I have mentioned managing risk. I have also mentioned that I am a security specialist, so we talk about managing risk a lot. And there is one thing that too many people keep on forgetting when we are talking about managing risk. People are willing to talk about threats, and impact, and vulnerabilities, and protections, but, too often, people fail to consider what is the most important aspect of all, in terms of risk analysis and management.
The asset.
All right, that may sound a little weird when we are talking about volunteer organizations. But we do, indeed, have assets in volunteer organizations, and we need to protect them from risk.
Okay, you may be thinking about the building that you have, or rent, and the furniture that may have been donated, and maybe the photocopier, and possibly the coffee machine. No, the first asset that you need to think about is your volunteers.
After all, if you don't have volunteers, you don't have a volunteer organization. You need volunteers. You need volunteers who will do work for you, in pursuit of the cause or objective. We will talk a bit more about that, a bit later, and motivation, and a number of other things. But, first off, remember that they are an asset. They are a resource. In order to pursue the objectives of your volunteer organization, you need volunteers. You have to recruit them, you have to motivate them to work, and you have to retain them, because, as I said before, they make up only four percent of the population and a number of other volunteer organizations would be only two delighted to poach them from you. They are an asset. You need to protect them.
Okay, there are other assets. There is the aforementioned building, and possibly desks, and chairs, and computers, and possibly pieces of specialized gear. It depends on what your organization does. Those are all assets, but they are normal assets, and you protect them in the normal way that you protect any kind of business asset. That doesn't change in a volunteer organization, so we don't need to go into too much detail about that.
Then near there is the reputation of your organization. This is a major asset. This is, after all, how you are going to get donations that you may need to fulfill your tasks and objectives. Your organization's reputation is important, and you always need to make that quite clear to your volunteers. Pretty much all volunteer organizations are going to tell their volunteers that they represent the organization, or possibly a parent organization, and they need to be on their best behavior, and not break any of the policies or rules, because it would look bad. But that's a pretty weak consideration for most of your volunteers. They probably don't care too much about the parent organization, and they may not even particularly be concerned about the volunteer organization overall. You need to make clear to the volunteers that the reason you are asking them not to break rules, and be polite to the public, and all kinds of other associated issues to do with good behavior, is that, in pursuit of the objectives that you all share, you need to have goodwill from the public, and from donors, and possibly from other businesses or entities that you are going to ask for assistance in the tasks you need to accomplish. The objective, that you all share, is something that the volunteers are going to care about. Note that you need public support, donations, possibly donations in kind, possibly donations of services, and that the reputation of the organization means that you can obtain those donations or services. That's the kind of thing that is going to matter to your volunteers. That's how you get them to protect your reputation.
That's also the kind of argument to make in terms of protecting other aspects, like the building, or the chairs, or the organization's vehicle. Make the argument on the basis of the objective of the organization: the cause that the volunteers are there to support. Tell them that if they leave doors unlocked, then the desk that they need to write on, in pursuit of whatever tasks you're having them doing, are going to be gone. Tell them that if they leave the truck parked in a bad part of town, then the windows get smashed, and then the truck can't be used for whatever the truck is needed for. Security is everybody's job, as we say in the security field, but give them a reason with which they are going to agree when you ask them to help protect your assets.
Which brings us to our final asset: your cause. The objective behind the volunteer organization in the first place. This is kind of an interesting one because, in a sense, your real objective is to put yourself out of work. Because behind any kind of charitable organization is something that is not being addressed by society at Large. It's not something that you can get someone to make a business out of because no one has figured out how to make money out of doing this, or they would have done so already and you wouldn't need a charitable organization. So, if your organization is, in fact, effective, then it reduces the cause for the organization to exist. You are, constantly, trying to put yourself out of business.
Okay, that may sound a bit weird. But it's the reality, and it's just one of the ways in which volunteer management is quite distinct from ordinary business management.
Volunteer management - VM - 0.00 - introduction and table of contents
No comments:
Post a Comment