What to count?
How do we count and measure the contribution of volunteers? It’s a topic of regular discussion for Volunteer Managers, yet we seem to make much little progress on an answer.?
So I was struck by these thoughts from Seth Godin in a recent blog post:
So many choices. So many sorts of metrics, critics and measures. Perhaps it makes sense to count things where the counting tells us how to do better next time. And to count things that let us know how much risk we can take next time. Or to calibrate our judgment about the market. But it makes no sense at all to count things over which we have no control, and which teach us nothing about the future. Counting our luck (good or bad) doesn’t make us luckier.
What might this mean for us?
Perhaps less focus on things that count the past, or that we have little control over?:
Perhaps more focus on things that inform the future?:
What do you think?
Accelerating effective and efficient Volunteer Engagement in non-profits. Award-winning leader, consultant, and speaker building relationships and innovative solutions. Creative and people-oriented. DM me!
2 年Seth has many thought provoking statements! This connection with volunteers makes much sense. It is different than we've been used to. With anything different it takes time to figure things our. What am I collecting? How do I capture it? How do I summarize it? When will I do this? All good questions to figure out I think.
Working with staff and volunteers to improve their experiences in the National Trust.
2 年Thanks Rob, we've a discussion this week on this very subject so really useful to have this perspective. Chloe Keen
Impassioned Leader of Learners, Expert in Organizational and Volunteer Engagement, Consultative Performance Partner
2 年Rob, I think the NPO and Volunteer-supported sector is only following suit of the for-profit organizations that measure what is easy to quantify, and set aside that which is not easily reduced into a set of numbers. This has been true on corporate entities for as long as I have been part of them, and have been a Learning professional. Applying the Donald Kirkpatrick Learning Evaluation Model, how many “smile sheets” and post-event surveys have we collectively completed over the years? That is a Level I measure. All while rarely being requested or guided to measure the actual results we generated for the organization through a learning initiative. That is a Level IV measure. Just like counting heads and hours of Volunteers, we count what is easy to count, and strategically avoid that which we know is more qualitative and anecdotal than quantitative. We can thank the Industrial Revolution and Machine Learning for squeezing out the humanity of the very human work Volunteers do. The hearts of those who serve are not widgets.