[Foundation-l] Update of Foundation organization

[Ray Saintonge]

Oldak Quill wrote:

>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.
>
This is naive.  I am very much in support of of maximum volunteer 
inpout.  You cannot oblige anybody to work a specified number of hours 
per week unless they are getting something out of it.  That something 
may still be intangible, like personal satisfaction, instead of money; 
pure altruism is unlikely to be enough.  When you start to hassle them 
by phone or whatever they're more likely to say, "Screw you!" and go away.

Ec