Hi everyone! I'm MJ, a brand new volunteer. You may have seen me at ApacheCon Las Vegas 2019, or more recently in New Orleans 2022.
I've been talking to Shane about my desire to get involved with ComDev, and he asked me about my experience as a newcomer to the foundation. At his request, I've put together some thoughts about my experience thus far, and some suggestions for how to potentially make onboarding easier for the new volunteer. I'm happy to hear any feedback or suggestions that anyone has. Thanks for your time! --MJ *From the Newcomer’s Perspective* *The Beginning for a Volunteer:* Getting started with any volunteer organization can be a nervous experience for the newcomer. The best charities bear this in mind, and try to make the early days as easy on a new volunteer as possible. The goal is to make new volunteers feel not only welcome, but *wanted* in whatever they choose to pursue. There are a lot of young programmers that hold the ASF in high regard and would love to volunteer, but may not have the technical experience required to navigate the different projects and tools. For new/inexperienced volunteers, easy navigation (specifically on a website) and access to warm, welcoming, tenured volunteers would be helpful, and would lead to better volunteer energy and retention. I’m new to the ASF, and not at all technical. My goal is to work on ComDev related things, the soft infrastructures that are critical to any Foundation that relies mostly on its volunteers. As I try to begin as a volunteer, I’ve found it difficult to interpret some of the language, as well as navigate how to get started. Subscribing to the ComDev email chains seems like a good place to start, but can feel presumptuous and intrusive to someone new. If I didn’t actually know people at the ASF, I would have no idea how to get started. *Helpful tools for Newcomers:* *--The Website: *For most volunteers looking to get started (who don’t already know someone at the ASF), this is going to be their first interaction with the Foundation. It’s important to bear that in mind, and make the website not only easy to navigate, but also use language that is easy to understand and feels welcoming. Consider the Red Cross’ volunteer website. When I started as a volunteer with them, their website made me feel wanted, and helped me figure out exactly what my interests were and how I could put them to use for the Red Cross. Here are some things that the Red Cross and other charities use to entice volunteers and make it easy for them to get started: *A menu with bold, easy to read print**:* This may seem obvious, but for someone just getting started, a menu is exactly what they’re looking for. They want to find the “volunteer here” button. The menu should definitely include an “About Us” section, but it shouldn’t be the main focus of the website’s homepage. Consider the following sections: *Learn**--* Used by Planned Parenthood and Feeding America, this section offers links to important information that may feel elementary to tenured volunteers, but new volunteers would find extremely helpful. For the ASF, this could include the basics, like how to use Markdown, Slack, and Confluence, as well as where to go to ask for help. FAQ pages would be listed here. * Donate--* Almost universally used, this gives a big, obvious link to where donations can be made. Many charities, such as the ACLU and Habitat for Humanity, even put in windows for credit card information to make donating as easy as filling out a few bubbles. * Volunteer-- *This is the most important section of the menu, and needs to be the most visible. This is where Shane’s idea (automating question and answer trees for new volunteers via “Choose Your Own Adventure” method) would be found. Other charities have you take a short quiz to help direct you to areas that may be of interest. The Red Cross has a sub-menu that pops up when you hover over the volunteer option, which goes into more detail (it includes sections like “explore opportunities” and “Urgently needed: view our top-needed positions”). New volunteers may also find a message box helpful, one with character limits that would send a short message to someone in the ASF. I’ve seen this on websites for legal firms, tax preparation companies, and other busy organizations. It helps bridge the gap between the needs of the messenger and the limited time of the receiver. Most message boxes, once the message is submitted, offer a “Thank you for your submission” and give a time frame in which to expect a reply. *About Us--* This section should include a brief history of the ASF and an explanation of its achievements and goals. It should be worded for the general reader and not necessarily someone well-versed in tech speech. The language used is important, as the inexperienced may find high-level language intimidating and may make potential volunteers wary. *Dynamic, on-message images-- *Every popular nonprofit organization has this in common. Planned Parenthood shows an image of a friendly looking doctor. St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital features a smiling young child in a hospital bed. The Red Cross shows a flooded neighborhood with a volunteer sporting a Red Cross vest surveying the damage. For the ASF, which prides itself on Community over Code, images of volunteers diligently staring at code might help to set the right tone. (Bonus if the featured volunteer is young or part of a minority group.) Other images could include people warmly interacting at past Cons and passionate keynote speakers. *--Training/Orientation Programs: * Once a volunteer has found the area in which they would like to donate their time, the next step is figuring out exactly how to best utilize that time for the job chosen. Utilized by most nonprofits and corporations, even seemingly small and easy jobs benefit from a little bit of training and orientation. These programs are beneficial to the volunteer as they help to give direction and, upon completing the training/orientation, a sense of confidence and capability. This also benefits the nonprofit because training programs help to weed out volunteers that find they are no longer interested, as well as help to answer questions and address problems before they even need to be addressed by more senior members of the organization. Training and orientation programs don’t need to be grand, organized classroom affairs, and their complexity can be scaled up and down as needed, based on the new volunteer’s position and responsibilities. Here are a few ideas for ways to handle training and orientation: *Welcome emails*-- Once the new volunteer has been assigned to a specific project or duty, a simple welcome email can go a long way to making a new volunteer feel, well, *welcome*. For simplicity’s cake, this email can be automated and generated as new volunteers sign on, and doesn’t have to be a hand-written note for each new volunteer. These generated emails should include helpful links for how to get started. Ideally, the email should include a link to any training/orientation course associated with their newly given project or position. *Orientation*-- This could be as simple as a small handbook to read (pdf for easy online viewing), or could be structured out as an online class. Most orientations endeavor to help the volunteer get to know the nonprofit as a whole, so that they have a holistic picture of the organization for which they are volunteering. Orientations tend to go over the basics of what it means to be a volunteers at said nonprofit. For the ASF, this would be a great place to go over the basics, such as the ASF’s mission, Code of Conduct, and avenues of communication and how to best utilize them. Many nonprofits have a general online orientation course that must be completed before moving onto training, one that is separate from specific courses related to the volunteer’s specific position and duties. The creation of a single orientation course could save a great deal of work for more tenured members of the foundation, since they won’t have to answer as many questions about the basics of getting started. *Training*-- Once orientation has been completed, a more specialized training program could be created for specific positions and projects. For the ASF, it would likely be best to have a structured online course that can be completed at one’s own pace. These training course should go over knowledge required for specific projects or area of interest, and the tools the volunteer will be required to use (email, Slack, Confluence, Github, and how to use them). These tailored training courses give more direct guidance, allowing for important information to be highlighted while leaving out information that may not be needed for that particular role. For example, as a new volunteer working for ComDev, I would likely need to know about the relevant email chains and how to use Slack, but I don’t necessarily need to know how the podlings interact with the infra team. A tailored training program would help give the new volunteer the information and guidance needed to get started, while not overwhelming them with more information than they need. **A Note on Training/Orientation programs: * While this may seem like a great deal of work to get these things off the ground, the hours invested into these programs will ultimately save volunteer hours (and stress levels) in the future. Volunteers who are well-equipped with the basics are not only more productive and valuable, but they also need less guidance from more senior volunteers, leaving tenured volunteers with more time to continue in their jobs. The initial investment of volunteer hours to create these programs will ultimately save volunteer hours in the future. *Dedicated Mentors/Superiors*-- New volunteers often feel vulnerable, and even after training and orientation, they may still have questions or need guidance when they run into problems. Consider nominating tenured volunteers/members to act as mentors for these new volunteers. These mentors can be nominated in specific factions of the ASF, such as ComDev mentors, project mentors, coding language mentors, etc. Mentor-ship does not have to be a one-on-one relationship, but rather one or two mentors who would oversee the new volunteers specific to their faction of the foundation. These mentors should be personable and patient, having an understanding of what it feels like to be in a new position and just getting started. New volunteers are more likely to stay and produce better work when given warm, welcoming means to ask questions and make mistakes. *Summary:* The ASF is a highly respected nonprofit organization, one for which many new and young folk would love to come volunteer. It is in the best interest of the ASF to make it as easy as possible for new volunteers to decide to volunteer their time, find their particular area of interest, and be given the basic tools necessary for them to succeed. A single, cohesive website with an easy-to-navigate menu, followed up with dedicated orientation and training, would be beneficial not only to the new volunteer, but to the ASF as a whole. Following training, access to dedicated mentors will help new volunteers continue to feel both welcome and needed. These simple tools can help the ASF find new, young volunteers ready to dedicate their time and energy to the ASF, and will help to ensure that they continue to offer their contributions around for a long time.
