You are hereForums / General Discussion / Anything Goes / One for all the Charity Shop people
One for all the Charity Shop people
Have any of you been watching Mary Queen of Charity Shops? I'm really interested to hear the insiders take on it. In my household its had us shouting at the TV because she's so rude to, and about, the volunteers. The concept that volunteers might need handling slightly differently to a paid staff member doesn't seem to have crossed her mind, and she doesn't seem all that interested in the volunteers having any kind of owenership of the changes she's making. On the other hand she's undoubtedly raised the shop's profits, and the shop is there to make money rather than to provide a nice volunteer experience, so maybe some bruised volunteer egos are worth it. What do you think?
More on this programme about the volunteers on the BBC website
=============
Patrick Daniels
Online Volunteering and Advice Manager - YouthNet
Interesting how much debate this is generating here and on UKVPMs as well. Some of my thoughts are:
Mary Portas is clearly an experienced manager of business and of people, in the interviews that she has given she has made several references to how different the management of volunteers is to the management of employees - more challenging and more complex, this is obvioulsy something we at AVM are aware of and is one of the messages that we are shouting about - maybe we should invite her to join us???
It also highlighted the fact that as a sector we too often go outside for advice (and in England if we do turn to our own sector specialists we often turn to those from other countries rather than those who are under our noses!) Any one of us could have pointed out that there are positive ways of engaging volunteers in implementing and embracing change, most of us have done it successfully but instead Mary Portas is lauded (rightly) for something that most AVM members do extremely well on a day to day basis!
The culture of volunteer involving organisation and volunteering has changed enormously in the last 25 years, however, along the way many long term volunteers have been left out of the loop which is why any changes now seem radical rather than gradual, and are often inexplicable to a group of engaged people who are absolutely unaware of how much the environment in which they operate has changed. It highlights the necessity of having a clear strategy of communicating internally and of ensuring that volunteers are part of that strategy.
What goes on in your organisation? What challenges do you face in terms of keeping volunteers informed? How can AVM be of help to you? Do let us know
What it did show was plenty of poor volunteer management practises, particularly before Mary turned up:
- volunteers not given the proper training eg unable to identify and price stock accurately
- volunteers not properly supported eg left to get on with dressing the shop window whilst the temp shop manager went home
- lack of understanding of the role of volunteers eg the classic statement that as volunteers aren't paid it's difficult to get them to do something (in this case keep the shop tidy)
- lack of enagement with volunteers - it might have been due to the editting but what we didn't see was an explanation as to the need for why the shop needed changing and why the money was needed to be spent on it. Volunteers aren't resistant to change if it's explained properly.
Maybe the main point to come out of it was evidence of the direct link between good volunteer management and cold hard cash. One session of proper training for volunteers on identifying stock and pricing it correctly increased turnover.
I thought there were elements of good practice too! I didn't see the whole show, but I saw volunteers involved in donations drives, group sessions to understand the business and the majority seemed motivated to be playing their part to make money for the charity. I thought approach to get younger people in the shop was interesting - social entrepernuers rather then volunteers - some comments on conversion of the younger students to regular volunteering would have been of benefit. I do hope Mary gets some success in her campaigns around good stock donation and people shopping in charity shops - especially for those of us whose charities rely on the unrestricted income then this can only be good news... as long as we sing about the value managers of volunteer continue to make to ensure good business/fundraising!