On Volunteers

Steve Blank, Chairman of the Audubon California Board spoke these good words on the power and metamorphosis of volunteers to Golden Gate Audubon’s annual volunteer appreciation day. His words resonant and reflective each of us striving to improve the world we were given. Definitely worth reading…

Speech to the Golden Gate Audubon -
Volunteer Day: Saturday, May 06, 2006

By Steve Blank (Board Chair Audubon California)

Thank you. I’m honored to be with you today as a speaker at Golden Gate Audubon, and to be in front of the finest volunteers in the world. When I was younger I didn’t always understand the motivation of volunteers. “You mean they do it for free?” was my first response. So today I want to tell you a couple of stories about how I came to understand how your role as volunteers for Golden Gate Audubon has an importance far beyond the Bay Area.

My first story is “It’s Déjà vu all over again.”

It’s based on an article I read in The Non Profit Times about “On Volunteers."
It said that organizations go through seven stages in Volunteer Involvement.

The first Stage: is when one or two people see a need before anyone else does and start shouting about it. (Think of them like the Arthur Feinstein’s of the world.)

The fact is that major innovation and change rarely occur within established institutions. Often it’s those very organizations that put obstacles in the way of visionaries. The first people, who recognize what needs to be done are often met with hostility.

These pioneering volunteers may feel like they are wandering in the wilderness alone. It takes courage and staying power. Passion drives them. And these volunteers accept the role of mavericks until...

Stage 2: That’s when others start to see the validity of your cause. Because those initial visionaries succeeded in articulating something that others can see and accept, they begin to attract a few followers.

This small band of volunteers supports one another and raises the decibel--and acceptance--level. They develop some synergy to move their plans forward, but they still view the Establishment as indifferent, and sometimes hostile.

Stage 3: More volunteers join in and social approval follows. (Kind of like the first fifty years of Audubon.) The cause has reached critical mass.

New supporters have joined and the organization is no longer "underground" and is gaining in popularity. There are enough hands to start new projects. Thought is given to incorporating and small fundraising (often dues assessed to each member) underwrites out-of-pocket expenses such as postage and supplies.

Stage 4: Someone says: "Hey, we all have paid day-jobs to do and this unpaid work is exhausting us. Let's find some money and hire staff."

This is a watershed point. Clearly very few organizations can sustain meaningful activity over time without at least a few people who can spend full-time focusing entirely on the development of their programs.

So the first employees are hired to assist the volunteer leaders. At this stage, volunteers often find it difficult to let go of tasks they have grown accustomed to doing. Initial employees feel both underutilized and dumped on.

Stage 5: More staff are hired and volunteers eventually become assistants to the paid workers. The board of directors is still comprised of volunteers, but now they "govern" rather than "manage."

This is the longest and most productive stage to date, and the conversion of service provided by volunteers to service provided by paid staff usually evolves slowly.

The signs of what is generally called "professionalizing" an organization can be heard in remarks such as: "Isn't it risky to allow volunteers to do this? Aren't we incurring liability?"

Regardless, volunteers are slowly moved into peripheral roles and the board is asked to think only about policies and governance. In the meantime, the board has a diminishing number of volunteers on it, just an increasing numbers of the donors. No one asks: How can a board manage the organization effectively if they are disengaged from the real work of the organization?

Stage 6: The organization becomes an entrenched institution with all important work done by employees. (No, I am not referring to National Audubon.)

The volunteers can claim success as their vision ends up as an important community service. But there are dangers, too. For example, a paid-staff-only organization can become more concerned with financial survival than with the initial vision. Or it can become the very "Establishment" that the current Lunatic Fringe is screaming about. And visionaries leave and start their own organization.

Stage 7: Finally, someone says: "Do you know what would freshen things up around here? Let's recruit some community volunteers!"

Yes, we’ve gone through the proverbial full circle. The light-bulb goes on over a few heads who realize that volunteers can expand both perspectives and the budget, and that there are unique roles only volunteers can fill in community relations and advocacy.

Sometimes it takes a shock to the system to provide the motivation for re-discovering volunteers; budget shortfalls or seeking to repair relations with community involvement.

Regardless, it takes a conscious effort and mature leadership for a long-established organization to open its doors to the best and most diverse types of volunteer participation. The good news is in the last 100 years Audubon has been through these seven stages multiple times. My take is that as a national organization we are in stage 7, and are beginning to reach out once again to volunteers and the grassroots to reinvigorate and reinvent the organization.

The over 250 Volunteers in Golden Gate Audubon mean that this 89-year old chapter is on the productive part of these cycles, somewhere between stage 4 or 5. The passionate and dedicated volunteers are what keeps this chapter on the cutting edge of active conservation

I just want to share with you that Audubon California sees your volunteer work here as the blueprint for what we can and should be like across the entire state. Because of your work, commitment and passion, we hope to use this volunteer program as a model for the rest of California.

So… “It’s Déjà vu all over again.”

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The second story is about “Bowling Together in the Bay Area.”

Robert Putnam in his book “Bowling Alone” had observations about civic engagement that are important for us in Audubon and in our work around the Bay. In his book Putnam shows that in the last 50 years we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our democratic structures. We sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. We're even bowling alone; (hence the title of the book.) It turns out that Americans bowl more today than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues. Putnam theory is that changes in work, family structure, age, suburban life, television, computers, have all contributed to this decline in social connectivity.

So what? Why does this matter to us here today?

Putnam warned that our stock of social capital - the fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities. It turns out that communities with higher levels of social capital are likely to have higher educational achievement, better performing governmental institutions, faster economic growth, and less crime and violence. And the people living in these communities are likely to be happier, healthier, and to have a longer life expectancy. In places with greater social connectedness, it is easier to mobilize people to tackle problems of public concern (restored wetlands, wild habitats), and easier to arrange things that benefit the group as a whole.

What does this have to do with Audubon?

Although philanthropy has doubled since 1960 in real dollars, real spending on all forms of entertainment has nearly quadrupled. We are simply far better off now than then. What is more relevant is how big a share of our income we give to philanthropy; that is, after all, what tithing is all about. The sad fact is that in the last 25 years the share of national income we give to philanthropy has dropped by over a third - back to the level we gave in 1940.

While mass-membership conservation organizations have grown their membership substantially, for the vast majority of their members, the only act of membership consists of writing a check for dues or perhaps occasionally reading a newsletter. Few ever attend any meetings of such organizations, and most are unlikely ever (knowingly) to encounter any other member.
The bond between any two members of the Nature Conservancy (who I dearly love) is less like the bond between any two members of a gardening club and more like the bond between any two Giants fans (or perhaps any two devoted Toyota owners.)

They each root for the same team and they share some of the same interests, but they are unaware of each other's existence. Their ties, in short, are to common symbols, common leaders, and perhaps common ideals, but not to one another.

But that’s not true for organizations where volunteers are the foundations of the organization. It’s not true where the grassroots still participate by getting their hands dirty working together. And it’s not true for volunteers at Golden Gate Audubon – who are the real meaning of an organization building social capital.

Most of you understood way before I did that birds and their habitats are harbingers of all our fate, and that if we are here on this earth as stewards for what is around us, then our role is clear. We need to do direct conservation of critical bird habitat, we need to affect state and local policy that degrades or endangers birds and their homes, and we need to educate young and old on why preserving birds and their habitats is important.

And you, Golden Gate Audubon Volunteers are doing all of that; the restoration of tidal wetland habitat at Pier 94 in San Francisco, completing the five-year census of Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park in the East Bay, and leading over 100 field trips in and around the Bay Area each year.

As you know one of the key tenets of Audubon has been, “connecting people with nature.” Perhaps it really should be, “connecting people with nature and each other.” If any one group or organization can typify that phrase, it’s all of you.

I want to offer you a heartfelt thanks from not only me but from all of us at Audubon California and from your community as well.

So… Golden Gate Audubon Volunteers are “Bowling Together in the Bay Area.”

Thank You.
Together we can do anything.