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?
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  Previously posted comments

  Tue, 08/10/2010

  Posted on 30 May 2010 by Colleen Kelly, Executive Director, Vantage Point, Vancouver, BC Canada

  Hi to you all! And there are some organizations in Canada that are beginning to make these changes you mention. The Kidney Foundation has given much more autonomy to their chapters and some continue to operate on the traditional model while others are becoming more creative. The MS Society of Canada is also examining new kinds of volunteer engagement, although MS Canada (and others, I'm sure) is currently taken up with the challenges of a "potential cure." What is interesting is that in both these cases it is the President/CEO who acknowledges there has to be a change. That role also begins to understand it is about different skills in the people they hire and pay with money. As you continue to say in "From the Top Down," Susan, that is how it has to be!