I want to reiterate that I believe there is enormous, positive potential for a great organization to come out of this merger. But there is still need for caution.

Several people here have commented that there has been good interaction with “the field.” I continue to believe that only one segment of volunteerism has been in the loop: volunteer centers and HON affiliates. These may indeed represent, in turn, many more colleagues, but their perspective is not that of the frontline volunteer program manager, large numbers of the varied organizations out there, or the frontline volunteer.

The press release and FAQ from last month are troubling in that they make promises about huge number of new volunteers and other “empty PR” that does not elicit confidence that the new organization values the need for strong infrastructure to support volunteers.

Since then there has been no public communication — nor response to the comments being posted here. Why does the planning have to take place in total silence?

The brief history of all the players I shared within the Hot Topic illuminates my concern at the possible mission conflict between POLF and HON, as well as the obvious yet undefined relationship with the Corporation for National and Community Service. Time will tell….

We’d all be more trusting of the process if it was explained more openly.

Please seize this chance to do something truly valuable for the ENTIRE field of volunteerism. Thank you.

The P of L and HON have a lot of work to do in understanding how small non profits and state-registered grassroots organizations function in their local communities. If the only pipeline to this kind of information is through P of L membership or Volunteer Center data, this merger will miss out on the larger number of organizations serving hundreds of inner cities, rural and suburban areas not registered with a Vol Center or even aware of P of L/HON.

Further, before this merger can measure its impact on volunteerism, there needs to be more energy spent becoming familiar with one another.

As any volunteer program administrator will tell you, nonprofits don’t necessarily need MORE volunteers as much as they need to implement effective tools for retaining outstanding volunteers. I hope that the new organization will consider realigning its goals with those that provide more accessible training to the average small nonprofit volunteer program administrator. Let’s continue to distribute and develop effective training kits that may be administered by local Volunteer Center/HON affliate, provide more one-on-one assistance via these organizations and promote the idea of volunteering throughout the US via national advertising. VC’s and HON affiliates are here to serve nonprofits and volunteers alike, but if we only concentrate our future efforts on serving volunteers by engaging MORE volunteers…. Does that mean we’re REALLY serving volunteers? And what good will it do if we’re not giving the agencies we serve the tools necessary to retain all of these new volunteers?

The answers aren’t going to be immediately available. I hope the posters from Susan Ellis’s site do know that there is a great deal of planning and conversation happening behind the scenes. Perhaps it would be beneficial for the new organization to create some communication we can share with the agencies we serve that really speaks directly to them?

More information would be wonderful.

I applaud the leadership training that HON does for its members. What the world needs more is well trained volunteer leaders.

What I wonder about are the paid staff or the organizations who work with the volunteers. POLF used to be committed to training and supporting them and I don’t see anything in the goals of the new organization about developing opportunities for volunteers- what I see is growing the numbers of volunteers not the numbers of volunteer opportunities.

The people who are paid to support volunteers seem to be left out of the loop in this new organization.

I have worked in this field for over 25 years and what I notice about people who get excited about volunteering is that the sheer possibility of many people working together is what seduces them. The idea of bigger is better tends to overwhelm them and they are unwilling to stop and look at the building blocks of the steps to go through to make a good volunteer experience.

Delta Airlines s a good example of Bigger Isn’t Better – so are most of the American Car manufacturers. At some point, there is a law of diminishing returns.

My hope is that the leaders of this organization stop and look at the structures that support volunteers and develop some goals around education, training and support for the managers of the volunteer resources. Leaving them out of the plan is like buying up acres and acres of land, then buying up bushel bags of seeds and dropping the bags on the soil – expecting the seeds to plant themselves.

Somebody has to plant the seeds. Somebody has to train volunteer leaders, somebody has to develop the volunteer opportunities that will actually meet volunteer needs as well as meet community needs. That person is the Manager of Volunteer Resources and I don’t see that person mentioned in the material published about this new organization. POLF has done some work towards helping this person but much more needs to be done.

I look forward to hearing more.