I spend most of my work day working with the chapter volunteers in the four associations we manage. When I’m not working with my management clients, I am often conducting training workshops for chapter and component volunteers for other national organizations. Add to this mix, that I formally accepted the chair position for ASAE’s Executive Management Section Council where I’ll be leading a group of 25 volunteers.
So you can certainly say that I am immersed in the association volunteer world – a world in which the cry of frustration is deafening. There’s frustration in finding, keeping, matching, training and optimizing volunteers.
This is a major driver behind just-released white paper, The Mission Driven Volunteer. My co-author Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE, of Spark Consulting, and I believe strongly that the response to this cry is to re-imagine volunteerism. To shed the vestiges of traditional volunteer roles and regulations. To embrace micro-volunteering and adhocracy. To define volunteerism not by titles but by contributions to the mission.
Elizabeth and I will be blogging this week about key points in the white paper but you can skip to the chase and download it now for free at bit.ly/13Wwe1F.
Our blogging is really to get you all talking and commenting – so please join us in making this a conversation!