Making Volunteers Productive

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Unproductive volunteers – perhaps as a result of poor planning

An executive director of a global non-profit approached me all excited; he has solicited for volunteers across the country who would donate their time and talent to his non-profit as part of a volunteer task force. He asked me assist him in structuring this task force. His first inclination was the get the 24 people into a huge teleconference and basically discuss what they all wanted to do. I stopped him in his tracks and suggested that we would end up with a free-for-all “group grope” with nothing getting done. I asked him to take a step back and work with me on a much more prescribed approach.

First, I asked him to succinctly describe the mission and objective of his non-profit.

Second, I asked him to define his roles and responsibilities as executive director and the roles and responsibilities of his board of directions.

Then third, I asked him to within the context of the first two items, define the types of ways he wants volunteers to assist. What kinds of things does he want them to do?

Fourth, I asked him to look through the resume information submitted by the volunteers to understand their particular gifts and talents, and how they match up with the tasks he wants assistance with.

Then I asked him to match smaller subsets of the 24 volunteers and their talents with the tasks he wants done.

Engaged Volunteers!


Now this executive director has a half a dozen small teams of volunteers working enthusiastically and productively on specific tasks he asked them each to do, and they are all making significant task contributions to the non-profit and are all enthused about how they are helping. And once a month we get all the small groups together to share in the contributions we are each making to the non-profit.

Bottom line – the way to most productively engage volunteers is to know what you need done in light of your mission and what other responsibilities are already assigned, match the needs you have to the background and talents of the volunteers, and then ask them do specific meaty projects that match their desires and talents.

The Macroeconomics of Gay Bullying

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There has been a lot of media attention the past few months about the tragic suicides of several gay teens as a result of gay bullying. So often these vulnerable teens do not find any support in their schools, churches, communities and even families, and see the ending of their lives as their only recourse.

Damage from Bullying

Gay bullying damages more than we think. - photo courtesey of GLSEN

With this senseless loss of lives being an American tragedy, entertainment leaders such as Chris Colfer of the TV show “Glee” and Ellen Degeneres, as well as many religious leaders from several mainstream denominations have spoken to our country to address this bullying. But what is often missing is our business leaders and political leaders addressing the impact this bullying has on our entire country at the macro level.

Certainly the main focus of this discussion has to be preserving the dignity of every human life. But what we can add to the discussion is the wider impact. Behind the several teens who have ended their lives, there are also thousands of other children who are bullied and as a result participate in destructive behavior. These can include dropping out of school, alcohol and drug abuse, and running away from home. This leads to the downward spiral of ceasing educational and vocational development. We then as a country foster a set of second-class citizens who have dropped out of society and are not encouraged to grow with their skills to become contributing members of our economy. This will eventually develop into a drain on our country’s social services and health programs.

I believe every political voice on both sides of the aisle as well as business, education and community leaders can all unite on this issue to not only save lives, but to also contribute positively to the growth and education of every citizen. To complete in the growing global economy, we need everyone in our country to contribute to their full capabilities. It is good for every person as well as our country for each person to pursue education and vocational development with passion, not having to fear bullying in these same places they attending for this education. Every leader needs to step up to strongly advocate for strong laws as well as in depth education to stop all bullying of all people.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis with 27 employees recently posted a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign that underscores how bullying can affect the work force. View her video on YouTube.