On 05/03/07, Sebastian Moleski sebmol@gmail.com wrote:
I've recruited and manged a great number of volunteers while working at a university. The main problem with them is that, unless they have some sort of alternative source of income/wealth, it's just not economically feasible for them to put in more than a few hours a week. So you could say: why not hire a lot of volunteers that just do a little bit of work? The problem there is that lack of communication, variety of approaches to solving tasks compounded by geographic diversifcation will make it very unlikely that such an arrangement can be effective and efficient. This holds especially for the kind of jobs Florence was talking about. Unless we're talking about small, well-contained tasks, volunteers just won't be able to do them in a speedy manner.
I certainly agree that managing 12 volunteers doing a few hours a week would be more difficult than 2 employees, but as a not-for-profit charity there's no harm in exploring the feasability of relying on volunteers.
You mention communication. Volunteers given these positions would be aware that they're doing an important job: they should feel obligated to working a particular number hours of week and should also feel obligated to inform the Foundation when they are unable to fulfil this. The Foundation could contact them over the phone or by e-mail: I can't see it being hard to contact volunteers.