Organizing seven strategic focus areas to optimize recruitment of baby boomer volunteers
Abstract
Research suggests that for baby boomers aged 40 to 55 years, there is sufficient similarity in attitudes and characteristics to allow for the provision of a framework designed to encourage volunteerism. Adapted from the report, Boomnet: Capturing the Baby Boomer Volunteers,by Judy Esmond, Ph.D.Issue
Offering attractive volunteering opportunities to the baby boomer generation may require a shift in thinking and organizational restructuring in nonprofit organizations.Action
According to the report, Boomnet: Capturing the Baby Boomer Volunteers, organizations should concentrate on the following seven strategic focus areas in order to optimize their prospects of recruiting baby boomer volunteers:
1. Understand the aspirations and characteristics of the baby boomers.
Many baby boomers are experiencing a time of mid-life crises. This is a period when people begin to ask themselves what they are going to do with the rest of their lives. There is a need to reflect on the past, to question the present and to re-focus, re-assess and reprioritize for the future. For many baby boomers, particularly males, it is the movement of a mind set from success to significance. They have often been very successful in their careers and they now also want their lives to be significant. Volunteering offers the ideal opportunity and outlet for feeling significant and fills a need for social and community involvement.
2. Be organized, professional and well managed.
- Although an emphasis on the need for professionalism and good management is not a recent phenomena, what is different is the response of baby boomer volunteers to shortcomings by organizations in these areas. Perhaps because many baby boomers have needed to be well organized in their busy personal lives to juggle family, work and other activities, or perhaps because they come from professional backgrounds or managerial roles themselves, their standards and expectations are high. They view their time as enormously important and they do not have the time or patience for a disorganized volunteering experience. Unlike their parents, who may have continued to volunteer for an organization despite its management shortcomings, baby boomers will leave because of these shortcomings.
- Although baby boomers want a professional and well-organized volunteering experience, they do not respond effectively to too much structure, too much control, over-regulation or bureaucratic red tape. The over-management of a volunteer program can be just as detrimental as the under-management of a program.
- Accept, respond to and act on feedback from volunteers. This requires an organizational environment that encourages feedback from volunteers, even though at times this feedback could be negative in nature. For organizations, this means identifying formal processes that allow for the giving of constructive feedback.
- Be aware of and develop strategies so that the organization does not become a closed group, i.e., the organizational climate encourages and accepts new volunteers. (See the effective practice " Evaluating your organization's volunteer climate .")
- Offer support in the form of adequate insurance coverage for volunteers, a clear occupational health and safety policy, recognition of the value of volunteering efforts (See the effective practice, "Going beyond annual banquets to recognize volunteers.") and being treated with equality with paid staff.
- Baby boomers are more informed and better educated than their parents and will no longer be prepared to undertake what they regard as boring work, such as "stuffing envelopes."
- Related to the desire for more creative volunteering opportunities is the baby boomers response to the aging process. For baby boomers, age is a very sensitive issue. They certainly feel that age is more a state of mind than a particular chronology, and many will avoid organizations that have an image that is not of energetic, fun and youthful activity as a volunteer. Many traditional nonprofit organizations are suffering from this image problem, being perceived as tired, worn out and uninteresting. Any organization that aims to recruit baby boomers would be well advised to adopt the strategy of re-structuring their recruitment campaign around a more youthful message and to advertise a range of challenging and creative volunteering opportunities.
- Relate the volunteer tasks to the big picture, the organizational vision or mission. All volunteers need to be shown how their voluntary effort contributes to the organization overall and is making a difference. This should not be done on an ad hoc basis, but as part of a considered strategy.
5. Identify the needs of potential volunteers.
This will increase the likelihood of matching the individual to a volunteering opportunity that meets these needs. For the parents of the baby boomers, volunteering was simply part of what you did. It was a responsibility you had as a member of the community. Baby boomers are from a consumer generation and are more sophisticated in identifying and explaining their desires and needs. For them, volunteering is also about having their own needs met in the voluntary experience.
6. Offer education that is needed, effective, relevant and presented in an appropriate manner.
- Baby boomers are not interested in simply "traditional" training, they are interested in education and learning opportunities that develop their own skills, benefiting themselves and the organization. Because their time is precious, these learning opportunities must be vital to their volunteering role and not just training for the sake of more training. The education and learning must be relevant, meaningful, and above all, well presented. It needs to be based upon opportunities to develop one's full potential rather than about control and regulation and a fear of litigation.
- Additionally, consider how education is offered. Baby boomers learn best in open environments of equality between educator and volunteer, as they are often more knowledgeable than those attempting to teach them and do not respond well to the teaching styles of authoritative experts. A training model focused on the "expert" training the uneducated with a "top down" approach, rather than a model of colleagues learning together, may well contribute to many volunteers leaving in the early stages of their volunteer involvement.
7. Consider the element of time (or lack of) for baby boomers.
Baby boomers have become time strapped, feeling they have no time for their children, let alone voluntary work. A by-product of the baby boomers leading busy, complex, and often very stressful lives, is that they are increasingly unlikely to commit to volunteer work for the long term. If organizations are to engage baby boomers, particularly those with dependent children at home, they must urgently develop strategies that provide a range of volunteering opportunities that are short term and time specific. It is not that all baby boomers don't want to commit for the long term, it is just that an increasing number of them feel they can't. (See the effective practice, "Recruiting volunteers at the last minute for one-time events.") Organizations need to incorporate strategies to allow greater flexibility in their volunteering opportunities, recognizing that baby boomers cannot always volunteer at the same time each week. Strategies may include:
- Family volunteering: Nonprofit organizations develop volunteering tasks that could involve all members of the family, from the children through to parents and grandparents. This means that instead of choosing between spending time with their families or spending time volunteering, baby boomers will be able to combine both needs. (See the effective practice, "Using family clubs to maintain community well-being.")
- Online volunteering: Offers the potential to volunteer without leaving home or at work without leaving the desk. This means that the time taken with travel to and from the volunteering activity could be avoided and baby boomers would still be able to make an important contribution to their community. In order to accommodate online volunteers, organizations would need to develop effective strategies and structures to meet the needs of their online volunteers. (See the effective practice, " Managing online volunteers: six tips.")
- Employee volunteering: Private enterprise or public sector employees providing paid release time for employees to volunteer for nonprofit organizations is an ideal way to be able to contribute as a volunteer without having to sacrifice limited time with the family or compromising careers. Employee volunteering would allow the busy baby boomers in their 40s to undertake volunteer work which interested them, not just child-based volunteer activities, and would allow many in their 50s to have a "taste" of volunteer work they may be interested in pursuing in the future when they "scale back" their paid working life. (See the effective practice, " Assessing corporate climate for employee volunteer programs.")
Context
In 2001, the Department of Premier and Cabinet, in partnership with the Office of Seniors Interests in Western Australia, commissioned Team Consultants, a research, education and coaching company -- under the direction of principal researcher, Judy Esmond, Ph.D. -- to conduct a research project on "Baby Boomers and Volunteering." The research aimed to identify the motivations and barriers to volunteering and strategies to encourage baby boomers to volunteer their services in the community.
The research methodology combined a review of the literature; 60 individual interviews with organizations that utilize volunteers; creativity sessions with baby boomers -- two groups of 20 participants each; and focus group discussions with four different groups of baby boomers who had been or were currently volunteers in both urban and rural settings. Additionally, interviews with representatives from indigenous communities (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background) were conducted.
Citation
Esmond, Judy Ph.D., Boomnet: Capturing the Baby Boomer Volunteers. A 2001 Research Project into Baby Boomers and Volunteering. Conducted by Team Consultants (Judy Esmond, Ph.D., Principal Consultant). An initiative of the Western Australian Government in the International Year of Volunteers. Commissioned by the Department of the Premier (Dr. Geoff Gallop, MLA) and Cabinet in partnership with the Department for Community Development; Seniors Interests.
Download a copy of the full report by going to www.mtd4u.com