AVA presents: "dialogue"...with Laura Pappano

Position Your Volunteer Pitch for Busy Professionals

dialogue...with Laura Pappano

The Connection Gap: Why Americans Feel So Alone, by Laura Pappano, shines a bright light on the loneliness people are experiencing in today's world. She provides new insights about how many social trends and technology tools adversely impact the degree that people feel engaged and connected in their daily lives. For the premier issue of dialogue, AVA spoke with Pappano about the influence of technology and social trends on volunteerism, and the opportunities available to volunteer resource managers and nonprofit leaders in making the volunteer experience appeal to a wider audience.

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"The connection gap," according to Pappano, is a loss of meaningful interaction, the failure to be a part of something real, or lack of faith in institutions that might bring people together. She explains that although many of us long to feel more connected, we arrange our lives in such a way that we ensure our isolation. For example, how often do we leave voice mail messages at times unlikely for anyone to answer the phone? Or, visit on the Internet even if it's more appropriate, and sometimes just as easy, to visit in person - especially if the person is sitting in the next office or just down the hall? These choices have a cumulative effect on how connected we feel - and on our sense of belonging to a community. Intended to help us be more productive, these modern lifestyle choices can lead to our feeling increasingly disconnected and isolated.

"People want to feel that they are doing great work that is connected to a great organization."

�Two out of five volunteers stopped volunteering because of poor management practices.� � Managing Volunteers: A Report from United Parcel Service, 1998

Pappano sees volunteering as a wonderful avenue for connecting with others, engaging in issues one feels passionately about, and creating a sense of community. However, she found that while people frequently pay lip service to the noble ideals of giving, caring, and sharing, in practice many individuals go out of their way to avoid demands on their time, psychic engagement, or obligation of any kind. While busy individuals are often worried about the demand volunteering will place on their time, the overriding concern of most volunteers is that their time not be wasted. According to Pappano, "While many Americans believe that volunteering will provide a way to feel connected, they are afraid of committing too much time and energy to any volunteer activity. Most Americans already feel over-committed. When they are asked to volunteer, it just sounds too overwhelming." Volunteer managers and nonprofit leaders are all too familiar with this push-pull scenario.

So, how can organizations and volunteer resource managers attract volunteers in a society that feels both over-committed and more and more isolated?

Pappano offers a three-pronged approach for nonprofit professionals to reframe, package, and position their volunteer appeals more successfully.

	Promote the "noncommitment commitment"
	Offer episodic involvement opportunities
	Sell the volunteer experience

Promote the "Noncommitment Commitment"

Structuring volunteer opportunities to accommodate today's volunteers is critical. Naturally, a commitment-phobic citizen will shy away from a "volunteers needed" plea. Pappano suggests promoting the "noncommitment commitment". She believes marketing appeals to potential volunteers have to be crafted so as not to suggest, even remotely, that volunteering might take over their lives or force them into rigid schedules they can't maintain. Further, nonprofits must take a long, hard look at how available volunteer jobs could be accomplished in order to meet organizational needs, while at the same time providing volunteers with the scheduling flexibility they often desire. Could the same volunteer activity be performed in three-hour time blocks, once a week? Or in one-hour time blocks, five times per week?

"Structuring volunteer opportunities to accommodate today�s volunteers is critical."

Offer Plentiful, Episodic Volunteer Opportunities

Nonprofits must also consider the degree of commitment people are willing to make. "Many among us will not, or can not commit to a 'traditional' volunteer experience," according to Pappano. But nonprofits may broaden their support with people who simply want an avenue to be episodically engaged. Even though the scope of social problems most communities face could not be overcome by corps of episodic volunteers - large or small - Pappano reminds us that the more volunteer opportunities meet each volunteer's personal needs and make good use of a volunteer's time, the more likely an individual will be willing to give his time. Offering plentiful, episodic volunteer opportunities is a marketing strategy that can also help seed the ground to cultivate more traditional volunteers.

Sell the Volunteer Experience

Finally, volunteer resource development professionals must become consummate marketers and sell the volunteer experience. Pappano explains, "The challenge for nonprofit organizations and volunteer managers is to recognize that people respond to marketing messages and place value on consumer relationships, even in their volunteer engagements." Pappano believes that nonprofits must continually re-enroll volunteers in their mission and validate the volunteer's commitment and connection to their organization, or community. This communication is critical because "people want to feel that they are doing great work that is connected to a great organization," says Pappano.

"� people respond to marketing messages and place value on consumer relationships, even in their volunteer engagements."

Ultimately, volunteering can provide a meaningful way to close the connection gap that many of us are experiencing in our fast-paced lives. Nonprofit professionals that respond to the trends outlined in The Connection Gap can position themselves to increase the amount and impact of volunteer engagement. In doing so, not only will they ensure the success of their own organizations and initiatives, but they will also succeed in helping to create a more connected society.

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Did you find this dialogue informative? Would you like to know more? AVA would love to hear from you, so click on the envelope and let us know what you think.	Laura Pappano is a freelance journalist, social observer, and visiting scholar at Northeastern University. She researched and wrote The Connection Gap while serving as a visiting scholar at the Murray Research Center at the Radcliffe Institutes for Advanced Study at Harvard. Pappano currently writes a weekly column on education for the Boston Globe, and is a contributing writer for CommonWealth, a political quarterly. ****** dialogue is a free, on-line monthly publication of the Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA), the international professional organization promoting excellence in the effective management of volunteer resources. The dialogue series is funded under a generous grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The series provides AVA the opportunity to dialogue with authors, advocates, and leaders across multiple sectors about the profession of volunteer resources management, and our mutual goals to build a more engaged and sustainable society. In keeping with its name, this publication was created by AVA to stimulate thought and discussion, and to present viewpoints to practitioners from thoughtful individuals they may not otherwise hear from on this topic. Please feel free to forward dialogue on to your colleagues, executive directors of nonprofit organizations, and other nonprofit advocates whom you believe would value its content.

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In the next dialogue... AVA talks with Derrick Len Span, the National President of the Community Action Partnership about the link between volunteer resource development and community building - a vital connection for fighting the social ills that plague many of our communities. [May 2003]

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