, that nonprofits should make this "paradigm shift"--working people are not going to happily reorganize themselves out of jobs.
But it's possible to provide volunteers with what I call "the big MAC"--meaningful work, autonomy and community/collaboration--by identifying mission-relevant projects that simply haven't been doable in the absence of staff, and give those to volunteers to lead and staff with other volunteers. If they flop, not much harm done, and if they succeed, they've provided you with a free pilot program for a new service area.
High-skill volunteers--of any generation--are an indigestible lump in the body of nonprofits' existing programs, but they can be a valuable auxiliary if pointed in the right direction and then left to themselves. Hence the term "auxiliary" as applied to the last round of high-skill volunteers to flood nonprofits--upper-class women with nothing to do who sustained charities during their founding years a century ago.
For more about managing volunteers and its pitfalls, please see The Nonprofiteer: www.nonprofiteer.net.

Kelly Kleiman of IL 11:39AM March 20, 2010

As a consultant and author on the subject of Baby Boomer volunteer engagement, I see this trend of personalized volunteering happening all over north America. Baby Boomers, and frankly the generations that follow them, want to be in control of when they volunteer, where they volunteer, what they volunteer to do, and with whom they volunteer. The round hole, round peg approach of fitting volunteers into predetermined volunteer assignments is no longer an effective way to recruit and retain volunteers. We encourage organizations to change the paradigm by asking potential volunteers, "What are the skill or skills, that you would gladly share, if our organization could make it possible for you to do so and if your gifts align with our strategic priorities?". When potential volunteers can disclose their gifts and when that aligns strategically, magic happens. In order to make this paradigm shift within organizations staff will need to focus on supporting volunteers in a more collaborative and less hierarchical way by facilitating self-directed volunteers to authentically lead, manage and implement initiatives.

Jill Friedman Fixler of CO 9:44AM March 19, 2010

For the last decade, the Armenian Volunteer Corps has assisted committed individuals at least 21 years of age, including lots of Boomers, find the right volunteer match in Armenia.
Find out more by visiting www.armenianvolunteer.org

Armenian Volunteer Corps 4:07AM March 19, 2010