Association Leadership
The Professional Responsibility to Have and Share Opinions
Just recently, Rob had one of those conversations that sparked a long chain of thought. A colleague expressed the wish that professional associations for volunteer resource managers would ‘accredit’ volunteer management training in some formal way. The associations would vet and list ‘approved’ training providers so that their members would then be confident of hiring trainers who would deliver excellent learning experiences.
An Online Network Empowering Offline Action: Soroptimist’s New Volunteer Model
Whatever Happened To . . . is a recurring feature at e-Volunteerism that allows us to revisit past articles to see what has been happening since we first published the stories.
In this issue, we revisit “Perspectives on Membership Development,” a story from 10 years ago about the Soroptimist International of the Americas, a global volunteer women’s organization. In 2005, the story revealed, Soroptimist International had recently faced a downward spiral in membership numbers and the closing of local clubs. Unlike other similar organizations in the same situation, Soroptimist had risen to the challenge by deciding to motivate its members to revamp tradition, discover new ways of doing things more relevant to women, and grow its membership.
In this fascinating update, Soroptimist’s Executive Director Elizabeth Lucas and Senior Director of Membership Marketing Darlene Friedman explain what Soroptimist is doing today to meet the challenges facing all volunteer and member-based organizations. The organization has created “an online community empowering offline action” called LiveYourDream.org, “a self-motivated community of people who wish to support women and girls in their quest to lead better lives, while gaining inspiration in their own lives.” We can all learn from this so-far successful approach to engaging non-members in volunteer activities (more than 50,000 people have signed up to date), and other changes Soroptimist has made to revitalize its approach to volunteerism in the 21st century.
Perspectives on Membership Development
Soroptimist International of the Americas is an international volunteer organization for business and professional women who work to improve the lives of women and girls, in local communities and throughout the world. Bucking the trend of other large service clubs, Soroptimist is, in fact, asking its members to revamp the traditional club in order to grow its membership numbers. Find out how from excerpts of materials published in Soroptimist's Best for Women magazine and an interview with Executive Director, Leigh Wintz.
The Dynamics of Multi-Level Organizations
On behalf of Osteoporosis Canada, volunteerism consultant Suzanne Lawson recently convened a telephone conference call that included Linda Graff, Marilyn MacKenzie, Susan J. Ellis and representatives of Osteoporosis Canada. These accomplished volunteer management experts proceeded to discuss how multi-level organizations are adapting to current trends in volunteer engagement and how the local level of "action" can best be structured. The call was recorded. This Keyboard Roundtable offers a lively exchange of that conversation, which covered such questions as:
- How are local chapters (or whatever people call them these days) succeeding or failing to bring new volunteers to a national cause?
- Do chapters tend to support established volunteers in their work - but not newcomers?
- Are there any new models for connecting volunteers at the local level to the activities of the organization - doing the work with engaged volunteers "around" a chapter structure or "instead" of it?
Are You a 'Manager' or a 'Leader' of Volunteers?
Should there be a significant difference in leadership ability between the head of the organization and the head of the volunteer program? While there may be differences in authority, leadership is not restricted to the executive director or chair of the board, nor should it be for the sustainability of the organization. Leadership happens at all levels within an organization. Everyone, including volunteer managers, has the capacity of becoming a leader. We all have skills which can be enhanced and abilities which can be cultivated.
Some volunteer program managers may not yet perceive themselves as leaders in their organization, but they can be. In this article, Bailey and Petro provide some self-assessment considerations and tools.
The Volunteer as Leader
Recruiting volunteers to be the leaders or presidents of their organizations can be a daunting task. Once there, these leaders take on the role with varying levels of effectiveness. Given their brief leadership reigns and the unusual circumstances bringing them to the position in the first place, it’s no wonder their success can be haphazard. Though they may have minimal leadership experience, they are expected to be passionate promoters of their cause, highly visible organizational members, fundraisers extraordinaire, brilliant organizers, and empathetic and encouraging managers. The volunteers who take on leadership of these organizations must be skilled in working not only with volunteers, but also with paid staff and the general community as well. This article highlights the need for recognizing the various populations with whom a non-paid leader will interact and offers some advice on making the most of those relationships.
Family Feud: Relatives, Co-Workers and Friends as Volunteers
We often think of well-functioning volunteer programs as happy little families, systems in which people get along so well that they resemble the idyllic picture of family relationships portrayed in U.S. television shows from the 1950s. And while this is often true, occasionally we run into situations where the family more resembles the Ozzy Osbournes.
The notion of families volunteering together is one that has a lot of intrinsic appeal and a lot of value. In this Points of View, however, we look at things from a slightly different perspective: the potential conflicts that arise when individuals with close outside relationships – spouses, siblings, relatives, close friends, co-workers, fellow church members – are volunteering “inside” the same organization but those “outside” relationships, either positive or negative, begin to affect volunteering behavior.
We examine what happens when volunteer programs actually involve those with family-like relationships in volunteering together, analyze what is likely to happen in these scenarios (and why), and offer some tips for what to do if you encounter problems or to prevent them in the first place.