Volunteers are people too. (Or, "Some of my best friends are volunteers")

Yesterday I made the huge decision to resign from the Open Directory Project where I have volunteered thousands of hours of my leisure time over the last 4 and a half years. It was part of my daily life, and the people I met from all over the world made it an intense and enriching experience. I would encourage anyone to give it a go, so here's a more detailed guide to becoming an editor.

In fact I belong to several volunteer community organisations, all of which struggle to attract and keep active members, just like the ODP does. So as I suddenly have lots of free time I decided to check what research had been done into volunteer retention.

The most-quoted study was undertaken in 1998 by the UPS Foundation. The report itself does not seem to be available online, but this site has a succinct summary:

In a national study on volunteerism done by the UPS Foundation, Manage My Time Better and I’ll Give You More, the second most frequently cited reason for ending volunteer involvement - following conflicting personal reasons - was the “Poor management of volunteers”.

40% of these volunteers stopped volunteering for an agency at some time because of one or more poor volunteer management practices. Volunteers felt that the organization was poorly managed, their time was not well spent, the experience was not a good use of their talents, and tasks were not clearly defined. 9% said they were never thanked.

Following that study, UPS went on to publish a guide to the effective management of volunteer resources.

Extensive research was carried out by The Urban Institute in 2003, involving 3,000 charities in the USA. This report is available online, as a PDF download entitled "Volunteer Management Practices and Retention of Volunteers".
Although they studied only one type of organisation, the findings have a more general application, and I'm sure the following excerpts will ring true for any volunteer.

Some Practices Tied to Greater Retention of Volunteers, Some Not.
Charities interested in increasing retention of volunteers should invest in recognizing volunteers, providing training ... and screening volunteers and matching them to organizational tasks. These practices all center on enriching the volunteer experience. Management practices that focus more on the needs of the organization, such as documentation of volunteer numbers and hours, are unrelated to retention of volunteers, even though they help the program to realize other benefits.

Charities Can Do Others Things as Well to Maximize Volunteer Retention.
Volunteer management practices are only part of the picture. In addition to adopting certain management practices, charities can provide a culture that is welcoming to volunteers, allocate sufficient resources to support them, and enlist volunteers in recruiting other volunteers. All of these practices help charities to achieve higher rates of retention.

My summary
Look after the volunteers and respect them, and they will stay.
Ignore them or discount them and they will leave.

Seems obvious, really. ;-)

[Added: An unfortunate reaction to the above research findings necessitated further explanation of them in my subsequent post.]

Blog Action Day

An exciting initiative is sweeping around the globe today, so this is my microscopic contribution to Blog Action Day. I'm not very adept at summoning up pithy opinions about global issues on the spot, but I am well-practised at wittering, as you might expect. So in honour of this project, my chosen topic today will be ... frogs.
That subject popped into my head just now, probably because on today's bushwalk I stopped to catch my breath and let my dog have a drink from a nearby pool, and we were both briefly absorbed in watching the tadpoles zooming about. I have also been toying with the idea of creating a frog-friendly section of my garden since I visited the Environmental Display at the Perth Royal Show 2 weekends ago.

I have to find out more about suitable species, but I'm hoping the rather entertaining Motorbike Frog is one that might be OK for my area. You can listen to its eponymous call here.

To finish this environmental-themed post, here's a pretty wildflower photo I took recently. We need frogs and wildflowers. Please help look after them. :-)

Blisters and bin-bags

I have just returned from participating in my first mass sporting event, and it was great!

Six of us entered the Perth City to Surf as the "Hills Hikers" team, to do the 12 km walk. Only one of our group had done it before, so although we all walk regularly in the bush, we weren't sure what to expect. Waking to a forecast that included a Road Weather Alert and warnings of strong winds and thunderstorms was a little off-putting, but we all met up at 7am and piled into one car for the trip down to the City. I was surprised to see small groups of people in jogging/walking gear on every city block as we looked for somewhere to park, and when we reached the starting point the size of the crowd was truly eye-popping: despite the rain, about 22,000 people had turned out for the event!

The runners set off first, followed by the walkers, but for the first kilometer it was more of a stroll, because of the crowds. Quite a spectacle though:

By the top of the first hill, the crowd had thinned out, so we were able to pick up the pace, aiming for a steady 6km/hr. For dedicated people-watchers it was a fascinating experience. All ages were represented, and although most people opted for standard exercise clothing, there were the usual smattering of costumes and silly accessories, not to mention the use of large garbage bags as an alternative to the blue plastic rain cape supplied to each participant. In fact the threatened storm did not eventuate, and although we had a fierce headwind the whole way, there were only a few rain periods. Spectators braved the weather to cheer us on, and volunteers provided drinks every 2 kms.

One thing surprised and disappointed me: many hundreds of the garbage bags and plastic capes were removed as people found them too hot, and they were just discarded on the spot, blowing down the road, into people's gardens, up trees and into ponds and pools. Similarly, at every drink station, and for a hundred meters thereafter, plastic cups littered the road and footpath in their thousands. I can understand the most serious runners having no time to use one of the many bins, but surely the fun-joggers and all the walkers could afford to break one stride?

We all wore nifty transponders on our shoes, which were programmed to our race numbers and triggered as we crossed the Start and Finish lines. The official times have not yet been posted, but we were pleased to reach the end in close to 2 hours. In view of the many hours of walking I do every week, I was very disappointed to develop blisters under both feet, but of course I never walk on bitumen or concrete, so after about 8km of that, my feet were complaining. The logistics of transporting 29,000 carless people back to the city were mind-boggling, but in fact the queue for free buses moved along fairly quickly due to a sensibly blind eye being turned on the number of standing passengers in each vehicle.

I'm rather stiff and sore, but thrilled to have done it, proud to have helped a good cause, and found the whole experience very rewarding. I plan to do it each year if I can.