1 Million Volunteers by Inauguration
I’m sure many of you felt the excitement that yesterday’s election results generated. The spontaneous celebrations that erupted in the streets were amazing! Truly a new day in America when people rejoice in the streets following an election rather than just a sports event.
As both Obama and many commentators have noted, however, now the real work of nation-rebuilding starts. With that, it struck me that now was a ‘kairos’ (opportune moment in time) opportunity for the big volunteer organizations to recruit volunteers. Obama’s organization did an amazing job mobilizing people and there’s a lot of good will out there. With his hands full with any number of messes (financial, Iraq/Afghanistan, etc.), Obama’s going to need the same kind of help on the ground that got him to office to fix the nation .
Similar to the ‘million man march’, I’d like to see the major volunteer organizations launch a drive to get 1 million new volunteers by inauguration day in January (or by the end of his first 100 days). All those energized by putting Obama into office, now focus the energy on re-constructing a great nation. Consider channeling that energy into Volunteer Match, Points of Light, San Francisco School Volunteers, Breakthrough Collaborative, Idealist.org or one of the hundreds of other worthwhile organizations.
I realize this is a technology blog, so let me take a moment and tie this to my last post about looking for process makeovers. ‘Kairos’ moments like now don’t come around often. The opportunity to take advantage of a huge amount of good will has little to do with having the latest social networking or web 2.0 tools, but rather how well your organization is equipped to train, support, and parse work out to volunteers. It’s a process. Volunteer management systems can certainly help manage large volumes of volunteers. However, without the orientation and support processes solid – and work parsed into bite-sized chunks for volunteers – volunteer management systems will help only marginally.
As both Obama and many commentators have noted, however, now the real work of nation-rebuilding starts. With that, it struck me that now was a ‘kairos’ (opportune moment in time) opportunity for the big volunteer organizations to recruit volunteers. Obama’s organization did an amazing job mobilizing people and there’s a lot of good will out there. With his hands full with any number of messes (financial, Iraq/Afghanistan, etc.), Obama’s going to need the same kind of help on the ground that got him to office to fix the nation .
Similar to the ‘million man march’, I’d like to see the major volunteer organizations launch a drive to get 1 million new volunteers by inauguration day in January (or by the end of his first 100 days). All those energized by putting Obama into office, now focus the energy on re-constructing a great nation. Consider channeling that energy into Volunteer Match, Points of Light, San Francisco School Volunteers, Breakthrough Collaborative, Idealist.org or one of the hundreds of other worthwhile organizations.
I realize this is a technology blog, so let me take a moment and tie this to my last post about looking for process makeovers. ‘Kairos’ moments like now don’t come around often. The opportunity to take advantage of a huge amount of good will has little to do with having the latest social networking or web 2.0 tools, but rather how well your organization is equipped to train, support, and parse work out to volunteers. It’s a process. Volunteer management systems can certainly help manage large volumes of volunteers. However, without the orientation and support processes solid – and work parsed into bite-sized chunks for volunteers – volunteer management systems will help only marginally.
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3 Comments:
What a wonderful post! Heartily agree. The next few months could be a real tipping point when it comes to social change. At UniversalGiving we're hopeful about the future!We match volunteers with both domestic and international organizations and the number of people willing to give their time to help others is truly humbling.
Agreed: great post. Here at VolunteerMatch, where I work, we're helping to connect the dots for campaign volunteers by showing them how easy it is to strengthen local communities by getting involved with great causes at www.volunteermatch.org. Let's see if this is a wave that can raise the entire independent sector.
We're hoping that the transition team takes a look at our 20-minute volunteering model - where people can volunteer expertise in under 20 minutes whenever and wherever they have spare time. www.theextraordinaries.org
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