Talk:Volunteering strategy

Hi, please leave any comments you have or suggested rewording here for discussion. Thanks -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 12:38, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a lot of waffle in this; it would benefit from being cut down to concise, bullet-point style recommendations, but I'm not seeing anything in this that hasn't come up in every previous discussion that went nowhere. Perhaps it will gain some traction now you're in-post, Katie... Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:48, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Harry - I don't want to step on Katie's toes with this page, but it's probably useful if I explain some of the context from my own point of view. (This might be mainly familiar stuff for you but it's also aimed at other people reading this page!)

Wikimedia UK is in an interesting position in that we want to do remain close to the volunteer ethos that drives the Wikimedia projects (perhaps closer than the only two organisations in the Wikimedia movement that are larger in terms of budget and staffing levels - WMF and WMDE). Why do we want to do that? As well as our values as an organisation, there are several practical reasons, which have never really been enumerated, but let's give it a go - to stay in touch with the editor community and avoid some pitfalls that come in staff-led outreach projects; to retain a flow of ideas and perspectives from the community; because volunteers are more cost-effective; because any Wikipedian with the right confidence and support is quite capable of setting up an outreach project if they are willing to make the time and effort to do it.

This means that we have a unique challenge of finding a way of handling the relationship between Board, staff and volunteers that works for us. Over the last 2 years we have gone from having 0 staff to 9 and 1 Wikimedian in Residence to 5ish (I ought to know the figure really ;) ). We've employed staff to co-ordinate our outreach programmes for GLAM and Education not because we don't want volunteers to do these things but because the number of leads and inquiries was far greater than the volunteer time we had; also because we had volunteers who had ambitious goals for projects and could kick them off but then found they couldn't make the time to follow them through (I'll offer myself and the WWI project as an example here though there are many others).

I think - and I think this view is widely shared on the Board (it certainly doesn't originate with me!) - that we need to think carefully about how this relationship is working and how it can work out over the next few years to result in having lots of passionate, inspired volunteers taking part. The Volunteer Organiser role is certainly key in that but this is something we need to work out as an organisation, not make it one staff member's job to deal with.

Thanks for your contribution to the page, by the way. And if there are previous discussions that have covered similar ground would you mind linking to them, as there might be more useful insights in them... The Land (talk) 21:41, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Chris. Thanks for the background; I've heard most of it before, but it's good to have these things written down somewhere so that people can refer to them. The previous discussions that come to mind are the board meeting I attended where we had a Midas-facilitated discussion that came to many of the same conclusions, which were reinforced by the volunteering discussions at the open day. I'm sure write-ups of both exist somewhere, but I'm not sure where offhand. Best, Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:44, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the power of this page is that it summarises a whole lot of discussions that have been happening in various places.

With that in mind, it might actually be worth adding in what The Land has just said about why this whole thing is important.

Yaris678 (talk) 09:35, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Knowing what volunteers are interested in doing

This gets a mention at "Prioritisation by volunteers" but I want to emphasise it. It was also alluded to in session run by Katherine Bavage at WikiConference UK 2013.

It is important to know what people are interested in doing so that the charity can direct them towards the most relevant stuff. This helps to avoid an approach of "Here is a massive choice of things you could do" which could be off putting.

Yaris678 (talk) 09:42, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Feedback so far

Thanks For the feedback so far. It is a longish document but hey this is the wikiworld where knowledge and information is king! I want this ti cover as many bass as possible!Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 08:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Some more thoughts

This document conflates members with volunteers. There is an overlap in that most volunteers are members and we can see the membership as a recruiting pool for volunteers, but they are different. People who pay their fiver a year or want to get involved in the inner workings of the charity don't necessarily want to organise events or deliver training sessions, and you can't have a proper volunteering strategy until you distinguish between the two roles.

Some thoughts on specific points:

• The proposed "How to volunteer page" doesn't distinguish between editing the projects (which is not strictly a chapter activity) and activities that fall more directly under WMUK's remit; if we're to have such a page, it should make that distinction.
• There's the seed of a good idea in the volunteer handbook (as there was the first time I heard it suggested), but it needs serious refinement. When somebody asks "how do I get involved?" the answer is not "read this pile of paperwork" (virtual or otherwise). Having how-to guides on things like setting up partnerships or organising events is a brilliant idea, and I think a lot of people would appreciate something that distils all our experience into one document that they can follow line by line until they gain confidence, but it needs to be concise and easy to follow. But this document misses some fundamental points: potential volunteers will (in my experience) often need a gentle push to get them to take the initiative; many people will find it easier to learn how to do something by working closely with someone more experienced; and a lot of people don't have the confidence or don't feel empowered to take the initiative. This is where the chapter can make a real difference but WMUK currently relies too much on (potential) volunteers being sufficiently familiar with the chapter to take the initiative. The chapter needs to be approaching them (not the other way around), finding out what they want to do, and helping them to make it happen. Until that changes, I don't think we're likely to see rapid growth in the number of volunteers or the number of projects they're undertaking.
• I'd like to see "Prioritisation by volunteers" explicitly encourage volunteers in suggesting partners and developing the relationship themselves (if they want to and with staff support), and as above, we need to do better at empowering them.
• "Dedicated office space" and "Office open days" are excellent, innovative ideas and do a lot of good. Of course, their reach will be limited because London is a very long, very expensive journey. That's not to say that these aren't wonderful ideas or that London is not the best place for the office, just that we need to work harder for the same impact in "the provinces". The same pros and cons apply to "Equipment for volunteers" and "Outreach merchandise", though this might be more easily solved by having stocks outside London. Perhaps we could have a page on this wiki where volunteers and staff can suggest and discuss merchandise when the thought occurs rather than only when something is being reviewed?
• "Recognition of volunteers" is extremely thin. Who would be recognised? How, when, for what, and by whom?
• The "Volunteer database" is again the seed of an excellent idea. Some of those things are things people will be perfectly happy to talk about and won't mind being tracked in a database so they can be contacted when something comes up that they might be interested in. This would go a long way towards getting people more involved and involved in things that are near them or of interest to them, and it could help in deciding what sort of events we organise and with which partners. The caveat is that that's not enough on its own (but it's a great start, an don't for a minute let my caveat put you off of doing it). Some of these things can be tracked and monitored in databases, but volunteers are more complicated than data points; each volunteer will have their own reasons for getting involved and will have their own hopes and dreams, ambitions, fears and their own interests or pet projects. The only way to find these things out is to get to know people and gain their confidence.

More generally, I'm disappointed that volunteer development and the committees get such little attention in this document. Volunteer development (which, at its simplest level, is how we get people from meeting for a pint once a month to actively participating in the work of WMUK) is one of the most important challenges facing the charity at the minute; this document seems to recognise that it's something we need to do, but there's no analysis. The committees are arguably tools for volunteer development, which is why it's disappointing that they get just two passing mentions here. This strategy is good as far as it goes—it recognises most of the key issues and attempts to find ways of addressing them—but it lacks a lot that can only be done by legwork.

Apologies for the length, but I think these are important issues that merit significant discussion. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)