Businesses Competing for Volunteers

The October HBR is chock full of "myth of control" articles. I mentioned a small one yesterday, but the lead article by Scott Cook of Intuit (maker of Quicken) is all about "harnessing the masses" by building "user contribution systems." In short, you get users (broadly defined) who will do tons of valuable work for you--for free--to build your business. He realized a few years ago that millions of people were doing this, and he found it "unfathomable":

Volunteerism was for charities, not for red-blooded, profit-making firms.

But it happens all the time when companies create what he calls "user contribution systems." This is a system that can aggregate the contributions of large groups of people in ways that are useful to other people.

That does sound like associations, does it not? So is this a case where business is overlooking the huge power of associations? Poor us! We are the smart ones, but we don't get the articles in HBR?!

Not quite. I think associations have great power, but in this case, the corporate world is not reinventing the existing association model. They are doing it differently. First, they are leveraging the internet when creating these systems, and they are doing it more quickly than associations seem to be able to. Second (and more importantly in my opinion), they are not defining for the users what the volunteer experience looks like. They are simply using what the volunteer is already doing.

Associations already have roles for volunteers. We have committee structures. You can be a content provider. Congratulations! Though you must submit an application first. And you probably need to join first. Have you been on a committee before? Wait, how old are you? Maybe we have a "young professionals" subcommittee position open in the fall of 09?

I'm exaggerating a bit, but as powerful as the association volunteer model is (and I do believe it's powerful), its entrenched existence I think makes it harder for associations to take advantage of some of the new models that are popping up, and the for-profit world has no qualms about eating our lunch here. Part of this is fear of loss of control, which applies to for profits as well. From the article:

The challenge for executives is twofold: First, you must learn how to spot opportunities for creating value from user contributions. Second--and here's the difficult part--in acting on these opportunities, you must overcome natural organizational resistance to the idea of relinquishing significant control to people outside the company.

Part of giving up control means letting volunteers redesign what it means to volunteer. It's less about fitting them into your pipeline than it is understanding what pipelines they are already using. I doubt you will have to give up your existing volunteer structures, but if you're NOT experimenting with ways to harness the existing actions of members and nonmembers alike, you're missing the boat.

Comments

[Dennis McDonald]

I don't understand the example. Are you calling anyone who works over an official 40 hours per week a "volunteer"? Or are you referring to "product fans" who voluntarily create content and communicate about a company's products or services?

[Peggy Hoffman]

Bravo Jamie for 1) sharing the comparison (should I say competition) and 2) for pointing out the glaring need for a new mind set in volunteerism. At a workshop with SocialFish yesterday we talked about idea clouds and how to grab our members and engage them in ways that require forms, to wait for an opening, elections et al. As long as we think about volunteers only in the sense of governance or program developers we will miss out on bringing the new volunteer into the fold.

Join us for a conversation over on Acronym about this subject.

[David M. Patt, CAE]

The challenge is giving members the opportunity to do what they want to do and, at the same time, preventing one group of members from committing the association to an action that may not be the best and may not be supported by a majority of members.

Management without suffocation requires good judgement. That's what CEOs are paid for.

[David M. Patt, CAE]

The challenge is giving members the opportunity to do what they want to do and, at the same time, preventing one group of members from committing the association to an action that may not be the best and may not be supported by a majority of members.

Management without suffocation requires good judgement. That's what CEOs are paid for.