Not-For Profit Pulse on Volunteerism: The Results are In!

The long-awaited Not-for-Profit Pulse on Volunteerism has arrived...with some very interesting results! Read on for the highlights:

Volunteer Levels Holding Steady Despite Downturn

Despite a very difficult couple of years for the non-profit sector, volunteerism levels haven’t declined as some would have expected.  In fact, most of the participants in this survey saw little or no change in the ratio between volunteers to staff over the past two years.

Participants are also fairly positive about the future, with most predicting the ratio between volunteers and staff will hold steady or grow in the next five years.

NFP’s Continue to Rely on Traditional Methods for Attracting Volunteers

Participants continue to rely heavily on ‘tried-and-true’ methods when it comes to attracting volunteers.  Leveraging existing donor and other stakeholder networks as well as targeting the private sector are the most common ways for participants to mobilize volunteers to join their ranks. 

Social media and the internet is growing in popularity as a way to attract volunteers but just a fraction of participants feel that it is effective at achieving this goal. As appears to be the case in many areas to do with this evolving medium, while non-profits seem to recognize the potential of social media and the internet to attract volunteers, they haven’t yet seen a significant ‘return’ on the time, money and energy they have invested...at least, not yet.

Formal Volunteer Training Not Widely Offered by Non-Profits

There is very little being offered by participants in the way of formal training to their volunteers.  While most offer informal on-the-job training or at least some general information to their volunteers about their organization or cause, a surprising one-fifth offer absolutely no volunteer training, whatsoever.

NFP Opportunities Evolving to Meet Hectic Volunteer Schedules:

Shorter, project-based volunteer opportunities are becoming more popular as non-profits struggle to align with peoples’ hectic schedules. Looking forward, participants expect project-based volunteer opportunities to continue to replace a growing number of the ongoing opportunities that currently exist.

Despite their relative newness in non-profit circles, virtual volunteering (volunteering remotely via the internet) and micro-volunteering (volunteering in short, task-based bursts remotely via computer or mobile phone) is also being offered by a significant number of participants. 

That said, micro and virtual volunteering are still not widely perceived by participants to be the most effective method of volunteerism – As appears to be the case with social media and volunteerism, it seems as if people are still working out how to leverage this new technology effectively in this arena.

Free Access to the Full Not-for-Profit Pulse Highlight Report

If you would like to access the full highlight report (PDF), complete with tables and statistical analysis, please access it here. For those interested, we are also offering free access this week to the first two editions of the Not-for-Profit Pulse on Social Media and the Generation Shift.

If you like what you see, please sign up here to participate in our upcoming NFP Pulse on Recruitment and Retention of Members and Donors, scheduled to be launched in just a few days.  Results are always free to participants.

Summer Is Here! Celebrate With Free Access to the Not-for-Profit Pulse!

The Summer Solstice is upon us! To celebrate, we’ve decided this week only to provide public access to the first three volumes of Not-for-Profit Pulse. These free highlight survey reports each provide an analysis of a different trend that is top-of-mind for today’s not-for-profit sector based on a series of short surveys of the Canadian not-for-profit community.

Topics covered to date include:

• The Evolution of Volunteerism (New - Released Today!)
• The Impact of the Generation Gap on NFP’s (February 2010)
• Social Media and the NFP Sector (December 2009)

If you like what you see, we hope you will sign up here for an email notification to participate in our next NFP Pulse, which will launch in the coming days.

Our upcoming five-minute survey will focus on the recruitment and retention of members and donors – a trend that has been identified by several Pulse participants as something they would like to see covered in this publication.

Happy Solstice everyone – I hope it is a sunny one!

(This great photo taken by: Todd Baker)

Canadian NFP’s and Social Media…So What’s the Deal?

Social media is definitely the buzzword that’s on everybody’s lips these days.  The increased transparency, the relationship-building potential and the new levels of engagement it enables are just a few of the potentially powerful assets that can make this a great tool for not-for-profit organizations.

While there is something of a glut out there right now in the way of blog posts, articles, tips and other advice by an increasing number of social media ‘gurus’ about the merits, challenges and opportunities of social media,  there isn’t a whole lot of data about what not-for-profits are actually doing in this relatively new arena.

For this reason, we decided to use social media as the topic for our inaugural NFP Pulse survey.  Following are some of the high level findings of what 81 Canadian not-for-profits are doing in this rapidly evolving environment.*  We will discuss the results in greater depth over the coming weeks.

We'd also like to extend a big thank you to those of you who participated in this survey.  Please keep an eye on your inbox over the next couple of days for a link to the participant copy of the results and feel free to contact us if for some reason you haven’t received it.

Do Canadian Not-for-Profits Use Social Media?

They sure do!  86% percent of the organizations surveyed indicated that they currently have a social media presence or expect to have one within the next three years.  So whether or not you feel social media is a topic that has been beaten to death in recent months, evolving trends in this area is certainly something that NFP’s should be keeping an eye on.

Why Do Not-for-Profits Use Social Media?

Communication, communication, communication!  Opening up the lines of communication between the not-for-profit and its stakeholders is the top reason why 89% of participants use social media. 

I can’t say this comes as much of a surprise…at least not to me. If you read our October post on Member Needs and Satisfaction, you might remember that members’ sense of ‘being heard’ by their association and their ability to influence the association agenda are key drivers of member satisfaction for ARC clients.  The level of member satisfaction with the effectiveness and openness of an association’s communications tends to be directly correlated to satisfaction in these (and other) other areas.  It makes sense that many not-for-profits would jump on an opportunity to improve in this key area.

Our member needs and satisfaction research has also shown that networking opportunities is more often than not a key reason why members join associations in the first place.  With this in mind, it also makes sense that providing a forum for members to network with each other and/or with other stakeholder groups was also cited as a top reason for participants’ use of social media. 

Promoting the association or cause to different stakeholder groups was also a top tier reason for using this medium.  The huge potential reach of this medium, along with the low (perceived) cost of social media relative to other marketing outlets are likely some of the contributing factors behind this trend.

What Social Media Tools Are NFP’s Using?

In-line with the importance of networking and relationship building to so many not-for-profits, social networking applications are by far the most popular type of tool being used by participants.  In fact, 9 out every 10 respondents who are currently using social media tools indicated that they use at least one application within this category.  Blogs and e-commerce are also fairly common, with just under one half of those actively using social media claiming to use these types of tools.  In contrast, Wikis and Mashups were at the bottom of the list, each used by approximately 10% of active users.  It will be interesting to see whether this ‘social media mix’ will change as social media continues to evolve and becomes more entrenched in the way not-for-profits operate.

Of the different applications available, Facebook has a big lead over other common applications, with 86% of participants currently or planning to use it for their organizations.  Also popular is YouTube (66%) followed fairly closely by Twitter (61%).  LinkedIn was also frequently cited as an application many participants currently or plan to use.

What Metrics Do NFP’s Use to Gauge Social Media Success?

For over 1/3 of active NFP’s surveyed…none at all!  Despite all the buzz online, at conferences and by consultants about the importance of putting metrics in place, a significant portion of active NFP’s surveyed do not currently have any measures to gauge whether or not their social media initiatives are successful or not.  I like to think of myself as a strategic thinker, and I have to say this one stings a bit.  Seriously… No metrics?  None at all?   The horror!  All I can say is that as social media becomes more mainstream and association staff are pressured to justify the increasing time and money being spent on social media to board members, this number should contract…I can only hope…

Among participants that do have measures in place, analytics that include measuring hits to the organization website, blog or other application, and online buzz (comments, blog postings, etc., about the organization) are most commonly used to gauge the success of their social media initiatives.

So what do you think?  Are these results as you would have expected or is there anything here that surprises you?  Does your organization’s experience with social media jive with what we’ve found?  I’d love to hear what you have to say.

 Stay tuned for more posts to come that dig deeper in to these results and look at topics such as:

• Who is the intended audience of NFP social media?
• What are some of the challenges of creating and maintaining a social media presence?
• What are some of the lessons participants have learned along the way?

*About this research:

This first edition of the Not-for-Profit Pulse focuses on social media use among Canadian not-for-profit organizations. The sample for this survey comprises a total of 81 Canadian not-for-profit organizations with representation from industry/trade, professional, charity and special interest groups. It is important to note that the results of this survey reflect the responses from those surveyed only and are not necessarily representative of the entire Canadian not-for-profit sector.  More about this ongoing initiative can be found here.