Volunteers and Technology

Re: managing the revolving door or techies

k8dillon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:44:07 GMT

Turnover of tech volunteers is not necessarily a thing to worry about. There are lots of unemployed tech folks out there right now and you're better off leveraging their skills with a shorter-term project that trying to recruit them to a more permanent position. I find that many of these volunteers don't know what the future holds for them employment-wise and they are much more comfortable committing for shorter, finite periods of time.

Another important thing to remember is that documentation of protocols and procedures that comprise your job is not only useful for volunteer managment, but the organization as a whole. What happens if you suddenly cannot be at work for a prolonged or indefinite amount of time? What happens in the event of a natural disaster? I am an adamant proponent of not retaining information in people's brains, but getting it down on paper as an insurance policy of sorts against unforeseen circumstances. The added bonus is that it makes volunteer recruitment and management world's easier. It also makes it possible for me to go on vacation without co-workers hyperventilating the entire I'm gone.

And last but not least, I'd recommend you reconfigure/rethink your volunteer strategies. Given the skills you're looking for, do they all need to come in one person? Think about the economic climate and how that might impact your recruitment efforts. Leverage the current economic climate to your own benefit and define more discrete projects for volunteers. I've even heard of someone recruiting an IT Help Desk position with a volunteer who worked a corporate job and came in over his lunch break to help folks. Flexibility on your part is key. And the money saved by the organization in using volunteers is significant, so track it to justify your time spent if need be. You can also (depending on the project) have volunteers document the value of their time and number of hours to possibly use as a match for grants. The possibilities are endless. And ironically enough, it actually takes less time to manage short-term folks compared to a more all-encompassing position. Especially if you have your documentation in place and recruit the person with the most appropriate skill set. Also, get creative with who you recruit - what about college students who need to do internships for a computer science degree? What about nonprofits that train folks to start working in tech fields, like Relia Tech? What about corporations that give their employees time off to volunteer, like Wells Fargo and PG&E?

The following are some absolutely fabulous resources I've found on tech volunteers and which helped me to rethink how I was and could recruit volunteers. Best of luck to you!

Working With Technical Volunteers (http://www.techsoup.org/binaries/files/TechVolMan2001v1.2.pdf)

Managing Tech and Online Volunteers (https://sites.google.com/a/idealist.org/resources-for-organizations-msw09/Home/managing-volunteers)

more great resources (http://www.coyotecommunications.com/)

Re: managing the revolving door or techies

ebarnhart — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:59:45 GMT

This is great, Jeff! Thanks so much for sharing your organization's best practices.

Re: managing the revolving door or techies

jeffbkill — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:40:20 GMT

Any non-paid volunteers tend to come and go. I volunteer for many other organisations and events and I do what I can but I work fulltime and have my own charity to manage so time is limited. because of this I understand why its hard to get volunteers to commit to a long term project. Its easier to get them to commit to smaller 'events' that just require them to show up and do their thing and then get back to thier lives.

With my charity I've managed to assemble about 8 dedicated volunteers who work with me one day per week. I make sure they have plenty of reasons to keep coming back, I thank each one personally every time. i give them a stake in what we are doing by extending our services to a charity of their choice (we provide computers to charities in our community). We have a training program where they can refurbish or build their own computer to take with them. We give them a say in the organization by listening to their input and implementing the great ideas they bring to the table. We offer awards and certificates to those who work with us on a steady basis. Our more experienced techs get titles like Lead Technician or Linux Consultant instead of simply 'volunteer'.

We also have policies and guidelines for the work we perform on a regular basis (constantly evolving). This is helpful for the new volunteers to introduce them to our standards.

All in all were having a great success at maintaining of good core of dedicated techs.

http://computersforcharity.webs.com

Re: managing the revolving door or techies

jcravens42 — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:19:37 GMT

It's probably long overdue for you to put in a volunteer management system -- and I don't necessarily mean a computer program. You need to put a system into place such that:

you capture all necessary information from volunteers before they ever get started
volunteers know that part of their mandate is to document their activities and to report on their activities regularly
you know who is doing what, who is available, who is not available, etc.
you know how and when to recognize the contributions of volunteers

Susan Ellis has a wonderful book, The (Help!) I-Don't-Have-Enough-Time Guide to Volunteer Management, just $10 for the electronic version, that will be well worth your investment. You can also find sample volunteer sign-in sheets, volunteer reporting guidelines, policies, etc. free with any Google search. What's most important is that every volunteer knows, before he or she begins, that documenting work and reporting on it regularly are part of the volunteer assignments, and that volunteers will be held to their requirement (meaning they may not be allowed to continue to volunteer if they are behind in documenting and reporting). If you need help, consider recruiting a volunteer whose assignment only is to track and support your tech volunteers.

You should also consider starting an online discussion group for your volunteer techies. Require all the volunteers to join, and use it to communicate essential information and to solicit information from the volunteers. YahooGroups and GoogleGroups are my favorite. More advice on creating an online volunteer community here (my own advice).

I like mapping what the process should look like as a bubble map/chart, and then think about what it will take for each step to happen the way it is supposed to.

And, indeed, TechSoup's newly revised volunteer hand book is worth your time as well.

Re: managing the revolving door or techies

donc — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:55:27 GMT

It may also be worth investigating reasons why you have such a high turnover of technical volunteers -The methods of motivating and retaining tech volos are fairly well known, although some orgs do it better than others. Would it be worth focusing on ways to try and retain the people you are losing?

Re: managing the revolving door or techies

dwelp — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:14:18 GMT

The first thing that comes to mind is to have good documentation of what you want your volunteer to do and what are the standards of what you want done. (A desk top PC is set up with the following software... The software and desktop is configured in this way before delivery to the user... Our security policy is... Our server is set up this way...) This gives each volunteer a guide as to what you expect and how you want it done. If the volunteer is not willing to assist under these guidelines then they are not a match for your organization.

There is going to be a major investment in time to create the documentation, but if you don't have it in writing, how can you expect any turn over in staff to have consistency in what is done.

Take a look at these resources

On the recent webinar I was very impressed in the resources available and the tips about using the technical volunteer. I think it would be worth the time to replay the session

http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/volunteers/page11651.cfm The tech volunteer hand book has some great ideas in documenting what you want the volunteers to do, and when you have a revolving door on your volunteers you have to invest upfront to have scopes of work and work instructions so your IT direction is clear and understood to each volunteer that comes in.

https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/schedule/display.do?udc=1xhrfkriv84o5 Webinar archive

http://www.coyotecommunications.com/volunteer/techvolideas.html Additional page on tech volunteers.

Dave

managing the revolving door or techies

lbaxter — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:01:12 GMT

the nature of our bussiness has our volunteer techies coming in an out I am the one constant right now being a staff. How do i keep an even keel with all the info and how to's when there are always new people? any thoughts