My Time is Valuable - Why Should I Volunteer?

This is an article I wrote for the monthly newsletter of the North Florida Chapter of the Society of Certified Public Managers. Although I volunteer regularly, and used my experiences volunteering with NFCPM (and other places) to inform this article, today brought it all home to me in a real way. Sabrina Hartley, our president, and I packed books into boxes for Operation Paperback. With every choice of book I made that will end up in the hands of a military serviceperson and/or a dependent, I was reminded of a) how simple it is to do something that will be meaningful to a serviceperson, like donate a book, b) that behind the simplicity of donating a book is an entire process --sort the books, store the books, pack the books, fill out the paperwork for the books, label the books, etc., and c) that, as I said in the article, there are things we learn about each other when we do something "out of our usual zone" that we would not have otherwise learned. I'll keep signing up!

My Time is Valuable – Why Should It Go To Community Service?

Helping others, together, makes us a better “managers’ organization.”

When you hear the name “Certified Public Managers,” what images come to mind? Management theory? Programs such as those we’ve had recently on Conflict Management, Performance Measurement, and Procurement Processes?

One other thing should be part of the mix: an image of service.

CPM Members Kim VelDink and Sherry Valdes Serve Florida History Fair Attendees 

That is why I feel so strongly about making sure our chapter members have opportunities to serve the community once a month. There is something that members of an organization gain through serving a cause outside of their own, something that can’t be measured on a flow chart, ishikawa diagram, or scattergram: the benefits of striving to go beyond ourselves.


It is the things you find out about one another huddled around a bank of phones at 6 a.m. to take calls from donors – what radio programs people like, how they are the neighbor of the guest host, that they like their coffee black, that they look like a different person in glasses because they don’t put their contacts in that early in the morning.

Pass the coffee - CPM Members Paula Kiger, Anna Bethea, Sherry Valdes Volunteer at WFSU-FM

It is the things you find out at a run, helping hand out water to people struggling through a tough competition – how it takes teamwork to rapidly dispense a hundred cups of water in a span of five minutes, to clean up the aftermath, and to laugh at each other when you think the lid on the big water container is a screw-on and it ends up being a “pop off.” When you see people who you normally only encounter in business attire or a uniform, in sweats or shorts and a t-shirt instead, some of the differences that may be transmitted by our business attire evaporate.

It is finding out that even as adults with years of work (and management) experience behind us, there are still “teachable moments” in situations where we are with people who are younger, older, smarter, less educated, of a different race, and a whole host of other differences. We should get out of our comfort zones and plop down in the middle of some other group’s universe once in a while. Marvel at young people smart enough and motivated enough to concoct a history fair project and put it up for the scrutiny of a panel of adult judges (for example).

We learn that it may take a bit of time out of our schedules to volunteer for a few hours of community service, but, in doing so, we are adding to the collective heart of our group and bringing new insights, knowledge, and experiences to our traditional monthly meetings.


We are putting more “public” into our Public Manager credentials.

A few more images from Sabrina's and my day at Operation Paperback:

Miss Piggy Hammers it Home

In early November 2009, my mother in law forwarded me an email.  I think this email originated from Lighthouse of the Big Bend, but I don't completely recall.  The email contained information about a new program, Give a Day, Get a Disney Day (GADGADD), that was looking for volunteer coordinators.  The program would provide a free day at a Disney park in exchange for a day of service at an approved organization.  In roughly the time it takes to sing M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E, I was on board!  I could spend an entire blog dissecting the reasons why I would pile another commitment onto my already full plate.  Suffice it to say, I love volunteering and seeing people "connect dots" with each other within our community.  I also believe, after working with volunteers for a few decades, that it is as important (perhaps more important) to apply good "people management" skills when working with volunteers as it is when working with paid employees.  This program gave me a chance to put that belief to the test (and more).

When I look back on the period from mid-November 2009, through the notification we received in March 2010 that the program had reached its "million volunteer mark" and would no longer be accepting new volunteers, three observations come to mind:

Is it right to volunteer in exchange for "compensation" instead of the simple "joy of volunteering"?

Disney targeted this program very heavily toward families.  As project specialists, we were encouraged to recruit volunteer opportunities where children ages six and up could participate.  I spoke to many families who said, "we don't believe you ought to get anything in exchange for volunteering."  As a parent, I agree with them that it is critical that our children see us, their parents, giving back in the community with no expectation of anything in return.  In the case of the GADGADD program, however, I felt that the Disney ticket was a) a well-deserved reward for volunteers who often go unrecognized while giving selflessly of their time and energy, and b) an incentive to people who had not volunteered previously to give volunteering a shot (in the hopes they would keep volunteering after the Disney Day.) 

Speaking of those families......

As a parent who has always tried to demonstrate "volunteerism in action" to my children, I know it is not always easy to find an opportunity where kids are welcomed and given something age-appropriate and useful to do.  It was a stretch with GADGADD, too, but the agencies I worked with rose to the challenge.  At the Special Olympics 5K in January 2010, kids made signs encouraging the runners, ran alongside the Special Olympics athletes in the 1K event, and provided directional assistance to runners.  

Other family-friendly projects included rolling plasticware at the homeless shelter (another project coordinator's cause), state park cleanups, collecting food from mailboxes during a drive for the homeless, serving as recreational assistants at a HUGE Martin Luther King Day community celebration, and helping foster animals get adopted. 

Big databases can make the simplest of concepts kind of "Goofy"

The volunteer opportunity postings as well as the volunteer signups for GADGADD were all done through the Hands on Network Volunteer Opportunity Portal (VOP).  There were times when the "portal" felt like more of a roadblock than a passageway.  As I wrote in my guest post on Lauren Novo's blog, my "day job" experiences dealing with Healthy Kids' transition to a new Third Party Administration vendor made the VOP a "walk in the park," but it still presented challenges that many volunteers and agencies found discouraging.  Bill Hogg, who calls himself the "Amazing Service Guy," wrote about his family's experience, stating "the website did not function properly making it difficult to access volunteer opportunities." 

Through this program, with its ups and downs, I met the kindest people.  (Except for this guy, who was unhappy that a project he wanted to do was full: 

"sure i understand you hooked up your friends first, you all getting together and

taking a bus down too?"

Maybe Kermit could hop on over and talk this guy down!

I could go on and on about this program, but hopefully hitting on these three main points gave you readers a little insight into the experience. 

Ultimately, I agree with the words of this Irish Proverb:

It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. 

The GADGADD program helped build many literal shelters through construction projects, but I like to think it built many figurative shelters, too, in the bonds that were strengthened among families and communities, both in the projects that were undertaken and in the memories families will make when they visit a Disney Park.*

I'll "run" into you next week, readers!

*Volunteers were given the option to donate their tickets to charity.