Peter and I led an energizing discussion at ASAE's Great Ideas Conference last week and I'm still digesting the good ideas. The session was on embracing the unofficial volunteer leader. Who is this person you say? Well it's the hell-raiser and the quiet saint. It's the person who is doing work for the profession and maybe even the association -- but unofficially. By ignoring these folks, you could miss out on some good work or inadvertently fuel a disruptive force. Here are two examples we talked about where associations embraced the unofficial leader.

Manuals don't impress volunteers - they frustrate them!

Just talked with one of our chapter volunteers who was complaining about the 85-page membership manual national provided her to give her membership chair. "Like he's not busy enough? I'm not going to ask him to read that." Who can argue that - I mean really who?

Leaving a sinking ship takes valor.

Spent time today with a wonderful seasoned volunteer who's taking a 2nd turn at the presidency. Yes, the chapter was sinking, but it's still taking on water. I learned three years ago, that allowing the ship to "sink" brought out volunteers who didn't step forward as long as I would handle "it". We in national positions need to give our long-term volunteers the right to "leave" and to acknowledge their valor. It's the only way to change the tide.

Office Depot has it right - customers want things to be easy. That goes for busy members as well. We need to make it easy to volunteer. ASAE's Decision To Volunteer study and countless others tell us volunteers want to easily be able to find the right opportunity, sign up and do it. What's interesting is that community service volunteering has really taken this to heart and there are countless of new portals that facilitate that. Associations on the other hand still put up barriers like:

Adhocracy is a term for volunteers coined by (some say by Nancy Macduff of Volunteer Today) about the late 80s for a trend towards episodic volunteering – that is volunteering in short, one-up stints.

I’m not surprised and not sure why anyone else is.

VolunteerMatch.com shared that headline and web stats based on the second full day of Entertainment Industry Foundation’s iParticipate TV campaign. It seems that the media, despite an all star cast, is struggling to convert media attention into social action.

A little background …

"Volunteerism is like a living organism. It grows, declines and changes in response to the stimuli surrounding it." Mary Merrill’s quote reminds us that the volunteer of yesterday is different than the one of today who will be different in the future.

Even back before her death in 2006, Mary talked about episodic volunteer. It's caught on. Whether you call it ad-hoc, flexible or micro-volunteering, volunteering has changed and will continue to change. Associations unfortunately have been wearing blinders. Associations need to act now and here are four ways ...