Address and support the specific requirements of the enterprise
In information security, as previously mentioned, we have to make sure to point out to our professionals that security is there to support the specific requirements of the enterprise.
There are two reasons to emphasize this particular point. The first is that it is vitally important, in a field where we are the experts, and the people who are managing us very often do not understand the threats, vulnerabilities, and risks specific courses of action, and implementing different types of technologies, to remember that we are there to support the business. Unfortunately, all too many of my colleagues simply look at the risks, and not at the benefits of the technology. Technology should always be implemented with an awareness of the vulnerabilities and risks involved, but simply because a technology presents a risk is no reason not to use it. You have to mitigate the risk, in order to use it, but all too often my colleagues will say that we simply can't use this technology. Security therefore gets a reputation as "the knights who say 'no,'" and is seen as opposed to business. This should not be so: security is a vital support for the business, and we should be careful not to run afoul of the perception that we are there to impede everybody else's work.
But the second reason to emphasize this point is because of those "specific" requirements. It is important to consider what the business is doing, and pursuing, and which type of security is most important to it.
This may seem to be far afield from that of volunteer management. It's not. You always have to remember that, whatever the objectives and tasks of the volunteers in your volunteer office or department, they are part of a larger organization. The overall organization does not exist simply to provide tasks to the volunteers. The volunteers, and indeed, the volunteer office or department itself, is there to support the objectives of the parent organization. We always have to make this clear to the volunteers. And, as the person managing the volunteers, you are the one who has to make this clear to them, and keep repeating it every time individual volunteers seem to be pursuing ends of their own that are not those of the parent organization.
That's a delicate task: reading the riot act to the volunteers, while, at the same time, trying not to do away with their motivation to continue volunteering.
But, once again, there is a second reason to remember that we, as volunteers are there to support the aims of the parent organization. And this is the specific requirements of the parent organization.
One of my, very long-term and extensive volunteering has to do with the provision of support for those who'd have been affected by some kind of disaster. We were responsible for making sure that people had the basic necessities for life in the aftermath of such an event, for a short period of time. As such, we had authorization to call upon certain levels of funding, and provisions, in order to distribute to those who did not have the necessities of life. But, at one point, I was volunteering in a location where there was a significant population in chronic need. I remember feeling rather uncomfortable at various meetings where the idea was discussed that, since there was some oversight of the provisions that were available to us, but very little detail in regard to specific events, it would be possible for us to divert the emergency provisions to those in chronic need. This might seem to be a kind thing to do, but was not the specific intent of the parent organization, and it would be possible to say that doing this kind of diversion of provisions was a kind of fraud.
But the issue of specific requirements of the parent organization can be viewed in other ways, as well. Most particularly, it means that there is no "one size fits all" of volunteer management, any more than there is one size fits all in security. Each volunteer organization is going to be unique, and is addressing a unique need, in a unique situation. This is why, in this particular series, I may be seen as providing very broad brush and cliched recommendations for how to pursue volunteer management. It's basically impossible to get too detailed. As soon as you do, you start running into situations where those specific actions in terms of volunteer management actually conflict with a number of volunteer organizations who don't quite fit that pattern.
Yes, your job as a manager of volunteers is difficult. No, I can't give you a cut and paste, checklist set of specifics of how to manage your volunteers. That's just the nature of volunteer management.
Volunteer management - VM - 0.00 - introduction and table of contents
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