[Foundation-l] Update of Foundation organization

[Oldak Quill]

On 05/03/07, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at 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.

-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)