Yellowfire Press

by Ivan Scheier

@ -- permission for use-with-acknowledgment

CHAPTER FIVE

Need-Overlap Analysis In Helping (Noah)
For Organized Volunteer Programs @

"People Approach attitudes are at work anytime an imaginative leader of volunteers creates a needed job around the motivations and abilities a person or group brings to a situation, or anytime a sensitive interviewer of prospective volunteers listens to their hopes, concerns, interests, rather than telling them what they ought to want to do. These relatively unselfconscious applications of People Approach are warmly applauded here. But the main agenda has been development of self-conscious, systematic methods and strategies derived rigorously from the People Approach Principle. . . " MINI-MAX" and "Need-Overlap Analysis in Helping (NOAH)"

For contributions to Handbook contents, thanks to Jerry Bagg, Judy Wilkinson, and Sue Dryovage for internal review; to Miriam Gingras for manuscript preparation and editing.

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Building Work that Satisfies

The Central Importance of Volunteer Job Design
Day one is the most important day in the life a volunteer program, for on that day the volunteer begins the work designed for her/him. As that job is meaningful and appropriate to the volunteer’s talents and motivations, the program will need only the gentle touch of enabling management. But as that job is inappropriate for the volunteer and lacks meaningful purpose, all the heavy management technique in the world won’t put humpty-dumpty together again.

Thus, if our insanity is to have volunteers alternately piling and unpiling bricks in the middle of the road, improved recruiting techniques will only waste the time of more volunteers. Sophisticated training and supervision might increase performance efficiency, but why; the job is silly in the first place. Somewhere, in the middle of technique-for-its own-sake, we would have forgotten purpose. This purpose is crystallized, preserved, and given life in our shaping of work for volunteers.

The People Who Must Be Pleased
We must therefore ask ourselves what makes a volunteer job right? Remember first that motivation, not money, is the primary fuel on which volunteer programs run. We recognize this clearly in our entirely proper concern for volunteer recognition, incentive, fulfillment. What we sometimes fail to recognize is that volunteers aren’t the only people who need to be pleased with the work done. In face, a volunteer program or other organized effort may have three or more basic constituencies, three kinds of people who must be satisfied with what volunteers are doing:

1. Volunteers themselves, of course.
2. The people served – clients, patients, public, audience, other consumers of services, etc. If these people aren’t getting something from what volunteers are doing, they won’t provide supportive, appreciative feedback. More than that, helping to satisfy client need, either directly or indirectly, is the primary purpose of volunteer program. The volunteer effort which isn’t doing that has neither head nor heart.
3. Paid staff in agencies, unpaid officers or clubs and church groups, all supervisors and leaders of volunteers must also be motivated by the work volunteers do. This support is crucial to satisfaction, stability, and productiveness of volunteers in their work. Indeed, mere indifference on the part of staff – never mind hostility – is enough to turn off most volunteers, Need-Overlap Analysis tries to deal with staff-volunteer conflict before it begins by building staff ownership, satisfaction, support into the original blueprints of volunteer work rather than trying to troubleshoot later, the effects of volunteer in roles threatening or meaningless to staff.

To summarize, we seek in the volunteer job, activities:

Which volunteers like to do and can do well (Glad Gives)
And which
Staff want volunteer to do,
Which also
Fill real needs for the consumer of services, or at least provide indirect support to such efforts.

In other words, we try to identify the overlap between volunteer Glad Gives on the one hand, and on the other hand, a combination of client needs and staff work assistance. The name of the process reflects this purpose: Need Overlap Analysis in Helping (NOAH). (1)

A Carefully-Considered Strategy is Desirable
Finding the overlap area is clearly going to be a skilled balancing act and will therefore require planning, method, and practice. Need overlap doesn’t often occur "naturally" without such system. The first time we asked male prisoners (Clients) what they’d really like volunteers to do for them – we should have know better. Their other priority was "help getting me out of here." We never even bothered to ask staff or volunteers if they coincided with prisoners in supporting a "volunteer escape artist" program.

Programs based only on expressed volunteer preference for involvement could come up with wonders like: visit the institution for a few hours, then write an "in-depth" public report. Institution staff would be able to contain their enthusiasm for that one; nor is it certain the project would help institution residents in either long or short-term. Once again, no overlap.

Lest staff escape some scathing, they have been know to suggest that volunteers confine themselves to making the coffee or emptying the garbage. To the latter, a voice from the back of the room was once heard to ask "What kind of garbage?" But, ordinarily, volunteer response to such suggestions is unprintable.

But we can hit the need overlap bullseye for all three volunteer program constituencies, and we can do it a significant percentage of items; for at least 15-20% of volunteer Glad Gives is my strong impression over the years. We must only be prepared to go about the overlap search systematically, as described in the rest of this chapter.

The dividends are worth the effort. Insofar as we are able to hit the overlap area:

• Volunteers are doing what they want to do and can do, hence they are easier to recruit and retain, and less training may be needed, too.
• At the same time, staff are getting real help from volunteers, and are therefore positively appreciative of a volunteer effort they own.
• People served are being better served.

The process will sound as if it develops new roles for volunteers, from the ground up. It does that, yes. But Need-Overlap Analysis can also be used to freshen up established volunteer roles to which your program may be committed. Thus, take a basic Big Sister or Big Brother role and recheck for its relation to youth/parent needs, staff work assistance needs, and volunteer Glad Gives. Though this fine volunteer role will retain its essential identity, adjustments may be suggested which will improve volunteer recruiting and retention, staff-volunteer relations, service to clients, etc. Spin-off roles may also emerge; in one instance, Big Brothers and Sisters added a new though related volunteer position: Super Bigs, as resource people for the support of less experience Big Sisters and Brothers.

Step-By-Step Description of the Need-Overlap Analysis Method

Introduction
We're now ready to provide some detail on Need-Overlap Analysis, in the form of basic steps in the method. These are guidelines, not sacred rituals. Creative variations are welcome as an adaptation to different situations.

Presiding over the process will usually be the volunteer leadership person(s): the volunteer coordinator/director, the lay leader in church or synagogue, the club officer, the staff person who has responsibility of supervising volunteers, the board chairperson, etc.

Input from Prospective Volunteers
Each prospective volunteer completes Worksheet #1. The basic input is Glad Gives, as one can see at the top of this worksheet. But an addition or supplementary worksheet might also distinguish and explore Once-In-A-Whiles and/or the difference between glad and very glad give. Perhaps all offering could be listed together first, the marked with *, 3 , etc. to indicate the above distinctions.

As in MINI-MAX, the concept of Glad Gives, Once-In-A-Whiles, etc. should first be explained and instanced. Unlike MINI-MAX, try to get at least 5-7 well thought out Glad Gives from each prospective volunteer. Up to 10-12 is even better.

Here is an example of what a prospective volunteer’s completed worksheet #1 might look like.

Sample Worksheet #1

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY DOING?

List below the things your most WANT TO DO + CAN DO + MIGHT HELP OTHERS. Please make these as specific as possible and be sure they are Glad Gives.

Speak French and Spanish

Photography (black and white, color)

Organize Garage Sales

Draw Cartoons

Write Poems (limericks)

Dog Obedience Training

Camping and other outdoor skills

Astronomy (I have a small telescope)

I’ve occasionally heard of volunteers being asked to fill out Worksheet #1 twice, once with their Glad Gives for staff and once with their Glad Gives for clients. My personal preference is not to worry volunteers with such distinctions at this point in the process. I’d rather have the flow of Glad Gives as unconstricted as possible.

Worksheet #1 can also be completed on behalf of an organization or group’s "willingly shareable resources."

Whether individuals or group, the prospective contributor should provide name, address, and telephone number on Worksheet #1, unless special arrangements for anonymity have been made.

Worksheet #1A is for collating and analyzing the results of a series of individual Worksheets #1’s, usually at least 5 or 6 of them. When in doubt about whether or not to combine Glad Gives in a category, the process coordinator should try to consult the Glad Givers themselves.

All well and good, but suppose there’s no one around to complete Worksheet #1. It’s natural to wonder how you get hold of a sample of prospective volunteers. First of all, the entire sample need not be all together in a group at a single meeting; one or a few at a time is fine and usually preferable.

With that understood, your sample can include.

1. Anyone who inquires about volunteering with your organization. Presumably, Worksheet #1 will be incorporated in your volunteer application/registration form, as part of your normal volunteer screening and placement procedures.
2. You can include a few of your present volunteers, especially ones who are looking for a fresh and new assignment or are actually awaiting reassignment.
3. Friends of your currently active volunteers.
4. Community groups you’ve talked to, or at least a few people from each of these groups. (See earlier section on MINI-MAX recruiting application.)
5. Some prospects from the local volunteer center or clearinghouse, especially if it registers people in terms of Glad Gives, Once-In-A-Whiles, or something translatable into these.
6. Your clients, patients, consumers, audience, etc.

For all these types, and especially types 3-6, there might be an option to remain anonymous (thought you needn’t overly encourage this). In any case, there should always be this kind of guarantee with Worksheet #1; the interest implied by your participation thus far in this process, in no way obliges you to accept volunteer work with our organization unless you freely choose to do so.

Input From Paid Staff Or Whomever Know the Organization’s Needs Best
This input can come from a club officer, lay leader in church or synagogue, neighborhood association leader, etc. as well as from paid staff.

Staff input can precede volunteers’ input, follow it, or occur concurrently. The order between the two types of input is not important.

Worksheets #2 and #2A are for the staff input part of Need-Overlap Analysis.

Some people have had no trouble at all gathering and discussing staff input in relatively large face-to-face groups. Other have encountered small riots when staff were overdue to let off steam, often about things having little or nothing to do with volunteers. There may also be scheduling problems in getting larger groups of staff together at one time and place.

In what follows, we therefore assume the typical case: Worksheet #2 administered to staff individually or possible in small groups. The process can be explained to an individual staff person(s) and Worksheet #2 then left with her/him, to be picked up in a day or so (or dropped in a special suggestion box). The advantage of the procedure is giving staff ample time to do a thorough job with their responses. The disadvantage is that staff might produce more artificial responses on overlong pondering, or – this is only for paranoid ex-professors such as me – compare notes. Therefore, sitting with a staff person as he/she completes Worksheet #2 is usually the best procedure, provided you have the time. The process should not be rushed. Allow at least 20 minutes for steps 1, 2, and 3 in Worksheet #2; take 30 minutes if necessary. Even more preferable are interludes for staff to reflect and then come back to the process.

Almost without exception, it is desirable to offer staff the option of anonymity on Worksheet #2, and/or the firm assurance that their individual results will not be inspected by supervisors or management. Most practitioners recommend that staff should be explicitly told the purpose of the process: to help ensure that the work of volunteers is responsive to staff needs.

Worksheet #2A is for collating and analyzing the results of Worksheets #2’s from individual staff people. You would usually wait to collate until you have at least 3 or 4 staff worksheets, if you have that many staff people. Where there are less than that number of staff, try to get everybody, With larger numbers of staff, a representative sample will ordinarily suffice. Otherwise, where there are a great many staff, as in a hospital, it is often best to organize the information-gathering and collation of Need-Overlap Analysis in terms of individual units or division, because of their similarity in purposes, concerns, attitudes, and for sheer manageability of size.

  The pattern-identifying process in Worksheet #2A parallels the one for volunteer Glad Gives (Worksheet #1A). A staff sub-committee can be a resource on issues of how best to categorize staff spin-offs and dreams. When in doubt on whether to combine two dreams or stars, you probably should keep the distinct.

Finding and Negotiation Overlap Between Staff, Volunteers, and Clients

Worksheet #3 outlines the main steps in determining staff-volunteer overlap and in securing client review. Additional notes on Worksheet #3 are provided below.

Steps 4 and 7. The staff-volunteer committee ideally should represent:

• Staff currently working successfully with volunteers
• Staff working with volunteers and have some problems
• Staff not currently working with volunteers (for skeptical as well as other reasons).
• A sample of volunteers: veteran, new, prospective, and if possible, dropout.
• At least one relatively high-level decision maker in the organization seeking to involve volunteers.
• A representative of the local volunteer clearing house or center, if you have one
• The volunteer coordinator/director as process facilitator

Step 5, Worksheet #3. Effective client review committees have included juvenile delinquents, terminally ill patients, and educable retarded people. Do not count clients out as capable of such review with you until you’ve tried it! The exception is when it’s dangerous even to try because the organization is threatened by anything by the most sagely dependent clients.

If consumers of services are absolutely unable to provide meaningful input, or won’t be permitted to, get people who are as close as possible to them as their representatives; family, friends, advocate volunteers, etc.

Only a regrettable concession to current rigidity explains why client review occurs so late in the Need-Overlap Analysis Process – sometimes only in time to consider the accomplished fact of prior staff-volunteer agreement on "what’s a good for you folks." In the better of all possible worlds, clients would lead off, listing needs they could not deal with themselves. This would then be the material worked on by both staff and volunteers.

Worksheet #3 leaves much to the discretion of the practitioner in details of implementation and possibilities for innovation. This is as it should be; in maximizing the probative participation of people, there are not formula solutions. But there had better be some more volunteer solutions in an era where it is increasingly unlikely the work assistance needs of staff can be met by endlessly inflatable budgets.

Variations and Extensions
Earlier versions of Need-Overlap Analysis seemed exclusively designed for volunteer programs in an agency setting. Indeed, this is an extremely important situation involving millions of volunteers, staff, and clients.

But the practical imagination can adapt the process to other situations as well. For example, an all-volunteer group or project could complete and collate their Glad Gives as in Worksheets #1 and #1A. the same people might then turn around and simulate the role of organizational staff on Worksheet #2, #2A, and #3. But here, all items on the activity list (Worksheet #2) as well as all dreams would have to be implemented by volunteers, if they were to be implemented at all.

Generally there is nothing sacred about the client-volunteer-staff triumvirate. Thus in some situations, it’s "difficult to identify or define clients or consumers of service who are served jointly by volunteers and staff. In such cases, Need-Overlap Analysis can be used with only two kinds of participants; for example:

Staff – Service Volunteers
Staff – Board Volunteers
Club Officer – Club Members
Clergy – Congregation
Parent(s) – Children

The Need-Overlap Analysis procedures would closely parallel those for three constituencies, except for omitting steps 5 and 6 on Worksheet #3.

There can also be four (or more) constituencies, especially when there are consumers of services in more than one sense, thus

Employment Program for Displaced Homemakers

Contributors = Staff/Service Volunteers = Staff/Service Volunteers

Consumers = Clients/Community at Large = Clients/Community at Large

Region In Scouting

Contributors = Staff/Scoutmasters

In both the Displaced Homemakers and the Scouting examples, we have two different types of consumers of services (which doesn’t prohibit them from also being contributors, of course). As consumers of services, both groups could participate in client review (Steps 5 and 6, Worksheet #3).

There might also be several kinds of potential contributors to the mission of the organization, as for example

Staff – service volunteers – the media – local corporations.

The Worksheet #1 and #1A procedure would be used to identify the Glad Gives or willingly shareable resources of any of these types of contributors.

The decision on which contributor and consumer constituencies to include depends on clear judgment on (a) who could or should contribute voluntarily to achieving the organization’s purpose. (service volunteers, board, the media, corporations, etc.) and (b) who needs their help (staff or volunteer leaders for work assistance (stars and dreams), and consumers of services (clients, patients, parents, the public, etc.) for direct or indirect assistance by the organization or program).

I’ve seen Need-Overlap Analysis done with as many as six constituencies (contributor or consumer). If you know of instances with ten or more constituencies, I’d appreciate not being advised.

The steadily developing variations in Need-Overlap Analysis application are still less than completely flexible in their assumption about who can help whom. The classical Need-Overlap Analysis has helped going in essentially one direction, thus:

 

A Need-Overlap Analysis fine-tuned to more current concepts of help as a two-way process, would probably look more like a MINI-MAX between these three (or any other) constituencies. That is, prospective volunteers would be describing their needs as well as their Glad Gives – and volunteers do have needs – while staff and clients would be offering their Glad Gives along with their needs for help. The Need-Overlap process would then evolve towards 

And the name would be neighboring. 

(1)The process also relates point-for-point to the People Approach Principle, Volunteers input like to do’s and can do’s. Need-Overlap Analysis is then designed to connect these enjoyed competencies to staff and client needs.

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