This afternoon my association sent me an email with the subject line “Economic Resources Update - 2.27.09 - Will Your Members Stay?, 7 Strategies for a Recession.” It caught my eye. It offered a new service for me as a valued member. The new service is free. It’s easy to access. It offers a variety of channels from the blog to white papers to video clips.

If you are a member of ASAE & The Center, you can log onto their economy resource online and peruse the options. Whether you’re a member or not, you can also read Scott Briscoe’s posting on Acronym for some suggestions on what associations can do.

You can also take a look at these association’s responses:

Helping Members ...

• NADCA, The North American Die Casting Association cut corporate dues
• Club Managers Association of America launched an economic resources page.
  

Helping the public our member’s serve ...

• National Association of Realtors launched Real Estate Today, a national radio show to cover the spectrum of the benefits and challenges of homeownership, offering listeners a go-to spot for information about their home, from expert advice on buying and selling to remodeling and landscaping to the state of the current market and home financing issues
• The Alliance for Investor Education (AIE) outlined 12 of the best Web-based resources for investors to educate themselves about investment fraud, particularly Ponzi schemes.

I love the phrase Glenn Tecker used in this ASAE podcast: Be a source of stability for members.

How are you doing just that?

A volunteer's needs begin very simply - to feel welcomed. This is as simple as a "welcome aboard, glad to have you." Read Susan Ellis' description of a welcoming first day.

A side note to this series ... actually a nod to its inspiration: Kevin Holland's Unspoken Truths for Association Leaders. Thanks Kevin!

It was an experiment – this unsession as an add-on to ASAE & The Center’s Great Ideas conference. Simply put we wanted to start a revolution in how associations connect with their volunteers. So we focused on the three days of Great Ideas with conversations on the ground, on Twitter, Facebook, and more (read a volunteer unsession).

The first step was throwing out a bunch of questions to get people talking about what’s at the heart of volunteerism. Several bloggers accepted the meme challenge – read their postings:

• Kiki L’Italien
• Maddie Grant
• Bruce Hammond
• Jeff De Cagna
• Elizabeth Weaver Engel
• Dave Sabol - read the comments for a cool conversation)

Lisa Junker's posting in Acronym provides a recap on comments from Florida. 

And following Dan Roam’s great conversation about the Back of the Napkin, an attendee (was it Lindy Dreyer?) sketched one for volunteerism pictured here.

More to come – and share your own thoughts … what would be your favorite ad-hoc volunteer job or what really gets you psyched to volunteer?

The latest storm about Facebook’s use policy and an interesting Business Week article “Will Work for Praise”  are challenging our definitions of volunteer.  Here’s why.

In a nutshell, Facebook reinstated its old terms after a user backlash. It vows to consult users as it rewrites what its now calling the "Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities." Facebook users at one level are ad-hoc volunteers. They create, modify and build content as well a create and/or beta-test apps. Like our association volunteers, they do this work for free. Now it seems they will also be given a role in shaping the policies and procedures of their world. Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post technology columnist, goes one step further and encourages Facebook to post a draft of its next terms for members to work over. Think Wikipedia. Perhaps Facebook could tap its users to collectively help write a clearer, simpler contract. He also makes a compelling suggestion that this experiment be repeated in other places like the government - and I would add associations.

For associations, this signals a day when the volunteer is not an extra set of hands or  onlooker but a designer.

Stephen Baker writes in his Business Week article about for-profit companies who are using free labor and brain power in their businesses. He points to masses of free laborers for companies and on-line giants like ThisNext, Linux and Wikipedia as prime examples. The pay is praise, community respect, satisfaction, and even victories in online contests. He also notes that researchers are busily “working to decode motivations and perfect the art of enlisting volunteers.”

For associations, this may mean that volunteers aren’t defined by their cause but by their contribution.

And as technology continues to reshape the way we all can connect to volunteering (read Jeff De Cagna’s latest post The Future of Volunteerism is Mobile), the definition of who volunteers is rapidly changing.

Three-quarters of Americans do not volunteer. One-quarter do. Turns out some who don't, actually do. It comes down to a definition of what volunteering is and some association members serve their association but don't call it volunteering.* Maybe its not about volunteering, its about being a citizen.

*Reported in the ASAE & The Center Decision To Volunteer survey.

I’m headed to Florida for ASAE & The Center’s Great Ideas Conference – three days of education, creativity and fun! At the center of the activity will be an “unsession” on volunteerism in associations. The objective is to generate creative ideas that can help associations create strategies and solutions to this critical and often perplexing issue.

So what’s an unsession? Well, it’s essentially a place where members can go and hold their own conversations at any point during an annual meeting or conference. It’s basically a room with a flip chart. We can document any takeaways and tape them to the wall for others who use the room at any point. Matt Baehr wrote about one from an ASAE meeting that sparked our ideas. Over on Wikipedia, you can get a broader definition of an unconference.

In our case, we’re going to not only have a collaboration space at the conference, we’ve created one in virtual space so everyone can chime in:

• Facebook - Future of Volunteerism Unsession group
• Twitter (follow @GreatIdeas09 and the hash tag #ideas09)
  
• ASAE Community Vibrant Volunteerism Unsession (for ASAE members)

Plus, we’re capturing all the ideas in Associapedia and on Acronym.

To get the conversation going, I’m tagging the following bloggers to help answer a nagging question – how can we create volunteer jobs that don’t require being on a committee, a long-term commitment or gobs of time? So, share five short-term, ad-hoc volunteer jobs you’d love to have and then tag five more bloggers.

• Lindy Dreyer
  
• Maddie Grant, CAE
  
• Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
• Jamie Notter
  
• Matt Baehr

The five volunteer jobs I’ve love to have:

1. Conducting a workshop for volunteer leaders on effective volunteering
2. Being a guinea pig for a new training workshop (did this once for ASAE & loved learning a new subject while giving feedback to create a new program)
3. Teaching kids a new dance (yep, really…I wear the hat of choreographer for middle school drama club!)
4. Review an article, manuscript or document to give feedback (particularly if it's on a new subject for me!)
5. Make 3 phone calls on behalf of my organization (but not to ask for money!)

Your turn …

For the past two days I’ve had the pleasure of attending a planning meeting for the ASAE & The Center’s Component Relation’s Section Council. This year I’m finishing up my tenure by serving as past chair. To mark this, the current chair gave me this wonderful gift.

Jamie Desimone knows that I love jewelry (I’ve purchased of few of her wonderful creations – see more on her website) and that I’m not one with “traditional taste.” This gift is certainly a reflection of me. And that’s what makes the perfect volunteer thank you gift.

Looking at the other side of recognition, KiKi L'Italien recently asked the Component Relations Listserve (if you’re an ASAE member here’s a link to the conversation) for the “worst ways to reward and recognize volunteers.” Top on that list has to be this one from Cynthia D’Amour:

After the party was over, one of the class presidents came up to me with a bouquet of dead and broken tea roses picked up from the local Meijer’s grocery store. She said with sincerity, "We bought you these to thank you for your leadership. Forgot to mention it earlier. Hope you enjoyed it." …[the] flowers [were still] in their plastic wrap and $4.99 price tag still on them. Quite a contrast to the bouquets of beautiful long stem roses fresh from the florist that I had as a centerpiece at every table.

The critical difference between my gift and this “worst” example? One is personal, the other is, well, not.

I’d like to leave you with three other good examples so we end on a good note.

• Alaa El Ghatit offered this idea on Energize: a Memory Keepsake CD. Using LifeOnRecord Events, an organization invites fellow volunteers – or staff – to call in on a toll-free number with stories of their favorite moments or memories of time spent with the individual or well-wishes. All the recordings are compiled onto a keepsake CD.
• On another listserve, a volunteer raved about just receiving a holiday card with a CD inside of Christmas songs.
• And here’s a twist on the gift idea, give helpful tips like this one for assuring you get the right tax donations for volunteer activity.

For more ideas, read my previous posting or check out the Volunteerspot blog. And add your best – or worst – examples here!

I just got tagged by Maddie Grant on The WOM Meme. The goal is to show how we can apply word of mouth to pretty much ANY area of association management. Maddie makes the right-on-target observation that marketing and membership actually touch everything; therefore WOM can touch everything too.

So here's the meme: Please do a short blog post with an example of how you've seen WOM used in your work. Then tag a couple of [association/non-profit] people to do the same.

Volunteerism exists through WOM. WOM is in fact the #1 way members find out about volunteering. ASAE & The Center for Leadership Decision To Volunteer study proved that. In fact 51% of the survey respondents said they first learned about volunteering through a direct ask from another member or staff. The top reason they didn’t volunteer? Never asked.

It’s more than the “ask” though. People volunteer to be part of something larger – that’s true whether we’re talking about community or professional volunteering. The ASAE study referred to association volunteers are “pro-social volunteers” because they had dual motivation to make a difference for others/society and career benefits. Being part of something larger tells us that people volunteer to be around and with others. How do you choose where to volunteer? By talking with friends, colleagues, family who share their experiences and invite you to join them.

I first got involved with ASAE when a staff person asked me to present my "PR on a Shoestring" solution at a conference. She had been at association meeting where I talked about successful, yet inexpensive, tactics I used. She asked me. I said yes. Then came a follow-up ask for another task. Again I said yes. Now I’m hooked.

I’ve also been the “asker.” For another association, I reached out to a fellow member to tell her the chapter board needed someone to help welcome members. The role was chapter representative and it had a simple task list. After a conversation during which among other things she mentioned that at chapter events she had seen the interaction among board members and it looked inviting, she said sure. Now, she’s president.

The best story I’ve seen on how WOM works for association volunteerism is a conversation I had just last weekend. An ASAE member asked me how to get involved. He wanted to volunteer but not being “inside the beltway” wasn’t sure how to connect with ASAE. He felt though that being part of the volunteer community looked intriguing and interesting. He was motivated. That’s WOM in action.

So, I’m tagging these association bloggers to talk about how they see WOM in action in associations:

• Cynthia D’Amour – playing
• Nick Senzee – membership in the trenches
  
• Dave Sabol  – unconventional technology
  
• Renato Cruz Sogueco – geeks
  
• Frank Fortin – hidden edge

Thanks for playing!

I got an email recently.

It was a request for me to take the president-elect position of an association which is dear to my heart and which I have been an active participant.

I replied with a “no, thank you."

Yes I was honored. But the request came impersonally and was largely written from the perspective of the association not me … and not particularly the member. Yes there are other issues that I won’t go into here. But the lesson learned from this encounter is that if you want a member to step up to the plate you have make the request personal.

There are two aspects to a personal ask.

1. Relate to me. Show how the request to help serves both me and the organization. Talk about my skills and the unique attribute I bring to the table.
2. Ask me personally. That’s either face-to-face or by phone. Particularly, if you want me to take on a large responsibility, you show your genuine interest in me by speaking directly with me. And, it is far less easy for me to say “no” in person.

I won’t change my mind now but I wonder if the ask had been differently place what I would have said.

Pro-social Volunteer. That’s the term coined in ASAE & The Center’s The Decision To Volunteer to describe the dual motivation of association volunteers. Like community volunteers, professional volunteers indicate wanting to make a difference for others and society as a driving force in choosing to volunteer. So while they expect career benefits from their professional volunteering, members want professional volunteer roles that help make a difference such as building a stronger profession.

That means we need to deliver on both needs which can be a tall order. I looked at a couple of association’s programs that address each. Here are two associations who are responding to the career-side. (Look to a future blog for delivering on the other motivation.)

Appraisal Institute offers CE credit for service in a member’s chapter, region or at the national level. This can translate to up to 25 hours of CE for service for those in a CE cycle ends on or after Dec. 31, 2010. They reply on chapters to submit a Committee Service Verification Form.

IFMA, the International Facility Management Association provides a laundry list of including typical discounts on registrations and bookstore purchases and some not so traditional items like chapter membership dues discount, points for service hours that yield prizes, special pins and t-shirts, CFM maintenance points, guaranteed spots for IFMA courses and popular special events, and a free spot at the golf outing. I also like the promise of complimentary lunch/breakfast/dinner at board meetings or committee meetings. Many of us probably do that – but do we highlight it?

In case, the association is taking the time to honor the individual in a tangible way. How are you honoring your volunteers?