Tag Archives: nonprofits

The Art Of Volunteer Engagement

by on March 23, 2009 in Relationships

Say you’re a nonprofit executive or someone responsible for working with volunteers…do you know the value of the volunteer work being done on your organization’s behalf? Consider all that time spent, all that energy devoted, all that expertise put to service of your mission. Do you have an idea of their true worth?

If your answer is “no” or any variation of “sorta,” don’t worry; it’s actually a rather complex question that’s going to be quite unique to each nonprofit. You might want to bring in a business anthropologist (I do happen to know one) to help you sort through all of the people and policy issues. But there are a few key domains to consider as you mull this question:

Relationship
What kinds of relationships do you want to form with your volunteers? After working with volunteers for nearly 10 years, I’ve come to believe in one certain truth: there is no such thing as “managing” volunteers. Management changes the interpersonal dynamic making volunteerism a transaction rather than a relationship. Plus, your volunteers don’t need or want to be managed.

This raises an inevitable question: how do you get your volunteers to do what you want them to do? It’s actually the wrong question to ask if you’re trying to cultivate strong volunteer engagement. I would suggest this one: How do you guide your volunteers to give their best talents, expertise, and energy in ways that are meaningful to both themselves and the nonprofit? Individuals give most freely when they see and feel the personal connection to their work.

Value
What’s the value of the work being done by your volunteers? Most nonprofits that I’ve worked with don’t have a firm idea of the value of their volunteer work activities. If volunteers put together an event, what would the price be if done by a paid contractor? It’s not a question designed to make you shout, “Wow! Look at all the money we’re saving using free labor!” Instead, take some time to realize that individuals are giving their effort and that it does have an economic value. Then, calculate in the emotional value that comes from the passion behind the effort.

Social Marketing Potential
What kind of word-of-mouth marketing are you getting from your volunteers? Here’s where that emotional value pays off. If your volunteers are emotionally invested in your nonprofit’s cause, they’re going to tell others about their work. They’re going to have stories to share with their friends, family, coworkers, and other folks they see on a daily basis. And these stories can have a significant impact on your organization’s brand, fundraising movements and advocacy appeals. Engage your volunteers in meaningful work and they will spread the word in ways you may never have imagined.

This was just a broad look at volunteer engagement. It really does need some deeper probing. To do this, Aaron Bramley (blog :: twitter) and I are doing an email dialogue exchange over the next week so we can drill down into this topic. When we finish, we’ll post the results so everyone can benefit. Neither of us know what it’ll look like so you’ll just have to subscribe and see what happens. And if you have thoughts or questions, post them below and we’ll weave them into our dialogue.

Stop Talking Social Media, Start Talking Conversation…

by on January 26, 2009 in Social Media

The term “social media” is now so amorphous, encompassing so many things that it’s lost a lot of its meaning. That’s not to say that it’s unimportant or irrelevant…quite the opposite.

Instead, let’s talk about what social media really is and what it can do. Let’s talk about conversation. Let’s talk about collaboration. Let’s talk about outreach. For nonprofits and companies, these are the things that matter, that are going to diversify your constituent or customer base, that are going to lead to long-term vitality. Social media is just a tool to help you achieve these things.

On February 12 at noon CST, I’ll be collaborating with Small World Labs on a webinar titled Top 3 Social Solutions for Acquiring and Retaining Members in 2009. We’ll be addressing how nonprofit associations can use social solutions can successfully use tools that are out there to better engage in conversation, facilitate collaboration, and promote outreach. And while the audience is geared toward the association executive, there will be plenty of advice on how to bring these ideas into other nonprofits and forprofit companies.

Make this the year that you engage in social media in a new way. You can register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/443369303

Five Steps To Make Employees Your Best Brand Ambassadors

by on January 8, 2009 in Branding

The modern concept of branding and word-of-mouth-marketing focuses primarily on getting customers to become raving fans and talk positively about a company to their friends and colleagues. In the past few years, this focus has come to also include the value of getting employees to be raving fans of their own company, to speak openly and honestly about their company’s virtues, and to share their pride for their own and the company’s work. The thinking goes that if a company employs happy and satisfied employees, then that adds to an overall positive reflection of the company brand.

Yeah, but what does this have to do with non-profits…or maybe more importantly, how does this help you achieve your organizational mission? I’d like to argue that your own staff is the critical, yet underdeveloped, edge you need to meeting your fundraising, advocacy, and other goals. You have powerful resources that extend far outside of your own marketing department. Here are five steps in figuring out how to use them.

1. Know your internal broadcasters.
Your staff can be roughly divided into two groups: consumers and broadcasters. Consumers take in content through various channels like newspapers, blogs, and websites. Broadcasters do all of this and also create the content. They’re your bloggers, Twitterers, Facebookers, Plurkers, etc. They’re the ones who are connecting with others far outside your particular marketing focus. They’re the ones you want to build your employee brand ambassador program around.

2. Reward your broadcasters.
Broadcasters live for information. They want to know all the cool and worthy initiatives that are going on in your organization and be able to share that information with others. Don’t be shy about opening access and sharing this valuable information. And ask for their input and insight into how to penetrate your organization’s messages deeper into your target communities and wider into new areas.

3. Allow for creativity.
The social media space and branding world evolve at a rapid pace, which means that your dedicated and passionate broadcasters tend to live at the cutting edge. Don’t make the mistake of binding them or restricting their platforms. Innovative social media broadcasters are always finding new ways to use current tools. And for every one of today’s Twitters and Facebooks, there are several undeveloped tools waiting to be created and used.

4. Show them how to recruit other staff.
Broadcasters shouldn’t be an exclusive clique within your organization. Help them create more broadcasters and new brand ambassadors. Ask them to do “lunch and learns” about social media. Create knowledge sharing orientations to help them discuss their brand ambassador work when asked by others in your organization. The objective isn’t necessarily to get 100% of your staff involved in social media and branding…instead, show that every individual has an opportunity to contribute.

5. Keep an eye on the relationship.
I can imagine one objection or question that may be sitting at the tip of your tongue: how do we make sure that our broadcasters don’t put the organization or our formal branding work in jeopardy? The simple answer is that you can’t and the brutal truth is that you no longer have total control over the message. Sorry…those days are long gone, which is why #5 is so important.

It may seem obvious, but in order for your staff to speak openly, authentically, and enthusiastically about your organization, they need to be in a positive relationship with your organization. That means being focused on your staff’s level of engagement with their work and tapping into the pride your staff has working for your organization and it’s mission.

If your organization has had great results from cultivating organization-wide brand ambassadors, what’s your story? Share the wealth in the comments below.

From Bailey WorkPlay, first published July 28, 2008

At Connection Cafe: Is Your Data Collection Unbalanced?

by on October 23, 2008 in Business

For the Connection Cafe blog this month, I wrote about the need to use a balanced qualitative and quantitative approach to learning about constituents. Here’s a teaser of my latest post…the full post is at the Connection Cafe…

Mixed in with the work that I do at Convio, I’m also pursuing a Master’s degree in business anthropology. If you’re like most folks, you may be wondering what that is exactly. This field is somewhat new even though anthropology as a social science has been around for long time. Basically, business anthropologists work with organizations to help them understand things like staff culture, customer relationships, and product design. That’s fairly broad but at it’s core, we study people and their patterns of behavior. What I most love about it is that we are trained to help non-profits and businesses understand the deeper meaning of what seemingly appears ordinary and everyday…then take what works and amplify it.

For an example, let’s apply a business anthropology approach to a common issue among non-profits: how to better engage constituents. Hopefully you have plenty of metrics showing your email open-rates, donor conversion rates, website flowthrough rates, etc. You may also have survey results and graphical analysis. (And if you haven’t recently done this type of quantitative data collection, no worries…hopefully this post will reinvigorate you.)

Now take it one step further. Most businesses and non-profits commit to collecting quantitative data but usually neglect the qualitative data. The reason for this often rests with some common misperceptions that collecting and analyzing qualitative data is difficult, unmeasurable, and overly time-consuming. But, the fact is that every organization that is committed to developing better relationships with its constituents needs to employ a balanced data collection plan. Strict number crunching usually fails to get at the heart of the things that matter most to non-profit organizations which are people and their emotional connection to your cause. It all comes back to understanding the deeper meaning of things which numbers can only hint at.

In addition to your quantitative measurements, what types of qualitative data collection techniques should you consider? It depends largely on what you’re trying to learn. Start with the big question you want to try to answer. Here are two familiar scenarios:

1. If you host events like walks, pet adoptions, or volunteer pledge drives and want to know why individuals are giving their time (always a highly prized commodity) to your organization, consider a participant-observation program. You’ll be actively participating alongside your constituents, learning about their passions and why they believe your cause matters. Your aim is to see your organization’s relationship through the eyes of others and find the commonalities that they share.

2. If you want to know what exactly will help convert individuals from one-time donors to recurring donors (an even more prized commodity in these economic times!), consider an interview program. This is not just a survey in a different form…think of it as a semi-structured conversation guided by your big question. You’re trying to dive deeper into understanding the major themes of the relationship between your constituents and your organization.

One significant caveat to note here…these qualitative approaches are only effective when performed with a curious objectivity. If you think you already know the answers to your questions, you might want to consider employing another impartial staff member to do them or hire a consultant (a business anthropologist, perhaps?).

This is just a thin, surface-level slice of what a balanced quantitative and qualitative approach can deliver to your organization. My hope is that it sparks some dialogue inside your organization about how to best discover significant patterns and meanings within your constituency; then use this knowledge to improve the effectiveness of your actions. If you’re interested in learning more about the field of business anthropology shoot me an email at cbailey@convio.com chris@chrisbaileyworks.com, leave a comment below, or follow the business anthropology tag on my own blog.

At Connection Cafe: Bring Your Staff Into Your Community

by on August 27, 2008 in Business

Here’s my latest blogpost over at the Connection Cafe…

Yesterday, Lacey wrote about how to engage folks who are interested in volunteering for organizations. It’s a great segue into another area that I find lacking in most nonprofit websites: staff and organizational employees. What do they both have in common? Your volunteers and paid staff are part of a diverse community within your organization. However, it’s this diversity in community that is often neglected.

Frequently, staff can get left aside in the community. Why? Is it because they are paid members of the community? Are their roles separate from the community that includes folks like donors, volunteers, Board members? If you’re thinking ‘yes’ to either of these questions, I would argue that these ideas can’t work in today’s world where employee engagement is a true key to strong organizational health. It’s time to bring your staff more fully into your organization’s community.

Here are some ideas that can help you better integrate your own staff into your organization’s community:

Head on over to the cafe to Cafe to read the rest of the blogpost…