On my New Year’s resolution list is a simple item – thank my volunteers in a more personal way. Here’s a working list for making that happen:

• Write Thank You Notes that stand out. I will begin with personalizing them and Kivi Leroux Miller posting on Nonprofit Marketing Blog offers a great example from Ocracoke Child Care. And here, compliments of Sandy Rees are Ten Ways to Energize Your Thank You letters. Loved her idea to include an offer to tour your facility or program site – let’s volunteers see firsthand the work that you do may make all the difference.

• Create gifts that connect to the task. I found more ideas on Wild Apricot Blog including one that described how they personalized a gift based on the project.

• Give back. There are lots of ways to do this including comping registrations to events, sending volunteers for training, and  a super one, #46 on the list “100 ways to thank, support your volunteers”.  I think at our night events, we’ll see about having on-site child care. Check out #57 on the list too.
  

• Change up the traditional “thank you dinner” ... maybe with an Afternoon at the Movies, one of several good suggestions found on Ongoing and Informal Ways to Thank Volunteers at Energizeinc.com. Check out #57 on the list too.

• Participate in National Volunteers Week. In 2009, this is April 19 – 25, 2009 and there are some ideas from 2008 at the Points of Light site to start my planning.

• Participate in the President's Volunteer Service Award program by becoming a Certifying Organization and honoring my volunteers.

• Design flexible and multiple volunteer activities for members. The Decision to Volunteer study by ASAE & The Center reported that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to matching members with volunteers roles. I’ll show the best form of appreciation by fitting volunteer roles to the person, not the other way around.
  

I’m open to more suggestions, so please tell – how have you thanked your volunteers?

A recent conversation lead to a spirited debate about the use of the word holiday. One focused on its origin:

• Holiday (according to AllExperts) is a compound stemming from the words holy and day.  The word 'holiday' first surfaced in the 1500's replacing the earlier word 'haliday' which was recorded before 1200 in the Old English book Ancrene Riwle.  Earlier , about 950, the word was 'haligdaeg' and appeared in the Old English Lindisfarne Gospels.  It was a compound of halig (holy) plus daeg (day)

The other on the more common use:

• Holiday (hŏl'ĭ-dā') n. A day free from work that one may spend at leisure, especially a day on which custom or the law dictates a halting of general business activity to commemorate or celebrate a particular event. Which the British use for A vacation.

No matter how you define it, shall we resolve in any case to make more “holiday” time in 2009? Enjoy!

All chapters need them, most say they don’t have enough, and few talk about a growing number. We’re talking about volunteers. And we had an opportunity recently to talk with a chapter which has seen an increase in volunteers this past year: the Silicon Valley Chapter of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA). Here are a couple of suggestions from them:

• Have a volunteer recruiter who can tell a compelling story
• Challenge your membership services committee (or board) to come up with more incentives to volunteer, e.g. free attendance at events
• Work on sharpening the position descriptions to help “sell” them to members
• Set up a portal on their website which encourages volunteers - on IFMA-SV's you can search for opportunities and learn more about volunteering

What have you tried that's worked?

I am constantly amazed at how what is going on all around us has applicability to associations. Check out this article from Sunday's Parade Magazine on Should Congress Stop Rewarding Seniority?

Basically it asks if Senate protocol to award committee chairmanship to the longest-serving members is still valid. It's the same question we should be asking in our associations ... that is if we want to engage new thinking, new communication channels and new faces (not to mention the new generation). What do you think?

Here are snippets from dozen of conversations I’ve been having with chapter leaders and members scattered across the country. They represent four different associations, but see the common threads?

   "[Our] burning issue for 2009: helping members stay employed, get employed and stay in business. It’s everybody’s careers!"

   "Participate in national all the time but 1st year I won’t be going [to national convention] because of the economy so looking at the chapter as potential for me and fellow employees to get the education."

   "Any or all of our careers could be on the line and the chapter’s role is to help members stay employed, get employed and stay in business. We’re the ones who can do this."

   "The Chapter is addressing our needs like national but doing so from a regional standpoint […] so really addressing specific needs based on locality."

   "I don’t get involved very much on either [the national or local] side, but in these economic times we'll be looking for support more than anything else and we’ll look to the chapter in particular for this."

   "I’ll [stay involved] because of the ability to network with other managers in the area. If nothing else, it’s the psychological advantage of knowing we’re not in it alone."

Local chapters are more important now than ever – what’s your strategy?

Not one association mentioned an obvious strategy for weathering an economic downturn in V. Dion Haynes article appearing in the Monday, December 15, 2008 Business Section of the Washington Post,  Trade Groups Regroup. The article looked at how associations are struggling and referred to strategies like trimming staffs, downsizing shows, webinars, and either slashing dues to save members or raising to replace lost revenue.

What about chapters? What about a strategy that leverages chapters to deliver more affordable education, provide job supports and build strong relationships between members?

The Boston Chapter of the International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) can show you how powerful this strategy can be. Their focus for 2009 as Chapter President Kathryn P. Thibeault, CFM, described it is “helping members stay employed, get employed and stay in business.” This translates to a robust education program – because now is the time to focus on building and sharpening skills – a volunteer strategy program that helps members afford education, and tweaking of the sponsorship program. And, there’s likely to be more for this chapter just created a new Career Preservation Task Force of seasoned members to make sure they stay focused on their goal. Some of their strategies are:

• Providing volunteer opportunities for unemployed members so they can attend educational sessions for the cost of the food alone. By serving as the on-site event “host” and handling registration, room sets and related details, these volunteers get a free seat.  As Kathryn said, helping these members use their idle hours to gain education – and network – is a win-win situation.
• They also are expanding their educational opportunities to include sessions targeted to new professionals, who are risk for lay-offs, to build key business acumen skills.
• For their supplier members, the chapter introduced a new, less expensive sponsorship to help these members pinpoint their marketing dollars in a tight economy.

Luckily for this chapter, they have healthy reserves for as Kathryn noted keeping people involved means continuing to operate their programs regardless. They understand though that they might have to pull in and at this point the board is taking a hard look at how they continue the most important benefits for members. They've weathered tough times before - just after 9/11 for example - and they are stronger than ever.

IFMA is very supportive of its chapters – check out how they promote them – and as one can see from their Boston chapter it’s looking like a good strategy.

What role will you help your chapters play in serving, keeping and attracting members in a tight economy?

Volunteer-managed chapters often struggle with the question, “At what point do we need to hire outside help?” The answer depends on several factors including an honest, accurate assessment of what needs to be done. (Note, a full discussion of the latter is another blog post on the propensity of chapters to mis-define themselves simply as mini-versions of the national association and thus burden themselves with far too broad a task list.) The decision to outsource is driven by three questions that get at financial and human resources:

1. What are the logical skill and experience sets of the current volunteer base?
2. How much excess (or prospective) income can we bring to the table?
3. To what extent will the cost of outsourcing the functions and/or programs enhance the member value and/or volunteer experience?

Too often, chapters rush to hire an administrator with general skills rather than, like most successful businesses, purchasing the specific expertise needed for the job at hand. An explanation of this process can best be presented with two real world examples.

The Chesapeake Chapter of the Risk Management Association (primarily credit officers at banks) co-sponsors 6-8 one-day training programs with the national association, produces 4-6 educational events and newsletters, and manages a fairly simple website. As you can imagine, they have great bench strength in accounting but very little experience in event planning, marketing or website management.

Keeping the accounting “in-house” is a no-brainer, but they don’t have much excess income, so they had to further parse their event and website management functions into those that could, with a little training and a reasonable amount of effort, be adequately covered by volunteers vs. those requiring a skill and experience set well beyond their typical volunteer. Examples of the former include on-site registration, recruiting speakers and developing program descriptions. The latter includes site selection, contract negotiation and web page updates. By purchasing only the type and amount of outside expertise needed to cover those functions, they can stay within their budget, continue to deliver valid benefits and offer a satisfying volunteer experience.

On the other end of the experience spectrum, the DC Chapter of the International Special Events Society brims with event planning expertise, but lacks significant depth on the financial and marketing side of the ledger. As you can imagine, this chapter is all about events, most of which are quite lavish affairs. They also produce a monthly newsletter and have a fairly robust website.

Their volunteers cover 90% of the event production process with ease and, because their events have generated a great deal of income, they can afford to outsource the entire registration process as well as all their accounting and website management. Like the Chesapeake Chapter of the Risk Management Association, this arrangement allows them to stay within their budget, continue to deliver valid benefits and offer a satisfying volunteer experience.

While these examples have been necessarily simplified (life is never this easy or clear-cut), they demonstrate the value of allocating limited resources using a highly targeted process rather than paying for a one size fits all solution that duplicates skill sets readily available in the existing volunteer pool.

P.S. There is also an intangible, but critical team-building value in volunteer elbow grease that shouldn’t be underestimated. Too much outsourcing can have an adverse effect on the overall energy and sense of community within the chapter volunteer base.

Two slideshows to watch if you’re the least interested in how components – face-to-face and virtual – fit into your association.

The message of both is really about building community.

* Making Whuffie: 5 keys for making social capital and winning with online communities

• Check out slide 125 for 10 commandments for receiving feedback … do you design chapter tools and procedures for novices? Is your department agile?
• Have you ever walked in your chapter volunteers’ shoes … are you part of community you serve asks slide 129
• Quick – name 10 ways to create amazing customer experiences (or click on slide 175)

* 2008 Tribalization of Business Study: How to Achieve Transformational Change through communities and social networks

Tribalization is the very first social system that human beings ever lived in and it has lasted much longer than any other kind of society to date as the presentation points out. Now apply the concepts to business – and with a few shifts to associations:

• Slide 20 is relevant to both face to face and virtual: the more content – the more members …
• In Slide 21 substitute “technology” for “organizational” in the first sentence
• Slide 23 notes that the worst practices for face-to-face communities “start with structure”

Enjoy and let me know – how’s your community building quotient?

Got tagged twice and invited to test the idea of meme in SNAP – can a game of tag help nurture community – let’s see!

So Jamie Notter (my recent tagger and by the way author of "postcards from a new CEO" column in Associations Now) I’ll respond with 5 folks I recently starting following on Twitter outside my “association buds”...

@kanter - Beth offers great conversation on social media for nonprofits (get her blog too)

@prblog - Kevin Dugan is great for all things pr (and fodder for my PRSA MD chapter)

@chrisbrogan Chris Brogan offers ideas that do set off light bulbs

@copyblogger - Brian Clark's tweets (and blog)  send me to get links that’s I’m never disappointed with

@kdpaine - Katie is  the queen of measurement and sometimes you just gotta get the numbers

Hey thanks for asking! Now I’ll ask you to tell us more!

"When (technology + information + inspiration) are allowed to work together, astounding things can happen in the blink of an eye. Innovation can happen, anywhere, at near-instantaneous speed."

Change.gov is leading the charge in so many ways including this as shared on The Social Customer Manifesto.  The message to me as an association professional is that we can shake up the association world too and it is incumbent upon all of us to demand this from ourselves. Thanks to Maddie Grant for spreading the word!