BFS-1 – Scorecard – Volunteer Program (for directors of volunteer programs)
BFS-2E – Staff Reactions to Volunteer Programs (line staff)
BFS–3E – Volunteer Feedback Form
BFS-4E – Top Management Self-Checklist in Regard to Volunteer Programs
BFS-6E – You Have A volunteer – What Do You Think? (for clients)
BFS-9E – Voluntary Action Center BFS Form

Each BFS will be briefly discussed separately.

BACKGROUND ON BASIC FEEDBACK SYSTEMS (BFS)

The need for evaluation of volunteer programs is scarcely questioned any more. Evaluation is valuable; it is also an obligation, not only to program funding or administrative sponsors, but also to

a. Clients - They have a right to know.
b. Volunteers - it is unfair to ask them to work blind; they need to know what impact their work is having.
c. Regular paid staff working with volunteers - It provides reassurance that their commitment to and investment in volunteers is having the desired effect.
d. Top administration - Just as the staff, they too have responsibility for the program.
e. The Director of Volunteer Services – She/he ties it all together.

Evaluation is necessary for all these people to justify the program and to improve it. That means, once available it must be used, considered, discussed, decided, and acted upon, as promptly as possible.

This makes evaluation far more than a ritual. It is a necessity to guard against delusion and the substitution of good Intentions for evidence-in our volunteer world.

Program evaluation is, however, an extremely "luxurious necessity." We need it, but we often can't afford it, either time-wise or money-wise. For example, the Center presently has files on approximately 200 volunteer program evaluation or research reports. Where budgets for them are available or can be estimated, they show an average range of $5,000-10,000 each, with wide ranges, of course, from less costly to over $300,000! Many volunteer programs have barely $10,000 as their total budget.

Technical evaluation also consumes inordinate quantities of time. We know of coordinators who have spent up to 30-40% of their time in program evaluation. Yet they should be primarily doers, not watchers; it is doubtful that spending more than 5-10% of their time can be justified for this purpose.

One result of this large expenditure In terms of time and money is that volunteer program evaluations are often talked about and only occasionally done--an unsatisfactory situation. The need is to react rapidly to small problems before they fester, to act while a band-aid suffices rather than waiting for gangrene to set in. This can only be done if evaluation is a regular and continuous part of your program.

Faced with this necessary impossibility of program evaluation, program people must frequently choose to do nothing--except state their faith. In an assemblage of directors of volunteer services, the question, "Have you evaluated your volunteer program?" rarely draws more than one-out-of-ten hands.

It is a hard choice today, then, between research and technology, raw witness and testimony. The former is too expensive in time and money; the latter is equally costly in credibility and buildup of untreated program toxins.

The Basic Feedback System is an attempt to provide a third alternative between the two. It is not a technical evaluation, but it provides at least some feedback on how the program is doing. It does so at a practical cost in time and money, continuously (not just once every two years) and in terms of national norms, so any individual program can compare itself with others, in its state or region, or nationally.

As for cost, reproduction of all the forms needed might cost a program $50-75 a year. Time-wise, each form requires about ten minutes to complete, and anywhere from two to ten minutes to score and norm. Much of this work can itself be taken over by volunteers. Conscientious and continuous operation of BFS would take no more than 2-5% of a director's or coordinator's time.

BFS provides estimated ongoing measures of (1) performance; (2) satisfaction; and (3) commitment for directors, line staff, top administration, volunteers, and clients of a volunteer program. Other forms for other settings could be developed to taste; some have been, and one of the new experimental forms is reproduced later in this report. Beyond the scoreable aspects of each of the forms to be described presently, there is an equally important yield of free-running commentary which should be studied for a value beyond that of numbers.

Two principal restrictions on the usefulness of the forms, at present, are local adaptability and validity. The forms are necessarily general and in various degrees may fail to reflect some unique local program conditions and needs. You should adapt wording as necessary.

As for validity, these are self-report forms and may thus lack objectivity in the sense of what an outside observer would say, or in any other "absolute" sense. One form though, BFS-1, has been checked twice against independent outside observation and proves to correlate roughly with it. Further study is needed on all of the forms.

Meanwhile, the forms basically have only "face validity." They represent only what the various volunteer program constituencies do say about the program--right or wrong. What they do say is in itself important, whether right or wrong, accurate or dissembling. Moreover, if you do have outside observers, they can base their judgments on the BFS forms and indices for direct comparison to self- report "inside" evaluations on the same forms.

Except for one of the forms (BFS-1), the entire system is still under development. We are releasing the system at this point simply as a guide to volunteer program directors, not as an authority but as a supplement to be incorporated with more sophisticated evaluative methods.

Users have full permission to reproduce the forms at will, although acknowledgment of NICOV as source would be appreciated. This, of course, includes permission to adapt to local needs and conditions. Indeed, users are encouraged to do so; however, comparability in terms of national norms is impaired when forms are adapted.

For perfection of this system, your feedback is urgently needed: scores on the forms, your experiences in administering and applying them, and, above all, suggestions for improvement. Please send copies of completed forms, comments, and suggestions to the authors.

A reminder: the Basic Feedback System is designed only as a guide to users, to be incorporated with other impressions, evidence, and data on hand. Be flexible. Use it as feedback, a guide to discussion or even training. Remember, it is only a general way of taking the temperature of your program. Whenever possible, use BFS as an adjunct or stimulus to more sophisticated and extensive evaluation.

Administration

Where possible, administration of the BFS forms should be in a face-to face setting, either to individuals or to groups, rather than mailed. Structured interviews where the Interviewer records are also a possibility. Ordinarily, it helps to offer anonymity and confidentiality. Interviewees need to feel protected. A relaxed atmosphere is also beneficial.

Delete the scoring instructions before the BFS forms are passed out. Interviewees should be told to comply with the written instructions. Questions concerning the various forms are usually quite numerous. Thus, the administrator should be well prepared to answer questions concerning written instructions, individual questions concerning written instructions, individual questions, etc.

Everyone does his/her own work on the forms, of course. No copying.

Use of Norms

Norms for BFS forms have been established over the past nine months. They show the distribution of all scores the Center has received. Percentiles (or the estimated percentage of the total population) are used to standardize the scores. If a raw score falls in the fiftieth percentile, then it is fair to say that the raw score is an average score with approximately half of all raw scores above the score and half below.

We suggest that you refrain from showing the norms to people filling out BFS forms until the forms are completed. Once completed, the person or program can see where he/she is in comparison to everyone else. It should be repeated that there’s much in these forms that is valuable, though not scoreable and entered with norms. Note: Norms are a best only approximates: i.e., a percentile of, say 64% is to be understood only as the approximate center of a range, extending at least 5 percentile points on each side of 64.

Forms

There are currently five forms in the system and a sixth under development:

BFS-1 – Scorecard – Volunteer Program (for directors of volunteer programs)
BFS-2E – Staff Reactions to Volunteer Programs (line staff)
BFS–3E – Volunteer Feedback Form
BFS-4E – Top Management Self-Checklist in Regard to Volunteer Programs
BFS-6E – You Have A volunteer – What Do You Think? (for clients)
BFS-9E – Voluntary Action Center BFS Form
Each BFS will be briefly discussed separately.

Note: The missing numbers in the series refer to forms still under development and under consideration for development in the BFS series. E = experimental in the sense that feedback from the field may still substantially modify the content of the form and its norming.

We suggest that you reproduce theses BFS forms on legal size paper in order to have sufficient space for interviewee responses.

Other BFS Forms

Other BBS forms are being brought about; for example, for funding sponsors and statewide directors of volunteer programs. It’s relatively easy to construct your own, though it’s time-consuming. We’d be glad to suggest how you might go about it; any competent tests-and-measurement person can do so.

Putting It All Together

Basic feedback should be fed back as soon as possible, discussed and applied. Evaluation is the beginning of the reaction which is the beginning of action; it is in no way purely contemplative enterprise.

If BFS administrating, scoring, norming sometimes borders on "cookbook" procedures, BFS application does not. Here are some general guidelines, though, simply as rule-of-thumb.

1. Administer all five forms (FFS-1, BFS-2E, 3E, 4E, and 6E) about every three-five months at about the same time for all.
2. Volunteer administrative assistant or director scores and norms all forms.
3. Also pick up any major themes in free-running responses which are not scoreable.
4. Get average indices and themes for each of five constituencies.
5. If BFS forms have been given before compare them to previous applications of BFS.
6. Volunteer evaluator or director summarizes and charts all above.
7. Call representatives (constituencies) of all five groups together and discuss the results. (Also, results can be discussed with a larger sample within each of the five groups.)
8. Agree on major recommendations for improvement in program. Set up a plan and time frame for implementation.
9. Agree on major strengths of program. Set plan to be sure they’re appreciated properly within and without program.

A lot more could be said about Point 4 above. Particularly, there are obvious interactions or interfaces between the five forms and these can be explored, as well as scores or themes within each form.

A kind of common-sense insight should suffice here for the put-it-together person. Thus, for example, both the director of volunteers and volunteers are rating such things as volunteer training, support, recognition, and significance of work responsibility. Do they agree or not? If not, it needs discussing. Indeed, what does it mean when the Motivation-Incentive subsection on Scorecard is above average, while Volunteer Satisfaction index is below average?

There are similar interfaces regarding suggested work roles for volunteers between Scorecard and Staff Reaction forms, and between both of them and Client and Volunteer feedback forms. Here you can do something very much like the Center’s Need Overlap Analysis in Helping Process (NOAH), simply using BFS forms for line staff, volunteers, and clients.