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Replenishing Your Volunteer Pool

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“Lack of volunteers” is a common theme lately in our executive director/CEO roundtables at Spokes. Currently volunteers are “aging out” and it’s a struggle to replace them. I decided to ask our friend chatGPT about this issue. As usual, it had lots of ideas.

For openers, it provided the following trends that contribute to the situation:

  • Aging Population of Traditional Volunteers: Older generations, especially Baby Boomers, have historically been strong contributors to volunteerism. As they age, they are either reducing their involvement or are unable to continue due to health reasons.
  • Younger Generations Volunteering Less: While Millennials and Gen Z are often involved in social causes, their approach to volunteering is different. They tend to prefer short-term, project-based engagements or virtual volunteering, rather than long-term commitments. Their work-life balance, financial pressures, and busy schedules also play a role in their reduced engagement in traditional volunteering.
  • Shift in How Younger People Engage: Younger generations are often more attracted to causes that align with their personal values and might prioritize advocacy, digital activism, or donating money over volunteering time in a traditional sense. They also prefer organizations that offer flexible, meaningful, and tech-savvy volunteer opportunities.
  • Competition with Other Activities: Younger people have more competing interests, such as career development, social activities, and other forms of civic engagement. Nonprofits may struggle to attract them unless they adapt to these preferences.
  • Lack of Targeted Outreach: Some nonprofits may not have adjusted their volunteer recruitment and engagement strategies to appeal to younger generations, who often rely on social media and online platforms for such opportunities.

Next time, I’ll share some of the suggested approaches for countering this trend.

Complementary Strengths

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In his blog Applied Wisdom for the Nonprofit Sector, Jim Morgan emphasizes the importance of complementary strengths when you are looking for a collaborative partner organization. As general examples, he cites implementation skills, innovative program design, connections to diverse communities, or strong donor relationships.

That makes sense to me, but I wanted some examples. I’ve been using chatGPT quite a bit lately, but today I decided to try out Microsoft’s Copilot. When I asked for examples, it actually started by elaborating on Morgan’s blog post! I followed up by asking it to provide a couple specific examples of actual nonprofit collaborations. It did a great job!

Feeding America and Boys & Girls Clubs of America:

Feeding America is a nationwide network of food banks that provides food to millions of people. Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) offers after-school programs for young people. By collaborating, Feeding America supplies nutritious meals and snacks to children attending BGCA programs. This partnership ensures that children not only receive educational and recreational support but also have access to healthy food, addressing both educational and nutritional needs.

Habitat for Humanity and Thrivent Financial:

Habitat for Humanity is known for building affordable housing for families in need. Thrivent Financial is a financial services organization with a strong volunteer base and financial resources. Through their collaboration, Thrivent provides funding and volunteers to support Habitat for Humanity’s home-building projects. This partnership combines Habitat’s expertise in construction and community development with Thrivent’s financial support and volunteer mobilization, resulting in more homes being built for those in need.

Read Morgan’s blog post here.

Rethinking Charity

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Recently I received an announcement that our local chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals is having a showing and discussion of Uncharitable, a feature-length documentary that “exposes the dark side of philanthropy and introduces a radical new way of giving.” That intrigued me. I learned the title comes from a book of the same name by Dan Pallotta, which led me to this TED Talk.

It’s fascinating and I wanted to share it! See what you think.

How accessible is your website?

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We’re all aware of the need for public spaces to be accessible and of the many accommodations that help to make them more so. But what about our websites? They are one of our most powerful communication tools. Our websites need to be accessible too.

Here are four things you can do to increase the accessibility of your website:

Use accessible website templates

Why: Many website builders (like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace) offer templates that are designed with accessibility in mind.
How: Choose templates labeled as accessible or compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These templates often include built-in features like proper heading structures, color contrast, and keyboard navigation.

Add alt text to images

Why: Alt text provides descriptions of images for people using screen readers, making visual content accessible to those with visual impairments.
How: Ensure that every image on the website has descriptive and relevant alt text. This can be done manually through the website’s content management system (CMS).

Ensure text is readable

Why: Clear and readable text is essential for users with visual impairments or cognitive disabilities.
How: Use high contrast between text and background colors, choose readable fonts, and maintain a minimum font size of 14-16 pixels. Avoid using images of text whenever possible.

Implement keyboard navigation

Why: Some users rely on keyboards rather than a mouse to navigate websites.
How: Test the website to ensure that all interactive elements (like links, buttons, and form fields) can be accessed and used via keyboard alone. This can often be done through the tab key. Ensure the focus indicator is visible when navigating through elements.

For more information:

The “E” in DEI

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Many of our local nonprofits have put considerable effort into diversifying their boards of directors. That’s good work toward the “D” in DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion. Today, let’s give some attention to the concept of equity.

First, let’s differentiate equity from equality. Equity refers to fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all individuals. Unlike equality, which implies treating everyone the same, equity recognizes that different people have different circumstances and allocates resources and opportunities accordingly. College scholarships based on need are one classic example of equity. The Americans with Disabilities Act is another.

There are numerous visual depictions to contrast the two concepts. I like this one, from Sketchplantations, used by permission.

Removing Barriers

One powerful way for nonprofit leaders to promote equity is to identify and remove barriers. Attorney Heidi Christianson suggests two places to start. One is barrier language. She recommends eliminating “language that feels like ‘legalese’ and processes that are unnecessary. For example, “If Bylaws and policies are to represent an organization’s collective expectations, they need to be welcoming to all people.” In fact, composing such documents in clear, straightforward language may make it easier for everyone to understand and comply with them!

The second is barriers to service. For instance, Christianson encourages us to “think about meeting times, prohibition on board compensation, and length of board terms.” Look at your list of board expectations or your board member job description. Though not intending to, do they automatically put hurdles in the path of board service for some people but not others?

Here are additional resources for advancing equity in the nonprofit board room:

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