Baby Boomers and Service: Understanding Their World

by Jill Friedman Fixler, NCVS Speaker

For quite a few years now, those in the nonprofit and service sectors have been awaiting—either with eagerness or trepidation!—the wave of Baby Boomers approaching traditional retirement age.

With Greatest and Silent Generation volunteers aging out of their traditional volunteer roles, would our organizations be deserted while Baby Boomers made other choices about how to spend their time?

Or, would a sea of Boomers line up to volunteer with our organizations?

If so, could we engage them as we have engaged volunteers for decades before?

Now that we are quite a few years into this long anticipated generational shift, it’s a great time to step and check in on our own expectations, experiences, and the actual trends out there.

Here, along with excerpts from our book

Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow

, is some of things we see in our practice, hear from discussions with colleagues, and learn from our own experiences as well.

Leaders of volunteers who adhere to the traditional volunteer management model often think that Boomers are uninterested in volunteering because they reject traditional volunteer roles.

In fact, most Boomers drop out of their volunteer assignments only when their expectations for volunteering do not correlate with the reality of the volunteer workplace.

Boomers who have served as leaders of industry are rarely interested in low impact volunteer positions.

Boomers who grew up with flextime in the workplace expect and prefer flexible volunteer schedules that few nonprofits offer.

Boomers whose careers were marked by unprecedented mobility expect a veritable buffet of volunteer options.

Even today, after all the talk and research and tools available on Boomer volunteer engagement, we see that large numbers of nonprofit leaders still believe their organizations are ready to engage Boomers, and equally large numbers of Boomers say that nonprofits are operating in ways that discourage them from volunteering.

Boomers have a multitude of choices on how to spend what their parents called the leisure years. Volunteering is but one option.

According to the think tank Civic Ventures, Boomers are redefining the second half of life as a source of social and individual renewal. They see it as a new adventure–a time to travel, take classes, and, if the nonprofit sector is lucky, to serve a higher purpose and create what Civic Ventures calls a “social legacy”.

Nearly 30% of Boomers will seek avocational and vocational opportunities within the nonprofit sector in either encore careers or volunteers settings according to research done by the Rose Community Foundation and

VolunteerMatch.org

.

Boomers in their late 40s and 50s are volunteering at higher rates than members of the Greatest and Silent Generations did at the same age, according to the Corporation for National & Community Service’s report Keeping Baby Boomers Volunteering.

The 78.2 million Baby Boomers are a virtual gold mine for nonprofit organizations as the first Boomers turned 65 on January 1, 2011 to the tune of 7,000 a day.

A social revolution—possibly as important as the one led by Boomers in the 1960s—will occur if nonprofits strategically engage Boomers in high-impact collaborations that build a nonprofit’s capacity to fulfill vision and mission.

It takes more than a few new strategies and examples to engage Boomers as volunteers.

It takes reimagining the role of volunteers in an organization and the possible results of involving volunteers in every aspect of operations.

It takes a new philosophy and organizational buy-in for top to bottom and from bottom to top.

Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow sets the stage for making this profound transition and provides concrete strategies for success.

Jill Friedman Fixler is a nationally known leader recognized for her innovative approaches to re-inventing, re-engineering, and re-vitalizing nonprofit and public sector organizations. Don’t miss her Books & Beignets session at the NCVS Conference in June!

Beyond Both/And: Achieving Deep Integration of Service and Leadership Development

By Max Klau, Ed.D., Director of Leadership Development,

City Year

Many service programs aspire to integrate a dual focus on service impact in communities and leadership development of volunteers.

It is one thing to insist that it is possible to maintain this “BOTH Service AND Leadership Development” integration, but programs without a sophisticated understanding of exactly how these two elements work together will continue to struggle.

After two decades, City Year has recently achieved breakthrough advances in the clarity and sophistication of both our service model and our leadership development model—as well as the interconnected workings of the two.

City Year’s tagline is “Give a year. Change the world.”, and we believe that there are two dimensions to that challenge: Changing the outer world through service, and changing the inner world of our corps members through leadership development.

We have developed a school service model—Whole School, Whole Child—that is deeply informed by research illuminating the nature of America’s high school dropout crisis. That clarity and focus of that model has empowered us to dramatically improve the scale, quality, and measurement of our service impact.

At the same time, we have developed a new leadership development model deeply informed by cutting-edge thinking and research from the field of leadership.

Called The Flame of Idealism, the model integrates a focus on civic action, civic capacity, civic identity, and culture.

It represents a breakthrough advance in the sophistication of our leadership development work, and it allows us to move beyond the simple assertion that we need to balance BOTH service AND leadership development.

With this new model, we’ve been to take the integration of our service and leadership development efforts to a whole new level of clarity and sophistication.

At this year’s conference, we will provide an opportunity for participants to get an experiential taste of this comprehensive model.

The Idealist’s Journey is City Year’s leadership development curriculum designed to thoughtfully, intentionally develop the civic identity of our corps members.

In the midst of a very demanding year of service, the Journey provides regular opportunities for our corps members to step away from service, reconnect with their deepest sense of purpose, practice the art of critical reflection, and consider the personal meaning of their service experience.

It deepens the transformational impact of a long-term service experience by ensuring that the outer work of service is integrated with the inner work of leadership development.

City Year has great clarity regarding the leadership development outcomes we aspire to achieve with the Idealist’s Journey, and we have seen how this work strengthens service impact, sustains idealism, improves retention, and deepens the transformational impact of a year of service.

Intrigued?

We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to present this work in New Orleans, and hope that you will join us for our session

Developing Leaders Through Service: An Idealist’s Journey Experiential Session

on

Wednesday, June 8th at 8:30 a.m.

(ID: #5206).

We hope to see you there!

Disaster Management at NCVS!

This year at NCVS, session content is organized across a series of issue areas so that attendees can tailor their schedules to meet their learning and networking needs.

Check out all the sessions associated with…

Join us for a discussion framed by Admiral Thad Allen on the importance of public participation in the wake of disaster.

Admiral Allen will discuss his experience in being the U.S. Coast Guard Commander during Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill.

The other participants will build on this discussion to discuss the importance on acting now to build resilient communities across the country.

Listen to a panel of experts discuss the importance of public participation and the progress volunteers and non-profits have made in diminishing the effects of disasters.

Hazard reduction policies and practices should be integrated into the mainstream of community activities throughout the country – hear about successful programs, the role of the government, state agencies and non profits and explore new ways to implement decades of research.

Speakers: Karen Baker, Mark Askey, Ky Luu, Joshua Dubois, Admiral Thad Allen

Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5048

This session will highlight the importance of enhancing local NGO’s and affected communities’ capacity through public/private partnerships to increase community resilience.

These partnerships will enhance the local capacity to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters in an international setting.

In addition, this session will discuss real-life challenges and opportunities related to humanitarian aid and how it impacts community resilience.

The panelists will also provide practical examples of program design and how, when efficiently implemented, can enhance local resilience and develop sustainable practices in affected populations and local organizations.

Speakers: Ed Martinez, Shannon Strother, Richard Brubaker, Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5242

This session will explore tangible ways non profits can utilize Cause Marketing and Social media to raise funds and awareness for their organizations in times of disaster.

Ebay and Usher’s New Look will discuss their experiences, successes and lesson learned to maximize opportunities to integrate social media and cause marketing in fundraising campaigns.

A portion of this session will be led by the Youth who are a part of Usher’s New Look program.

Come learn how to maximize your organization’s potential!

Speakers: Lisa Marvin, Gavin McGuire, Doug Plank. Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5087

New York Says Thank You

is an epic story following the journey of New Yorkers whose lives were touched by September 11 as they travel the country helping communities rebuild after disasters.

Along the way, they face their emotions and ultimately triumph over tragedy through an idea that evolved from a five-year-old New York City boy.

Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5715

Come and visit this innovative and award winning model for post disaster recovery that offers four direct service programs to residents and neighborhoods still struggling to recover from the devastation caused by Katrina.

Speaker: Liz McCartney. Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5291

Venture just outside of New Orleans to historical St Bernard Parish, totally flooded by Hurricane Katrina and now facing the economic crisis resulting from the Gulf Oil Spill.

Hear volunteers, residents, and leaders tell their story of rebuilding.

Speaker: RM Iray Nabatoff. Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5129

Join us in learning about the St. Paul’s Homecoming Center which is a center for neighborhood recovery.

This presentation will show the critical value of a “neighborhood based” recovery center. We will walk through the history of the center and how St. Paul’s Homecoming Center is not only operating as a recovery center but is also transitioning to address the future needs of neighborhood sustainability through new programs.

Speaker: Connie Uddo. Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5126

Imagine a disaster where 25,000 volunteers wanted to clean birds and remove oil from beaches, when what was really needed was their support to social service agencies in assisting in the economic impacts of the oil spill.

This was the reality of the BP Oil Spill: an unparalleled disaster requiring an unprecedented multi-disciplinary response.

Learn from three Gulf Coast State Commission executive directors how the Gulf Coast worked collaboratively to strengthen intergovernmental relationships, work with conservation groups and effectively message to over 25,000 spontaneous volunteers.

Join us for strategic, creative and practical ideas from the lessons of the Oil Spill.

Speakers: Janet Pace, Sydney Hoffman, Wendy Spencer. Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5065

National VOAD and FLASH have partnered to jump start the Get Affliated phase of 2011 Great Hurricane Blowout.

With this phase people learn how to find an organization in their community and how to get affiliated before a disaster strikes. This phase also emphasizes the importance of affiliation before a disaster strikes.

Speakers: James McGowan, Trenise Lyons, Kaite Oldaker. Twitter Hashtag: #voad

This workshop will provide innovative ways to market, strengthen and streamline your Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program by leveraging volunteers, internal programs and external agencies.

The following resources will be discussed: strengthening your program internally, maximizing your volunteer base with little or no funding, and utilizing using social media to promote your program.

Speakers: Breanna Medina. Twitter Hashtag: #CERT

In a Rut? Find New Ways to Engage People in Your Cause!

It happens to all of us. We come up with a strategy that helps us meet our goals, and we use it again and again… and again. Until maybe it stops working so well. Our target audience becomes less enthusiastic. New folks stop signing on. And it becomes clear that we need something new – something creative – to spark engagement in our cause.

For the past several years,

AARP

has been embracing that challenge through

Create The Good

, our engagement arm. We’ve been testing a broad range of strategies to involve the 50+ community, and Americans as a whole, around one of our top priorities – the fight against hunger. These include innovative partnerships, statewide on-the-ground efforts, online outreach and even games and contests!

Sound interesting? Come learn more at the

National Conference on Volunteering and Service

in New Orleans. Join us on June 6th at 1:00 p.m. for “Creative Ways to Engage People in Service – Both Online & Off” (5367), a discussion of the engagement strategies we’ve tested in our battle against hunger – and the lessons we’ve learned.

And don’t worry if hunger’s not your focus. Everything we’ll be sharing is transferable. And you definitely should try this at home.

Mimi Castaldi is the Vice President for Volunteer Engagement at AARP, a membership organization of nearly 40 million people 50+. In this role she is responsible for Create the Good, a new AARP initiative that encourages Americans of all ages to come together to ensure that there are opportunities to make our nation a better place and to solve problems with citizen-powered solutions.

In less than 2 years, more than 200,000 people have joined the Create the Good Network.

Previously, Mimi served as Director for AARP DC, leading a team of 200 volunteers to implement community service, education and advocacy initiatives in our nation’s capital. Before joining AARP, she served as the Chief of Staff for the Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, directing the “Working Women Count” campaign to encourage employers to implement changes to improve the lives of working women and their families.