Monday, November 8, 2010

Roundtable 1, Monday morning: Civic Engagement as a Natural Resource Management Strategy

Facilitator: Wendy Newman

Participants:
Jackie Norris: Jackie Norris Consulting, Retired executive director of Metro Volunteers
Barbara Lane: Western Region Director, AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps
Doug Blankeship: US Dept. of Interior, volunteer.gov portal manager
Parry Burnap: Executive Director, Denver B-cycle
Merlene Mazyck: Youth and Volunteer Programs Manager, Recreation, Heritage & Volunteer Resources, United States Forest Service


WN: We talk about engaging citizens as current and futures stewards. I want to hear a one word/phrase answer of what it means when we ask for stewardship.

-We need to clarify what “stewardship” means. It is a word used in the natural resources world and needs to be translated to the rest of the world.
-Knowledge.
-Help, prarie fire.
-Mindfulness about our choices at every moment
-Treasuring their ownership. People don’t understand that public lands belong to them. Once we help people understand that they own this land and its up to them to treasure it.
-Safeguarding.
-Personal investment in the earth that we live on
-Responsibility
-Collaboration
-Fun

You all have been involved in various capacities in creating behavioral change. How can we adapt your successes and move it into realm of stewardship and volunteerism?

-Capitalize on the power of a moment. When you have a moment that is completely immovable, you can really mobilize people.
-Work with youth. Build stewardship into their lexicon through education and recreation
-Make the first volunteer experience positive, engaging and accessible.

What makes this so urgent? How do we call people to action?

-You pick your solutions and you create a sense of joy around them. You think of bikes—they’re so fun. You want to nurture relationships, regular meetings, etc. but you also have to have celebrations and acknowledge ideas. It’s about community. Maybe joy can translate into a sense of urgency
-People start volunteering for different reasons but the longer people are involved with an organization or issue, the more passionate they become. There are as many motivations for volunteering as there are people. Find out what those needs are and engage them.
-Some words turn people on and some turn them off. If we have everyone in this room appealing to a different sensibility, we would be good stewards of public land. It’s a matter of trying to make that connection and appealing to whoever it is that resonates with your idea and trust that others are doing the same.
-Collaboration
-Kids change adults’ behavior. I don’t know how you change adults’ behavior. It has to be through children and education, through required environmental education. If we can convert them, they will convert their parents and other adults.
-It’s about how people are first introduced to the outdoors. When we try to encourage people to recognize what public lands are, we have to be strategic in the marketing of our place. It’s just signage. And then they take the next step.
-Not just signage but branding. Were trying to build a legacy of stewardship and bringing like-minded people on the same page and to compete/cooperate to lift all the boats at the same time. We need messaging/branding to relate with the public. Maybe the brand should not me one million but one million and one.

How do we both serve our organizations/already-there constituents and engage citizens on a higher, broader level?

-The rising boat lifts all tides. It’s not about “I want these volunteers and you can’t have them” It’s about doing this in a collaborative, cooperative arrangement.
We need to train volunteers to be leaders. We need to move away from command and control. Especially young people—they’re not going to come to the table to help unless we empower them to help.

Going back to youth. Looking at millennials (’78-’90). They are the most critical people for creating change and are constantly connected to technology.

-Service in its broadest sense is really key. It’s to a specific organization or task. Bring them right into that leadership training. Then they can turn around and work with others.
-Young people don’t just want to come in and do something. They want to come in and be recognized. They often want to be tapped for leadership. They are impatient with the process—they want to be used in a meaningful way quickly. And it’s fun. There’s always the go out and have a beer piece after. Make it social, fun. Let these folks know we recognize what they have to offer
-Reference to Outdoor Nation. They just published several reports. They are digging very deep into data of what motivates kids and are approaching from a recreation perspective. To get kids on public lands to have fun. There is a huge disconnect with the urban populations that we have. We need to begin there.
-Communicate through Facebook because it is how young people communicate. The brilliance of Facebook is in creating and maintaining a community. It’s a high-tech/high touch strategy. Creating events for youth around music/culture. There is a sense of community and eruption of passion. The internet is powerful and young people get it.

How do we build volunteer leadership?

-Need to keep older generation in the mix. Seek ways to get the inter-generational connection. To pass on the knowledge. There is an opportunity with the boomers retiring who have high levels of skill and education. It’s important to value that and giving them a chance to use it.
-We get a lot of episodic volunteerism. We need to look at how individual opportunities add up to action.
-Strategic planning. Organizations that do one-time events can build to a long-term goal, and volunteers can move into leadership roles. That way when the large events happen, they’re run by the volunteers. Use your limited resources to mobilize a bigger group of trained volunteers. Leveraging. And the tangible outcome—at the end of the day having them see the outcome
-Recognizing that volunteers can be and should be the leaders to help expand the capacity of the organizations.

Have you been able to see organizations let go of the “egos and logos”?

- Absolutely. Because they see it’s a good thing to do or maybe even because by default they have to partner because of funding. You just can’t survive without larger collaboration.

I think one of the things we’ll be talking about a lot is leadership. Executive directors, boards, etc. What is it we’re looking for in terms of leadership?

-There needs to be a career track for volunteer management/administration.
-Volunteerism needs to change to connect with the youth and new technologies.
-We need to look towards more training for working with people.
-Mention of Betty Stallings, who has done a lot of work recently on how CEOs of nonprofits and other organizations can be effective with volunteers. 12 actions a CEO can take to effectively engage volunteers.
-Mindfulness. Something we do with every choice every day. There’s a whole wealth of people in the urban environment who need to make those connections. The kind of leadership we need is leadership that doesn’t see stewardship as something public lands does, but is a filter/criteria for every decision. The kind of leader who does not put stewardship in a box.
-A need for metrics. We can talk about volunteerism, but for what? We’ve got to be able to connect volunteerism with outcomes, not just outputs. We’ve got to be able to talk about the so what.
-Look at tracking systems. The axiom of what gets counted gets funded. Outcomes really matter. We need better records of where volunteers are working. From the intake, to what kind of training they have, what they’re doing. Speaks to recognition, retention and engagement.
-Tie in accomplishments to larger, strategic goals. That’s when people really feel the connection and commitment.
-The infrastructure for volunteerism/stewardship has to be there. Think about all the times you’ve volunteered and it just hasn’t been run well. Need to recognize that there are key people that need to leverage that good volunteer experience.
-Decision-makers in organizations need to understand what it takes to run a truly effective volunteer organization.

What about the leadership we’re asking for on the public policy level? We’re developing another generation of conservation voters who are willing to help us expand or at least maintain the conservation.

-The collaboration piece is huge. Once higher leadership recognizes that volunteerism is an important part of how missions are accomplished, higher leadership will allow us to dedicate staff to support what we’re doing at the local level. We need to do a better job of letting leadership know what get’s done at volunteer level.
-The question also gets at elected officials. All of the opinions about cutting staff, limiting budget and bringing in volunteers may not be bad. Those volunteers then speak to their elected officials.
-Help volunteers be educated about who candidates are so that volunteers can ask specific questions about public land stewardship. It is all so circular and important. -Including volunteers in your organization can be a beneficial boon for building awareness in the public about public policy and elected officials.
-Need for funding of strong, effective volunteer programs. We need to be really thoughtful about “bring in the volunteers” not being a substitute for valuing volunteers, and building an infrastructure to making volunteer programs strong and effective.

Are we naïve to think that this is possible to engage this level of citizens in a stewardship movement?

-It is easy to just say “a million volunteers.” What is the real need? Look at your organizations—how many volunteers do you have and how many do you want to have. What does that number relate to?
-How do we define stewardship? Is it only on public lands or is it in urban backyards too? We’re talking about stewardship on a broader level. Not just shovels on public lands.

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