Transcript Westmeath & District Recreation Association

“BEST PRACTICES”
WORKSHOP
October 29, 2011
SMART PRACTICES:
Volunteering
Leadership
The WDRA Board of Management,
Subcommittees and Teams, and
Organizational Charts
VOLUNTEERS
Restructuring and Rethinking our approach to
volunteers in order to successfully Recruit
and Retain volunteers.
“Baby boomers have the potential to become a
social resource of unprecedented
proportions.”
CONSIDER THE FACTS
 Voluntary organizations are more or less dependent on volunteers to get
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their work done.
Canadian volunteers contributed over two billion volunteer hours to
organizations in 2007 – the equivalent of one million full-time jobs.
Every year, 12.5 million volunteers give their time, energy and skills to
make our communities better.
There is a soft decline of 1-2% per year in volunteering in Canada. A small
percentage of Canadians are carrying most of the load, and many of them
are already in their seventies.
As older volunteers step down and become fewer in number, a whole new
generation of volunteers needs to fill their places —in new and varied
ways.
In 2008, a baby boomer turned 50 every seven seconds.
3 out of every 10 baby boomers who volunteer do not return for a second
year. 20% of these lost volunteers are never replaced.
WHY DO BABY BOOMERS VOLUNTEER?
Research indicates four main reasons why
baby boomers volunteer.
They want to:
1. Support a cause that they believe in.
2. Make a contribution to society.
3. Share their skills.
4. Do something meaningful with their friends
and colleagues.
Motivations for Baby Boomers
MAJOR CHALLENGES:
THEY DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME.
 Theirs is known as a sandwich generation – caring for children
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and aging parents simultaneously leaves less free time.
Many baby boomers work full-time and many work past the
traditional retirement age of 65.
They don’t identify with traditional images of volunteers.
The clichéd image of a kindly white-haired volunteer clashes
with the way baby boomers see themselves – more youthful
and dynamic than their parents.
They don’t want to do routine or menial volunteer tasks.
With less free time, many of today’s volunteers expect
challenging and meaningful work that reflects their skills and
experience
Our Good Practices:
Do our current volunteer positions and volunteer management
practices feed into these challenges for baby boomers to volunteer?
“Volunteers should be considered an integral human
resource at all levels of the organization, including
program design... I don’t think there is an
organization in the country that has a recruitment
problem. What they have is a job design problem.”
- Linda Graff
JOB DESIGN IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS
To effectively engage baby boomers as volunteers, we must
think about volunteer roles and responsibilities
differently.
When baby boomers volunteer, they want the job to be:
 mission-linked, productive, satisfying work that allows
them to use their skills and experience.
 short-term work, flexible schedules at convenient
locations,
 adapt to meet their needs while meeting the needs of the
WDRA.
“Tell me why you are asking me to do something –
what is the purpose and how will it help people....
....follow-up by letting me know what the impact was
of the time I contributed.”
“Tell me what you need and when you need it – but
not how to do it and what time of day to do it.”
RECRUITMENT
Baby boomers are busy people. There is lots of
competition for their attention and their time, so
you’ll need strategic, and targeted recruitment efforts.
“The quintessential baby boomer advertisement is
the beer commercial: short, snappy, creative,
alluring. They have been raised to receive
information in bite-sized pieces.”
GENERAL RECRUITMENT MESSAGES
“Close to two-thirds of those who felt a very strong or
somewhat strong sense of community belonging
reported excellent or very good general health.”
– Statistics Canada, Health Reports, June 2008.
“It’s no coincidence that those who volunteer, who give of
themselves and who take an active part in their
community end up, on average, healthier and happier.”
– Dr. David Butler-Jones, Chief Public Health
Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada, 2008.
INVESTING IN LEADERSHIP FOR
COMMUNITY BUILDING AND SOCIAL CAPITAL.
Communities get better when their leaders do.
In productive,
healthy,
resilient and
innovative
communities
People have a sense of
belonging,
are physically and socially
engaged,
involved in decisionmaking,
and active as volunteers.
LEADERSHIP
 Leaders be agents of change.
 Leaders be committed to continuous improvement and
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innovation both for themselves and others.
Have a commitment to shared or distributed leadership.
A leader is optimistic, proactive, and a big picture thinker.
Leaders should be catalysts for encouraging citizen
responsibility and for engaging and cultivating community
ownership.
A demand for leaders who will be advocates for quality of
life.
Leaders must be able to plan effectively; engage others in a
process that will result in visionary yet pragmatic plans that
resonate because they are an innovative response to real
community needs and priorities.
WDRA BOARD OF MANAGEMENT;
SUB-COMMITTEES AND TEAMS
SUCCESS DEPENDS ON:
 Engagement of more members of the community,
 Managing change,
 Succession planning,
 Recognition of excellence/value of volunteer (www.volunteer.ca)
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Praise
Affiliation
Accomplishments
Power & Influence
 Sustainability for the future
 The organizational functionality.
Is the management team best structured to produce quality work?
Are people in place to implement future desired and required changes?
WDRA ORGANIZATION CHART
Full Board of Management at 13 positions, up from 10.
New Board Positions (4):
-Ice Booking Coordinator
-Adult Programming
-Children’s Programming
-Sports Program Chair (revision of Sports Coordinator)
 All financial volunteer work under the Treasurer
 Special Events Chair with a permanent “Standing Committee” so
volunteers can build skills and take ownership of a part of the whole.
 Adult, Children’s and Sports Programming positions needed to
respond to the new community needs and priorities.