The future of volunteerism

There has been a lot of media and cultural focus lately on volunteerism. Driven by a revived national sense of service and a desire to give back in the face of rising need -- more and more people are a-twitter with the idea of contributing their time and skill to a worthy project, especially if the recession has made financial contributions impossible this year.

• NYTimes: Can Volunteers Be a Lifeline for Nonprofit Groups?
• CNN: For Jobless Lawyers, plan B includes good works
• NYTimes: From Ranks of Jobless, a Flood of Volunteers

As Time magazine reports, however, nonprofits are finding themselves in the unusual position of trying to meet higher than ever interest in volunteerism in a time when resources to support such a demand are sinking:

The challenge, writes blogger Jayne Cravens, is that volunteers are never free. For a volunteer to have a positive experience and a positive impact, they have to be organized and managed properly.

It's not a supply problem, there is plenty of need in the nonprofit community. But rather, it's a challenge of connecting the demand (for volunteer opportunities) to the supply. It's a challenge of translating the need that exists into defined projects, training and managing those projects. So where's the solution?  How, under limited resources, can we connect and organize people to effect change.

Many  have sought the solution in emerging technologies.  Technology, as it often does, has changed the game.  Business and Science have begun to break barriers by using open innovation and crowdsourcing, which attempts to solve complex problems by opening them up to the public for input.

Last summer, Scott Stadum, experience analyst at Idealist had another idea:

A similar idea will come to fruition this year when a group called, the Extraordinaries launches an iphone ap for micro-volunteer opportunities.  Through the Extraordinaries application, volunteers can translate a nonprofit's website into another language, critique resumes for a job training program, or tap other opportunities, all of which are available on-demand and remotely.

Thoughts, like these, on the impact of technology on volunteerism are growing.  A number of organizations, including our own, are expirimenting with e-mentoring and other opportunities that leverage the internet to mobilize action.  But even technology-fueled voluntunteer programs take staff time, skill and coordination.  And in an economy that has pushed many nonprofits to bare bones operations, this isn't an easy scenario.

What about volunteers to coordinate the volunteers?  It's a good start.  United Way's Karley Ausiello says that a number of nonprofits have started using Americorps members or federal work study students to run or supplement their volunteer programs.  There's still a cost involved, but it's significantly lower than a full time staff person.  United Way's Director of Volunteer Engagment Mollie McAlpin adds that volunteer programs need to grow and develop over time, something that is best facilitated by a staff member or volunteer that can commit to building the program over the long-run.  In this case, short-term coordinators, may be more disruptive than helpful.

As the focus on volunteerism continues to grow to a fever pitch (we hope!), the nonprofit community will need to address this gap.  Scratch that, I'd argue that the entire community will need to address it.  So I leave it up for discussion... How, without increasing or redirecting resources to volunteer coordination, can nonprofits meet and productively direct the need for skilled, donated time?