Don't let them equate volunteer management with HR management
08:15, 6 April 2010
.. Posted in Volunteerism and Volunteer Management.. Link
Human Resources (HR) management and volunteer management are NOT the same thing. It's not just that one deals with paid staff and one with unpaid staff. The bigger difference is that HR is about getting the work that needs to be done in the most efficient way possible with paid staff. And that's great. That's absolutely necessary. But volunteer management is NOT getting the work that needs to be done completed by unpaid staff, in order to save as much money as possible. That's old paradigm. That's an idea the modern volunteer manager or "service leader" is trying to shed.
My favorite question to ask people who think HR management and volunteer management are the same thing is this: if I gave a nonprofit all the money in the world to hire all the staff needed for absolutely every possible position, to get absolutely all the work done that needs to be done, would that nonprofit still involve volunteers? If their answer is "no", or "Yes, because nonprofits always need to be looking for ways to save money" or "Yes, because nonprofits will always have more work to be done than paid staff can do", I know they don't really understand the true value of involving volunteers.
If you see volunteer management as just HR management, then you will love Reimagining Service, which promotes the idea of applying private sector human resources practices to nonprofit organizations. It's all about "there's a lot of work to be done; let's get volunteers to do it!" It ignores emerging trends regarding volunteer management and takes us several steps back. Don't get me wrong - "Reimagining Service" is not without some good ideas; it's nice that it says that volunteers aren't free (something the nonprofit sector has been saying for many years). It's nice that the people behind it see a need to fund volunteer management.
But I hope that some folks will crash the Reimagining Service Forum, to be held on Tuesday, June 29th, from 10:30am – noon, in New York City at the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service and try as much as you can to educate the HR professionals and corporate representatives there about the new paradigms regarding volunteer management and the realities of the nonprofit sector.
- Do your best to help the panelists and speakers understand that there are better reasons to involve volunteers far beyond "there's work to be done."
- Explain to them that some tasks are actually best done by volunteers -- because that's what the clients want, or because of the nature of the task. Explain to them that some organizations remain volunteer-only not to save money, but because of the nature of the organization's mission.
- Explain to them that organizations involve volunteers when it's not always cost-effective to do so -- it may be because the organization wants the community to be involved in their work, or because they organization wants to be more transparent to the community regarding its operations, or because the organization must address criticism or misconceptions about the organization. That's why many organizations reserve certain assignments for volunteers, even if there might be funding for paid staff.
- HR management is most certainly a part of the responsibilities of volunteer managers -- ensuring policies and procedures are being followed, recording the service volunteers are providing, overseeing the performance review process, etc. But volunteer managers are also entrepreneurs and program managers, looking for ways to involve volunteers not based entirely on the work that needs to be done but, rather, based on the mission the organization is trying to achieve, and reporting on the results of volunteer involvement far beyond number of hours donated, number of volunteers involved and amount of money saved.
Let's stop letting the corporate sector define what's best for the nonprofit sector. Let's start advocating for ourselves!
