Volunteers are donors and investors

{File under Pitfalls of Startup Organizations…}

Every unpaid volunteer; every pro-bono professional; everyone working on some project without pay; all of them are investing in their particular futures. This is particularly true for nonprofit startups.

And I mean to use specifically that word—investing—this means they are giving of their talent and time with some hope or expectation that things will work out in a particular (and good) way in the future. They have some vision of what they are working toward. A truth that so few nonprofit CEOs understand is that volunteers are actually donors and they deserve the same respectful treatment as donors.

This situation should create a covenant between the individual(s) and the organization. And in far too many ways and places it does not. The time and talent of volunteers are too often treated as worthless. Too often they’re paid nothing and they end up being treated as big zeros.

When you start a social-benefit organization, you should think about this in advance, and you should do some planning about:

• the role of your volunteers  in the strategic planning process; it varies, but you should make it explicit;
• how to value the creativity and work of your volunteers;
• how to keep them engaged in the process without getting discouraged if you begin raising money and start paying for some services;
• how to cycle back with everyone to evaluate how things are going and whether their goals are being achieved.

Also, an individual’s circumstances—more specifically whether they need to be paid for their work or not—doesn’t change their value to the organization. If you had two core founders in your company and one needed to be paid while the other could afford to ”invest” time in the venture, which one would you reward with stock certificates? Which is worth more—time or money? Or are they worth equal amounts?

And why is it that almost the opposite happens so often in nonprofit startups? Once the money comes in, or once the organization gets off the ground, those who invested in starting the org find that the transition to paid staff may be difficult or even impossible. Shouldn’t those who add their creativity to the mix be rewarded?^[1]

As JP Rangaswami pointed out recently,^{[see 2, below for link]}

It all begins with a state of mind. A willingness to share. A focus on being open, a focus on enabling people at the edge to do things they would otherwise not be able to do.

Without that state of mind there are no volunteers, there is no set of standards and protocols, there is no process, cumbersome or otherwise, to let the internet evolve: there is no internet.

Without that internet there is no goldmine for “rightsholders” to strip of all value. Without that internet artists will get paid even less than they do currently, however unlikely that sounds.

So, what I’d like you to focus on is the intentionality, the intent, of deciding up front the role those who are contributing without financial compensation, are going to play in your organization. And how to treat them fairly and equitably when it comes to shared outcomes.

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[1] I think sometimes this rides on some subtle and erroneous assumptions made about the motivations and rewards for volunteers. Frequently those who volunteer are assumed to be rewarded primarily by intangibles. So perhaps paying them at any point in the org’s development goes against their grain? But why should this differ between nonprofits and profits? Why shouldn’t volunteers’ goals, needs and rewards be considered even before those of others?

[2] The Silent Spring of the Internet: Part II: Understanding “unpaid”— JP Rangaswami Confused of Calcutta