Collaborative Volunteering

Posted on June 17, 2008 by Kerigan Mitchell
Filed Under Communication, Information Systems, Organisation, Recruitment and retention

I have recently been reading Wikinomics. It postulates that the accessibility of information creates a new way of interacting throughout a corporate hierarchy. This flatter corporate structure results in collaboration rather than direction direction and innovation across departments rather than intellectual property being the domain of a few.

I was wondering about how this might apply to St John Ambulance.

For example, at the moment there is a single vehicle committee who make decisions about the design of Crusaders. The membership of the committee, I am told, hasn’t changed much over the years, and this is reflected in the fact that a Crusader I isn’t a huge amount different to a Crusader IV.

What about if this was opened up to, well, anyone with an interest in the subject? What if people were allowed to access a shared workspace and make contributions? Peer review would result in the best ideas being promoted and poorer ideas being demoted. The focus of the committee would be on the wider strategic applications and architecture (eg. how it all hangs together), whilst other people, with a passion or special interest could focus on areas to which they can bring expertise. Think about how usable a vehicle would be if the people designing it were the people using it? (Before anyone suggests that would be a chaotic nightmare, Linux, one of the most widely used and stable operating systems, is written and designed in an analogous fashion.)

What about if we could get the wider membership’s input into uniform? Rank? Strategic direction? Collborative tools? Child and vulnerable adult protection? Operational ideas? Risk management? Youth work? Training programmes and technique? Even better, we could get young people contributing without barriers, improving our youth inclusion.

Yes, we would have to create tools to achieve this (and I’m hoping the web review team are reading this!), but think of the benefits. An engaged volunteer population actively contributing to something which is important to them and having a personal stake in the success of the organisation. A pool of ideas, innovation and talent, buzzing with excitement about their achievements and what’s going happen next. We’ll become a magnet for people wishing to make a true contribution to our charitable outcomes.

Obviously, there are some things which need to remain confidential (accounts, vulnerable group protection cases etc…), but if we can exploit the knowledge and skills which we already have, I think we can make a huge difference to SJA’s image, both internally and externally.

After all, the alternative is to give into the weight of history and baggage which comes with the outdated uniform and continue to consider our ordinary members as the bottom of a pile of hierarchical, corporate direction. If I had to choose between radical changes and conserving history, between reinvigorating or waning membership, I know which I’d choose.

7 Comments

“Anyone is suitable”

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Olly Benson
Filed Under About the site

Am I alone in thinking this isn’t such a good idea, in the light of this.

3 Comments

How long is long enough?

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Will Matthews
Filed Under Recruitment and retention, Youth

A neighbouring Cadet division took an enquiry last month, from some young people about to embark on their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

They expressed that they’d seen in their handbooks that St John Ambulance could help them out with their service section.

Of course we can. They can come along, join as a Cadet, gain a ‘Youth first aid’ certificate and qualify as a Cadet first aider, then go out on first aid duty to provide some service.

Or can we?

These young people were told no, because it would ‘be a waste of our time and money to take them on for the six months while they do their service section, only for them to leave after’.

Surely, a young person who comes along for six months and gains something from us is a success. The same applies for a young person who spends six weeks with us, or six hours.

As an organisation, we need to stop measuring our success on the length of time people spend with us. We massively restrict the number of people who are willing to get involved every time we imply that long service is the only way to succeed and gain anything from us.

Also, if the Cadet group is an enjoyable place to be, chances are that the young people will want to keep attending once their D of E service is completed.

16 Comments

Blatant plug…

Posted on May 19, 2008 by Olly Benson
Filed Under About the site

…but I’m now blogging for work as well.

http://www.youthnet.org/ynblog/blog/

Can we talk?

Posted on May 18, 2008 by Will Matthews
Filed Under Communication, Youth

I spoke to a friend from another county today.

He told me that a memo’s gone round the county, requesting that the practice of Cadets sharing their email addresses stops, on advice from National Headquarters.

Part of the development our young people gain is through interacting with other young people. This doesn’t only happen at SJA events, training courses etc. The young people will often swap numbers and email addresses while they’re there, and communicate away from SJA.

Many of them form friendships that can last into adulthood, and because they’re based on a shared interest, they’re often stronger than those formed at school.

Is it really fair to take this social aspect away from young people? Does it contribute in any way to our vision and mission*? In what way does it help us inspire, involve and achieve?

I don’t think it does.
Read more

7 Comments

Members Website “Consultation”: A Sham

Posted on May 16, 2008 by Kerigan Mitchell
Filed Under Communication, Information Systems, Organisation

I can’t help but think that NHQ have failed to properly think through their consultation regarding the redevelopment of the Member’s Website.

Whilst anyone could complete the online questionnaire, the only place it was advertised was on the Member’s Website. So there’s problem number one: how would people who don’t use the website (whether through ignorance of its existence or because they despair of finding anything on such a badly organised site) know to provide input into the process?

The second set of problems pertains to the “in-person” interviews being conducted from next week in London.

The interviews are being done during the working week.I don’t know about you, but I work for a living. This means that I am pretty much unable to just leave work when I feel like it. Since I assume a sizeable proportion of the membership do this thing called “employment” in addition to their volunteering, this will logically exclude them from having in put into future developments.
The interviews are being done in London. I can’t imagine anyone from North Yorkshire popping down to London for the day to spend an hour answering questions about website use. So tough luck to anyone from outside the south east who would like to have input.

So, basically, we have a situation where a team is trying to do the right thing and consult with the membership on what the website should do. However, in the process they have excluded people who don’t currently use the website, excluded the employed and excluded those living within reasonable travelling distance of London.

In what way will this “consultation” provide a representative example of how the member’s website should be further developed?

7 Comments

Is volunteer churn bad?

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Olly Benson
Filed Under Investing in Volunteers, Leaders, Organisation, Recruitment and retention

Next month it’s Volunteers Week, and on their website they have a question: “Is keeping your existing volunteers happy more important than recruiting new ones?”

When I first saw it I thought there’s only one answer: Yes. In business the proportion of new customers you lose each year is known as churn, and generally you want to keep that as low as possible, as its far cheaper to keep someone than have to entice someone new in.

And yet, in St John Ambulance, I’m not so sure. Over the weekend I was at a St John event and we ended up having a late night discussion about problems around volunteering. One thing I bought up was that if you plotted numbers of leavers against time you’d end up with a U-shaped curve (actually the upwards slope would be more diagonal). In other words, a lot of people leave quite quickly after joining and then a lot of people leave after a long time… but few people leave after a couple of years.

The people who leave quickly are usually because they find St John isn’t for them. Hopefully, as long as we’ve treated them well, then they walk away with a good experience of the organisation. And yet, although they might think well of us, they probably haven’t made a signficant contribution to our charitable output.

The people who leave after a while are usually leaving despite the organisation. They leave because they are frustrated, they are fed-up or they no longer feel they can make a positive contribution. Too many times I feel like that; and too many times I’ve got to the stage of composing (at least in my head) a letter of resignation. I know I’m not alone.

The frustration is often because the organisation refuses to actively deal with change. In a lot of areas (both geographical and departmental) being blind to the changing world around it; and as a result is losing out. That it lost the last major festival it covered, Download, to Festival Medical Service, should tell us something about how other percieve us. If that can happen, surely it’s only going to be a matter of time before a similar organisation does the same with football. If the FA isn’t sat talking with V about providing volunteering opportunities - which include first aid at league football matches - then they are missing out.

We’re missing out too on potential volunteers. Why are the first set of leavers in the U-graph actually leaving? It may be they genuinely didn’t understand what we did; or it could be that they turned up wanting to do some first aid and help other people, and walked into an organisation full of small-minded busybodies parading around in pointlessly overpriced and overdressed uniforms whose main concern was the number of pips that sat on their shoulder. Or the wannabe paramedics who work themselves into a lather about owning every single piece of medical equipment known to man, when the reality is that they simply need their hands; their gloves and a blanket and a couple of dressings. And a mobile phone to dial 999.

On reflection, I think St John Ambulance needs to worry more about getting new volunteers in. But in doing so, it needs to make sure it is an organisation they both want to join and want to stay involved in. It needs to make sure that we are properly investing in volunteers for the right reasons; we are welcoming them into an organisation where they are not instantly taught to dislike anyone who comes from county, or treat NHQ with disdain because it insists they can no longer pile 15 Cadets into the back of an ambulance to drop them home.

New volunteers bring energy into the organisation. They bring new ideas. They bring changing attitudes. Successful businesses know that. They seek to rotate boards and management teams because it keeps people bothered about what is next, not how it used to be.

I’ve always been an advocate of fixed-term volunteering in St John. I’m more of one than ever before. And yes, that might mean that I’d be a casualty of that… as volunteers week coincides with my 20th anniversary in SJA. But I’d far rather leave knowing the change I’ve achieved than resign frustrated about what I couldn’t.

2 Comments

Are you a saint?

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Jo Cope
Filed Under Recruitment and retention

… join St John Ambulance!

Kerigan’s post about regulating what’s associated with the St John Ambulance name, and the ensuing discussion about SJA-branded social clothing has generated some interesting points about standards of conduct.

What’s appropriate general behaviour — on and off-duty — for a St John Ambulance volunteer?

I call to mind one of the key points of our brand:

Ordinary people, doing ordinary things, with extraordinary results.

Ordinary people: Research for the Commission on the Future of Volunteering, published earlier this year, asked people about images of volunteers and volunteering. Negative stereotypes of volunteers included:

- do-gooders: people with a holier-than-thou attitude, for whom volunteering is about getting praise and recognition from others for their efforts

- wealthy people who do not need to work and feel they should do something to help others less fortunate than themselves; these people are considered to be quite patronising and snobbish

So, when our brand is that of ordinary people, we are setting our way of working in direct conflict to this stereotype. We’re looking at social norms as standards of behaviour, rather than an unusually rigid moral code. With 45,000 volunteers across a range of ages and backgrounds, we shouldn’t be hearing statements such as “People like me don’t get involved in St John Ambulance”. We have high standards, yes: but they are the high standards of a responsible organisation providing a service. They are not impossibly high.

doing ordinary things: we don’t set out to be first aid geeks. We provide volunteering opportunities that are within the abilities of a large number of people, and we provide our volunteers with training and with enjoyable, useful activities. That’s what people join for. In a survey of new volunteers in Oxfordshire, we asked those who had joined between October 2006 and October 2007 to rank the various factors which influenced their decision to join. They said they did not join primarily for social reasons: they joined to learn useful skills and to put those skills to use in a fun environment.

with extraordinary results: the results come from teamwork and from making use of the range of skills that our volunteers and staff bring to the organisation. The focus of the brand is that the individuals and their individual contribution are “ordinary” — possible, achievable — and that it is in bringing those efforts together that the achievement is made. Sure, we have some outstanding contributors, and we encourage people to achieve, including in competition against others. But the emphasis is on bringing out the best in people, not recruiting only the best.

What are the effects of unrealistic expectations of individual conduct? By promoting a stereotype of the holier-than-thou volunteer, we would make ourselves unapproachable, which would be a hindrance in delivering services. It would be off-putting for some would-be volunteers, who feel that they would not fit in. And it would encourage some people to join who might be disappointed in just how “ordinary” we are — and might expect us to be always awake, alert, enthusiastic (and sober!).

Blogging - it’s good for you…

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Olly Benson
Filed Under About the site

One of my favourite blogs, IntelligentGiving, (who’s head has just been chosen as one of the 100 happiest people in the UK) has concluded that people get annoyed by charities.

Which is bad news for charities; because if people are annoyed by a charity then they don’t give them as much money.

How do they reckon you should solve it? Via a blog. Charities, and the people in charge, should blog to make a charity more transparent.

IntelligentGiving is primarily focused on the public as funders, but I think the same could be said of the public as volunteers.

We’ve been nominated…

Posted on April 27, 2008 by Olly Benson
Filed Under About the site

This blog has been nominated for a New Statesman New Media Award in the Campaign for Change category. If you like what you see/read, why not support the entry by writing some words of encouragement here.