Chapter 8

Volunteering and Professional Development

People volunteer for various reasons. In general, they do so because they like to give and receive; to fulfill a need; because they believe in a particular cause; and most significantly, because there is some personal and professional return for them. People usually get involved in their professional organization, chapter activities, and committees to

• network with colleagues
• increase visibility to market themselves
• add professional activities to a résumé
• try out new materials and tools before an audience
• share knowledge and experience with colleagues
• help a professional group conduct business.

Typically, volunteers select a specific position or activity based on available assignments, time that can be committed to the effort, and the requisite qualifications. Consideration is seldom given to how a volunteer experience may enhance one's own professional development. More thought should be given to what will be learned and how that learning will occur when you're involved in a professional organization's operations. To give the matter adequate consideration, you can develop a job description, set objectives and activities, and define outcomes for a volunteer position just as you would for a work position.

Although this chapter focuses on volunteerism through jobs and projects within a professional organization, writing articles and making presentations both locally and nationally also are excellent forms of volunteering that can be considered learning experiences. If you have an interest in writing or honing your oral presentation skills, consider these volunteer options.

Benefits of Volunteering for Association Leadership

Volunteering can be integrated into your plans for achieving professional goals. People generally think about the enjoyment and satisfaction they get from working with others toward a common purpose and the sense of belonging that this kind of participation brings. By volunteering for leadership in professional organizations you not reap only those standard benefits, but also you gather options to further your training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance career and continue your professional growth.

Don't overlook the possibility that some tangible benefits can be gained from service—something beyond a vague idea of visibility, contacts, or credentials. Benefits accrue in terms of your own professional learning. Given our hectic work and personal lives, it's a more effective and efficient use of time to reap more than one benefit from an activity, particularly one that we've elected to do. Why not view volunteerism as an experience-based approach whereby working on a real project or an actual problem can lead to accomplishing some specific learning objectives of your own? Consider, as an example, serving on a membership committee to increase your marketing skills. With this in mind, your motivation can increase your commitment to volunteering.

For these reasons, it's important to ask yourself some questions before you explore organizational volunteer options:

• How will accepting a leadership or committee position help my career and move me a step closer to my profession goal?
• What is my true goal for being a volunteer?
• What expectations do I have for this volunteer assignment?
• What benchmarks do I want to establish for my successes?
• How much time and energy can I realistically give to volunteering?

A professional organization's environment is just as much a learning arena as is a workplace, so volunteering within a professional organization should be viewed as a learning experience. There's no reason why some of your training and development principles and applications can't be adapted to a specific volunteer position—for example, adult learning, needs assessment, or performance evaluation. Perhaps you can volunteer to design a membership survey form. Refocus your view of high-performance work and learning toward yourself and your volunteer experiences.

Think about the characteristics of workplace learning that are equally relevant to volunteerism:

• There is a need to create, extend, and apply knowledge for high performance in your own professional work.
• The focus of learning models is on the learner rather than the trainer.
• Learning is an active process that involves the individual taking responsibility for what is learned and how the learning occurs.
• Experience-based learning is increasingly accepted as a legitimate method of learning.
• Learning activities stress performance improvement and expansion of one's knowledge base.
• In the context of your training, HRD, or workplace learning and performance job, you have learning and performance needs.

Let Volunteer Activities Support Career Goals and Needs

By shifting your mindset to how you and the professional organization can profit from your volunteer participation, the experience becomes more meaningful to all parties. Think of volunteering as a career development activity and, thus, as good career management. Approaching volunteerism in that way can be very beneficial to people in the midst of transitioning into the field. Staffing the registration table at an association meeting, for example, is a good way to network. By volunteering you quickly learn more about where you might fit into the profession and about what facets of your prior professional background are transferable. It's also a way to fill in some of the professional gaps.

Remember when you did an internship or field service project as part of your graduate or undergraduate studies? Those experiences were usually linked to your major/professional specialty, with learning and performance objectives developed and integrated into the experience. That was experience-based learning—you acquired knowledge and skills by doing. Before beginning a fieldwork experience you did extensive preparation and research relating to the outcomes you wanted from the effort. A similar outcomes-focused approach can be taken to volunteering:

• Professional goals—Where do I want to be three years from now? Five years?
• Career mobility—What kind of career moves or professional shifts do I need to make to achieve my goals?
• Professional needs—What competencies, experience, or knowledge do I need to gain or update to be marketable or to become an external consultant?
• Self-directed learning—Which of my professional needs can be met through nonclassroom activities?
• Volunteer assignment—How can I meet some of my career development needs by my involvement with a professional organization?

It's important to know how to leverage volunteering to create a learning situation for yourself. There should be a good match between your professional skills, interests, and needs and the organization's goals and needs. Consider whether the benefits you receive will be equal to the time and effort you expend. Set reasonable expectations for yourself so that when a volunteer assignment ends you feel you've accomplished something and made a contribution.

Be in control of your volunteer work either by offering to undertake an available assignment that meets your specific professional needs or by proposing an innovative activity or project that benefits both you and the organization. Decide what you want to learn, how you intend to learn it, and how you will evaluate your experience. The four exercises at the end of this chapter will help you make some volunteering decisions.

Identify Your Goals and Needs Before You Volunteer

Whether you're just starting your volunteering or are already a chapter senior volunteer exploring options within the national organization, you use the same decision-making process. You gain the most from your volunteer efforts if you give careful thought to the why, what, and how of your involvement. Manage your volunteerism by taking time prior to selecting or accepting a leadership or committee position or proposing a project to reflect and assess what specific learning activities you want to gain. Only when you are focused about your present professional status and future direction is it practical to review existing volunteer options and determine which ones interest you.

Be as clear as possible about the career moves or professional shifts you want to make. Refer to chapters 2, 3, and 4 to review roles, competencies, and activities in the field. How did you relate or fit that information into the career plans that you set out in your PDP? What skills or knowledge bases are you lacking? What skills or knowledge bases need to be updated or expanded? Where are your professional gaps and which ones can be filled through volunteering? This self-examination produces learning goals for a volunteer assignment that are specific, manageable, realistic, attainable, and have timelines. It should become a regular part of your decision-making process.

Turn now to Practical Exercises 6 and 7 beginning on page 117. These exercises focus on the personal rewards and professional development goals of volunteerism. Complete the exercises before you explore volunteer options.

But what happens in situations where you either have been asked unexpectedly to serve in a specific role or have already accepted or been elected to a volunteer position before you've defined your personal and professional goals? In both cases, begin with goal setting and then undertake some review and assessment to see if and how the positions will meet your goals. In the first situation, after some consideration you may decide not to accept the assignment because it won't provide professional growth opportunities for you, because you have limited time, or because you don't feel the work has intrinsic value for you. In the second case, particularly if you haven't begun the assignment, you still have some time to establish learning objectives and build in tasks (if needed) that will enable you to accomplish your goals.

If your professional organization offers an orientation or retreat for volunteer workers and leaders, it's a good idea to do some self-reflection before you take part in any of those activities. With a clear picture of your personal and professional volunteer goals, you can select the most beneficial sessions to attend and complete workshop exercises in the most meaningful way.

As part of your volunteering decision-making process, ask for a position description. Many organizations have written information about their major volunteer positions, for example, board members and committee chairs. If there are no written descriptions, find out what the expectations are for tasks, time commitment, and the requisite or preferred skills and experience by talking with the person who presently holds the position. With that information, draft a description for the position and submit it to the appropriate person for review. This prevents miscommunications about responsibilities and expectations. Also discuss how much leeway you have to set learning objectives and to carry out your responsibilities in a way that permits you to accomplish your learning goals.

Write a Learning Contract

Putting your goals and objectives down in writing as a tangible document helps you commit to your learning needs. A volunteer work learning contract outlines what you intend to learn and accomplish while carrying out your volunteer role. This effective tool focuses you more directly and specifically on the relationship between your learning and performance objectives and the tasks and activities of your volunteer position. You can create a document that is explicit and concrete—a self-directed agreement in which you spell out the expectations you have for the experience. Here are the elements of a volunteer work learning contract:

• summary statement of the general project/activity—mission, purpose
• description of the volunteer position/activity—boundaries, conditions, time commitment, and outcomes
• objectives of the volunteer position/role—learning goals reflected in skills, knowledge, and competencies to be acquired
• activities of the volunteer position/role—tasks and responsibilities; identification of where learning will occur
• evaluation/performance methods—benchmarks and procedures for self-review
• your signature—affirmation of your commitment
• witness’ signature—optional; can be a professional colleague, mentor, or coach.

Writing out your objectives and activities as a work contract for a volunteer experience yields the following advantages:

• Helps to spotlight exactly what is to be accomplished and how it will be done.
• Provides visible evidence of your intent.
• Enables you to keep on target.
• Allows for scheduling intermediate check-ins for progress.
• Acts as a tool for clear communication, support, and understanding if you are working with a mentor or coach.

Turn now to Practical Exercise 8 on page 120 and develop your own volunteer work learning contract. You can tuck it into your daily planner or briefcase for easy reference.

Evaluate Your Volunteer Experience

If your organization doesn't have any official structure whereby volunteers can review how they're doing while carrying out assignments, establish your own review timetable. After about two months and again during the second half of the assignment period, informally review how far along you are in accomplishing your learning objectives.

• How well do I feel I'm doing in this assignment?
• Do I still want to acquire this learning?
• Is there a new learning objective I'd like to add?
• Does the volunteer work learning contract need to be amended for changes in my thinking?
• If needed, is it possible to add or change some of my volunteer tasks or responsibilities to reflect these deliberations?

As with any work situation, it's important to evaluate your performance and look at benchmark successes. An evaluation of whether needs and objectives were accomplished by a volunteer position usually is done from two perspectives—the organization's and yours. Most likely, your association conducts a final evaluation to gain feedback from the participants and to assess the extent to which volunteer assignments and activities met the group's objectives and success criteria. These procedures probably focus more on the project or team's benchmarks than on the volunteer's own goals.

You need to know how well you did in reaching the benchmarks you set for yourself and you need to bring closure to your assignment, so it's important to conduct an assessment that stresses how fully you accomplished your learning objectives and the level of your personal satisfaction with the volunteer experience. Such an assessment should target three areas:

1. level of satisfaction and overall rewards received
2. extent to which the experience met your professional needs
3. documentation or evidence indicating that learning has taken place.

This review provides an avenue for deciding if you had unrealistic expectations for the assignment and the role that volunteerism can play in your professional development. The outcomes of this evaluation will serve as the foundation for seeking and accepting future volunteer experiences and for the way you will structure the work to accommodate specific professional needs.

Practical Exercise 9 on page 122 is an evaluation to be complete when a volunteer experience comes to an end. Before beginning that final evaluation, refer to your volunteer work learning contract and any informal review information already in hand to help you to be as accurate and complete as possible in filling out the evaluation form. If you're working with a coach or mentor or have a colleague who has served as a sounding board for your thoughts and concerns, discuss the results of this assessment with that person. It's a good way to bring closure to the experience and celebrate the end of this learning opportunity.

Remember to save a copy of all relevant materials—reports, brochures, photos, proposals, videotapes, finished products, any original work, evaluations of presentations—to document your learning in the volunteer assignment. These materials may be useful in putting together a portfolio of your strengths, savvy, and expertise. They will stand as proof of skills gained when you update your résumé, send out your marketing or public relations information, or make application for further academic study. Specific details about your nontraditional way of acquiring training, HRD, or workplace learning and performance knowledge and technical information is key to proving that you have the requisite background for a promotion, a job change, or a move from an inside position to an external consulting role.

We're about to tackle the final aspect of making career moves and professional shifts—marketing yourself. In the next chapter we'll develop a marketing strategy and guidelines for promoting your professional strengths for job search and business development purposes.

 

Practical Exercise 6: Identifying Your Personal Needs

Directions: Answer the following questions as thoughtfully and fully as you can. Think about your answers as you explore volunteer opportunities. If you've already accepted a volunteer assignment, complete the exercise as soon as possible so you gain the greatest benefit from the experience.

 

A.  Why am I interested in a volunteer leadership/committee experience?

 

 

 

B.  What are my expectations for this experience?

 

 

 

C.  What would give me the most personal satisfaction from this experience?

 

 

 

D.  What are my personal objectives for this experience?

 

 

 

E.  What are the drawbacks of this experience for me?

 

 

 

F.  How much time can I realistically give or do I want to give to volunteering?

 

 

 

 

 

Practical Exercise 7: Matching Your Professional Development Needs With Volunteer Opportunities

Directions: Answer the following questions as thoroughly and thoughtfully as you can. Although it is best to complete this exercise before pursuing volunteer assignments, you still can benefit from identifying your needs and how they may be served after you've accepted a position. If you already have taken or are considering a specific volunteer assignment, complete item A and answer questions B–G in terms of that assignment. If you don't have a particular assignment in place, begin with item B. For items B–G, complete only those that are relevant to your professional situation. If not relevant, write N/A.

 

A.  Describe your volunteer assignment, including title, duties, and projected outcomes.

 

 

 

B.  I need to demonstrate the following current and adequate competencies, skills, and knowledge:

1.
2.
3.

C.  I need to improve or update the following competencies, skills, and knowledge:

1.
2.
3.

D.  I need to acquire the following competencies, skills, and knowledge:

1.
2.
3.

E.  I currently have the following competencies, skills, and knowledge that can contribute to my success in a leadership/committee experience:

1.
2.
3.

F.  A leadership/committee experience can contribute to the progress of my career in the following ways:

 

 

 

G.  Outline how you plan to achieve your learning objectives though a volunteer position:

 

 

 

Note: Compare your answers in Practical Exercises 6 and 7 to see how compatible your personal and professional needs are and to identify any conflicts.

 

 

Practical Exercise 8: Developing a Volunteer Work Learning Contract

Directions: Before starting a volunteer assignment, review your answers in Practical Exercises 6 and 7 and complete the items listed below. Be as explicit as possible. Where appropriate, use concrete and measurable terms, such as learning objectives and timelines. Keep a copy of the completed learning contract in your day planner or briefcase for easy reference. Conduct interim reviews of your activities to track your learning progress.

 

A.  Volunteer Position Title:___________________________________

1. Overall activity or project—mission, purpose:

    

    

2. Position's responsibilities/tasks:

    

    

3. Dates of required service:_______________________
4. Approximate number of volunteer hours required weekly or monthly:_____
5. Anticipated outcomes:

    

    

6. Performance objectives (if used by professional organization)

    

    

B.  List as many career/professional goals as are relevant. Explain how this experience will advance your career or help you accomplish your professional goals.

1.
2.
3.

C.  List all of your learning objectives. Describe what you intend to learn.

1.
2.
3.

D.  List all of your intended learning activities. Be specific about how each activity will be a learning opportunity.

1.
2.
3.

E.  List and describe all interim evaluation benchmarks. Explain how and when you plan to assess the level of learning that took place during the volunteer experience.

1.
2.
3.

F.  Explain how you will document your learning and achievements for future career use.

1.
2.
3.

G.  Your signature and the date:____________________

H.  Witness signature and the date (optional):___________________

 

 

Practical Exercise 9: Evaluating Your Leadership/Committee Experience

Directions: Fill out this evaluation form within two weeks of completing your volunteer assignment, while the experience is still fresh in your mind. Refer to your volunteer work learning contract and any interim review information gathered while carrying out the assignment to help you respond as accurately and completely as possible. If you are working with a coach or mentor, or have a colleague who can act as a sounding board, bring closure to the entire experience by discussing the results and celebrating with that person.

 

A.  How successful was the leadership/committee experience? Why?

 

 

 

B.  How much of your anticipated satisfaction did you receive from the experience?

C.  How many of your expectations were met by the experience?

If you indicated that some expectations were met, list them here:

 

 

 

If you indicated that none were met, explain why that happened:

 

 

 

D.  In what ways did the leadership/committee experience meet your professional learning needs? (Refer to Practical Exercise 7.)

 

 

 

E.  How many of the competencies, skills, and knowledge bases that you identified as important to demonstrate were you able to use during your volunteer experience?

If you indicated that only some were demonstrated, list those that were:

 

 

 

If you indicated that all or some were demonstrated, briefly describe at least one illustrative activity for each item listed:

 

 

 

If you indicated that none were demonstrated, explain why that happened:

 

 

 

F.  How many competencies, skills, and knowledge bases were improved or updated?

If you indicated that only some were improved or updated, list those that were:

 

 

 

If you indicated that all or some were improved or updated, briefly describe at least one illustrative activity for each item listed:

 

 

 

If you indicated that none were improved or updated, explain why that happened:

 

 

 

G.  How many competencies, skills, and knowledge bases were acquired?

If you indicated that only some were acquired, list those that were:

 

 

 

If you indicated that all or some were acquired, briefly describe at least one illustrative activity for each item listed:

 

 

 

If you indicated that none were acquired, explain why that happened:

 

 

 

H.  How many competencies, skills, or knowledge bases contributed to the success of the experience?

If you indicated that only some contributed, list those that did:

 

 

 

If you indicated that all or some contributed, briefly describe at least one illustrative activity for each item listed:

 

 

 

If you indicated that none contributed, explain why that happened:

 

 

 

I.  This volunteer leadership/committee experience has (check all appropriate responses):

• provided qualifications for a career move or professional shift
• enhanced opportunities for advancement or promotion
• broadened professional background for future professional repositioning
• deepened depth and mastery of a specific professional expertise
• tested abilities to start a business or consulting practice
• other:_________________________________________

J.  Overall, how would you rate this volunteer leadership/committee experience?

K.  What, if anything, will you change in your own career development plans, based on this leadership/committee experience?

 

 

 

L.  Would you consider accepting a future volunteer role in the same or in another professional organization?      Yes      No

If yes, what type of experience would you seek next?

 

 

 

If no, why not?