Creating Powerful Communities of Action: Understanding Boomers and Engaging Volunteers

1. Get Involved: Powered By Your Library, A California State Library Initiative Creating Powerful Communities of Action

2. Understanding Boomers • Assessment • Building the Case Steps to Volunteer Engagement Capacity Building • Mapping the Initiative • Creating Opportunities Using Critical Intervention Points • Cultivation and Networking • Interviewing and Vetting Designing Powerful Engagement • Creating the Collaboration • Nurturing the Relationship Agreement & Support

3. Coaching Report Accomplishments Learning Challenges Flickr Soansmark

4. Incorporate ideas from across this community of practice into your pilot work Learning Objectives 1 • Negotiate agreements with new volunteers, following the initial interview 2 • Understand the staff role in creating Communities of Action 3

5. Interview Questions Report Out

6. Offers and Negotiation “Interviewing is a lot like talking, but you have to guide the conversation. You have to know what you want and go about getting it.” – Anthony deCurtis, former editor of Rolling Stone Microsoft

7. Before the Offer • What questions have come up since we last spoke? • What were your “Aha!” moments from our interview? • What else has occurred to you over the last few days? Great ideas? Concerns?

8. Before the offer • At this point, the candidate knows if she/he is the right fit. • You are providing: • An easy way out before you invest more time • A safe space for the candidate to ask questions and raise concerns that could determine success • Another forum to learn about the candidate • If the candidate opts out, ask, “May I keep you on our list for future opportunities?” Say, “Thank you” and you’re done.

9. “I would like to offer you this assignment!”

10. Preparing for Negotiation • Hints for phrasing • Use questions, not directives • Stay balanced; Follow statements of what you need by asking what he or she needs • Come to agreements rather than dictating • Determine the level of authority for the position Flickr: thinkpanama

11. Set the Tone Make the conversation engaging – for this individual and for future volunteers this person will engage: • Collaborative • Helpful • Focused on learning and leadership development • Respectful • Transparent Flickr: thinkpanama

12. Negotiation • Define the position in terms of results • Anticipated accomplishments, and this person’s accountability for each • What does success look like? • Avoid telling him/her how to do it Flickr: thinkpanama

13. While Negotiating • Communicate guidelines, policies, and procedures • Discuss additional recruitment needed • Share resource availability and accessibility • Agree on structural and timeline options Flickr: thinkpanama

14. Checking Progress Checkpoints for leaders are informal and focused on assessing progress toward specific goals: • Agree on how often, where/through what medium to meet • Emphasize that a collaborative relationship includes reasonable availability outside of those agreed meetings

15. Checking Progress Leaders need to get the why behind progress (or lack thereof) and self-direct corrective actions. Help by asking: • How would you evaluate your progress? • Are you on target? • What can you learn from this setback to be stronger in the future? • Why did you do it so well? • What are some better ways of doing what you do? Volunteer Management: Mobilizing all the Resources in the Community, Steve McCurley & Rick Lynch

16. Checkpoint Evaluation for You Does my volunteer leader: • Know what s/he is supposed to accomplish? • Have sufficient authority to accomplish it? • Know how we have agreed to measure success? • Know whether s/he is succeeding? Do I? Volunteer Management: Mobilizing all the Resources in the Community, Steve McCurley & Rick Lynch

17. Checkpoint Evaluation for You Does my volunteer leader: • Have the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed? • Understand his or her responsibility? Have I organized and communicated that clearly? • Feel recognized for his or her contribution to the negotiation, project, team, chapter, etc? Have I created that recognition? Volunteer Management: Mobilizing all the Resources in the Community, Steve McCurley & Rick Lynch

18. Community of Action Definition: A collaborative group whose members align around a shared purpose, and who take action toward specific goals through broad participation and mutual accountability The opportunity in a Community of Action is to enlist volunteers and stakeholders as co-producers and co-creators. • A Community of Action is a vehicle to help volunteers move toward achieving strategic goals.

19. High Impact Communities of Action Characteristics of the Culture • Balance of operations and mission • Mutual learning • Risk taking • Success defined as goal attainment

20. High Impact Communities of Action cont. Characteristics of the Participants • Broad participation • Authenticity • Shared goals • Relationship cultivation • Caring

21. Accountability Recognition Focus on outcome Mutual accountability

22. Your Role • “Co-create the future” for specific strategic results” (Richard Axelrod, Terms of Engagement, 2000) • Get the right people to the table • Monitor focus • Import practices and perspectives • Be a Broker, Cultivator, Facilitator, and Negotiator “Action is Eloquence.” – William Shakespeare

23. Broker & Negotiator • Influence practice • Translate & align perspectives • Facilitate transactions • Convene the right people • Ask critical questions of the committed change agents • Make sure team needs are heard and that the team acts upon critical intervention points

24. Cultivator & Facilitator • Help volunteers – especially leaders – understand the whole system; the more they learn, the more they will act to improve it • Verbal & nonverbal cues • Shared discovery ► increased confidence & competence ► powerful action • How to say, “I’m not the leader”… Communities of Action allow you to facilitate volunteers managing the process and other volunteers.

25. Community • Meaning • Abundance Engaged volunteers weave the stories of the initiative’s results, the organization’s impact, and their individual roles into one powerful narrative!

26. Incorporate ideas from across this community of practice into your pilot work Learning Objectives 1 • Negotiate agreements with new volunteers, following the initial interview 2 • Understand the staff role in creating Communities of Action 3

27. See you at the May Institute May 5 – 6, 2009 San Francisco