Dr Karen Smith Dr Heike Schänzel and Dr Sarah Proctor-Thomson Victoria Management School

Falling into a Career in the Voluntary Sector: Career pathways and identity of volunteer managers in New ZealandPreliminary Findings Dr Karen Smith Dr Heike Schänzel and Dr Sarah Proctor-Thomson Victoria Management School Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand karen.smith@vuw.ac.nz

Profiling Volunteer Managers • UK: Institute of Volunteering Research • Management Matters (Machin and Ellis Paine, 2008) • Valuing Volunteer Management Skills (Brewis, Hill & Stevens, 2010) • New Zealand • Managers Matter (Smith, Cordery & Dutton, 2010) • Volunteering New Zealand’s Managers of Volunteers Development Team • Findings • Nonprofit/voluntary sector, and public sector • Paid and unpaid volunteer managers, female, middle-aged/older, educated, and from the dominant ethnicity (white)

Structure of Presentation • Volunteer management as a nonprofit career • New Zealand’s nonprofit context • Career histories of paid volunteer managers in New Zealand • Themes: • Career paths: stories of transition • Positioning the manager of volunteers role: stories of (non) recognition

Working in the Voluntary Sector • Nonprofit/voluntary sector workers • career anchor of service/dedication to a cause (Onyx, 1998) • sacrifice financial rewards because of other benefits • being called by the work itself or by religious faith • Relevance of career theories to the voluntary sector?

Volunteer Management as a Career • a role without boundaries • a workforce with varied educational experience • multiple route into the profession • a lack of options for career progression and upward mobility • the need for professional identity, and the importance of training

The New Zealand Nonprofit Context • The John Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project - Anglo-Saxon cluster • large non-profit sector, the lower levels of government support compared to higher levels of fee income and private philanthropy • Distinctive features: • A high level of non-profit involvement in ‘expressive functions’ • A less pronounced non-profit role in health and education, • The presence of Maori civic organizations • 67,000 FTE paid workers, 134,000 volunteers FTEs • 9.6% of the economically active population

The New Zealand Nonprofit Context • Three major social forces that have shaped New Zealand’s nonprofit sector: • the indigenous Maori population • the legal, political and social system legacies of British settlement from the mid-nineteenth century; and • the development of the welfare state from the mid-twentieth century • Implications for concepts of ‘volunteering’ • Mahi aroha is the unpaid activity performed out of sympathy and caring for others in accordance with the principles of tikanga to maintain mana and rangatiratanga, rather than for financial or personal reward. Mahi aroha is one aspect of tohu aroha, an expression that incorporates the spiritual and temporal aspects of volunteering. He tohu aroha is an expression or manifestation of love, sympathy or caring. (OCVS, 2007)

Aims 1. What are the factors influencing career pathways into paid employment as a volunteer manager? 2. How do paid volunteers managers position their role within an organisational, career, home and community context?

Method • Life and work history career narratives • Harrow and Mole (2005) • career histories of voluntary sector chief executives to develop a typology of nonprofit CEO careers • Taylor (2004) • Work histories of workers (both paid and unpaid) in two voluntary organizations • Miller (2010) • Life stories in the NCVO-led Pathways through Participation project and the personal impact of volunteering. • Brewis et al. (2010) • Biographical interviews in Valuing Volunteer Management Skills

Sample • Paid employees whose main – or only – role in the organisation is volunteer management • Health • Service function • 14% of NZ’s paid not-for-profit FTE workforce; 4% of volunteers • Tourism (culture and recreation) • Expressive function • 16% of NZ’s paid non-profit FTE workforce; 29% of volunteers

Profile of Interviewees • 17 in Health sector, 10 in Tourism • 18 in Nonprofit organizations, 6 public sector, 3 nonprofit trusts that operate alongside a public sector organisation • 10 in full-time employment, 17 part-time employment • 25 women, 2 men • 1 interviewee aged under 35, 6 aged 35-49, 20 aged 50 and older

‘Career’ history • Rebecca Taylor (2004) • Framework of public/private, formal/informal, and paid/unpaid work • Boundaries between these forms of work • Career: paid and unpaid work, education and learning, home and family, their social circle and friends, travel, leisure activities, community roles, health, spirituality

Findings 1. What are the factors influencing career pathways into paid employment as a volunteer manager? • Stories of transition 2. How do paid volunteers managers position their role within an organisational, career, home and community context? • Stories of (non) recognition

Career Paths: Working in the voluntary sector and volunteer management • Choosingvoluntary sector work • Falling into volunteer management • Stories of Transition • Volunteering as career transition • Career transitions from other sectors and professions • Personal transitions: reassessing priorities and identity

Volunteering route into paid employment • Generally not career-orientated volunteering “So when I moved to <new place> I joined a new mothers support group and then went on to Parents Centre and did some volunteering through those groups which was a lot of fun and once again a great way to meet people.” Liz

Career transitions from other sectors and professions: pushes and pulls “I thought to myself well I mean I have really done an awful lot for an awful lot of children and right now I need to do something different and what I need to do needs to be more in line with my values.” Annie, ex-teacher “All the time realising that where my heart really was, was not perhaps in a commercial environment and so I came across Health Charity or Health Charity came to me. And it’s been just great because we have some core values in Health Charity which just works for me, it just works.” Peter, ex-Managing Director “What would have been the date when I went to Teachers College? Probably about ’78 something like that. […] I think women have so many more choices now, but back in those days there probably weren’t a lot of choices so that decision was probably influenced by the best choice of the bunch.” Liz

Personal transitions: reassessing priorities and identity “Well I think our life journey really is what influences, I mean if I didn’t have sick children I probably would never have that empathy towards people. But it changed my life probably more than it changed them as children. I mean they don’t remember most of it but it certainly changed my life course,…towards other people in their sorrows and their problems and things.” Stella “So becoming quite sick, and how the employer deals with your unwellness, and your ability to approach work, which when you’re unwell gets completely stripped away from you, when you can’t function. I find that within the not-for-profit sector you’re approached more like a human being. And there’s more support and support structures set up to aid people through life situations that may impair, or impact on their work life.” Betty

Calling of Voluntary Sector Work: Spirituality of religion and community service “Although Pakeha my nana was a little bit exceptional and it was more that communal society than the individualistic kind of approach. I grew up surrounded by you just did things and everyone was, you know, everyone looked out for one another and yeah that just is how it is. It wasn’t like this crazy concept of volunteering or whatever.” Sam “My family was probably your typical volunteer but not using the word volunteer, involved in schools you know […] all those kind of things at school functions and always putting their hand up to help where they could. I was a St John Ambulance volunteer for a number of years and did the normal community things that we did when you’re involved in family that’s busy.” Miki

Transitional Nonprofit Roles into Volunteer Management A marketing and fundraising position at a nonprofit tourist attraction: “That kind of played to, again, the sales, crossover to the sales skills. Learnt a lot through that, grant writing and press releases and things. So developed a lot of skills that I hadn’t had previously, but still, it kind of worked to the ones that I had. Then when the organization restructured they made the volunteer coordinator position a full time role. I thought, ‘Right, oh, that sounds like a bit of me.’ I could see all the opportunities within that role, and within the organisation, and thought, I’ll apply for that role.” Betty “[It was a] charitable activity which had quite negative connotations to be honest when I first was viewing it. And I thought charitable equals lower level professionalism, things take a lot longer if they’re done by volunteers and it was only by joining Health Charity that I actually get a bigger and better handle on just that.” Peter

Positioning the manager of volunteers role: Stories of (non) recognition • Job title • Positioning within organisation • Lack of recognition of volunteer management • Salaries and gender • Choosing flexibility • Managing boundaries

Volunteer Manager: What’s in a Name? • 16 volunteer managers • 4 additional job title • 7 alternative job title Job titles do matter, to some “I can’t say to people I’m a volunteer coordinator because then I have to enter into this whole big discussion of, ‘No, no I do get paid’ ‘Are you looking for paid work?’ ‘No I actually do get paid’, and I mean the word coordinator for a start in any kind of organisation carries about the lowest clout there is.” Annie

…but not to others “I suppose you could go along and say that manager carries more weight than coordinator, but in terms of how I feel about my role, or, it doesn’t really, no, it doesn’t have a huge kind of weight for me. I wouldn’t feel better about my role if I was a volunteer manager, than a volunteer coordinator. I think that the function is very much the same no matter which, what kind of title you put on it.” Betty “Any time that we have to defend ourselves it takes the energy away from actually developing and moving forward, because there’s an insecurity in being in that role that the most that you can hope for, when you’re in that defensive position, is that you will get some sort of comradeship from others in the same situation.” Miki

Positioning themselves within their organisation • The bridge, mediator or middle person between the volunteers and the organisation, specifically the senior management. “I’m the volunteer’s advocate” Sam “I see it like a sort of a giant octopus at the centre of it with tentacles going in all directions because it’s like an integral part of every bit of the organisation.” Annie • Isolation “Lots of ways it’s a very solitary role. I’m here I’m doing my job, I’m surrounded by people because there’s the volunteers but I’m not surrounded by peers who are at my level.” Robyn

Membership of Management team “It doesn’t matter to me personally, I think that what it does indicate if it’s a manager of volunteer services, that it sits alongside other managers in the organisation as being equally important. I absolutely believe that this role should be in a senior management role, absolutely. There’s no doubt about that. This organisation would fall over without volunteers. […] There are about four hundred people that I need to manage, the nursing manager has got maybe twenty, the finance person’s probably got half a dozen.” Jocelyn

“There isn’t training for the job so it’s not recognised for the value that it actually has. And so I think that it’s not recognised by organizations. I’m very lucky here because the equivalent of our volunteers is twenty one paid members of staff a month so when you can put a value on it like that people then begin to realise actually what that means in monetary terms. But when you can’t do that in an organisation it really, it’s hard to be able to then fight for what you think is right or for the resources that you need for that type of thing, ‘cause business people don’t tend to always understand the value or the power of volunteers, so I think it’s under valued.” Joanne “It is a hard role, sometimes it is unsupported and it’s a highly productive role. We’re dealing with emotions of people and families, more than the average employer ever has to do. And because we’re basically a one stop shop, we are educational, we are statistics, we are HR, we are the lot. I think there needs to be an appreciation also the fact that people are paid to do the job should be respected.” Jenny Lack of Recognition of the Volunteer Management Role

Recognition from different sources “We do get praise or accolade that you do need from time to time from our senior managers but to me it’s what the volunteers do and it’s about whatever we can do to help them to shine.” Miki

Recognition: Salaries, Motivation and Status “It’s more a career choice from the heart than the pocket.” Stella “I’m not motivated by money, I have to be doing something that’s worthwhile, that’s my motivator. And for the common good, as it were. Well I mean for a start I could see from the salary that it wasn’t hugely valued.” Annie

Is salary a gender issue? “You know as a sector they [volunteer managers] are underpaid and under valued, yeah, so but I think if there were men in there they probably wouldn’t be so poorly paid (laughter)” Robyn “I think as we elevate the profession that will probably become more enticing to a man. I think along with elevating or developing the standards, the salary will be improved. I don’t think any of us, well certainly I don’t imagine any of us do this for the money, it’s so much more than that. But for a man who is perhaps a younger to get into the professions who’s responsible for being the head of the household and supporting their family, I don’t know if they could do it on current salaries.” Miki

Volunteer management as a second income career “I think that the reason that there is a [gender] imbalance is probably linked to the pay, so a lot of us are in these roles but we’ve got husbands or partners who are actually providing a significant amount of the money into the household.” Jocelyn

Choosing Flexibility and Part-time Work “It has to fit with the family. I still have to be able to pick up my kids a couple of times a week from school, because that’s who I am. And I still want to be able to drop them off at school before I go to work in the morning. And it’s keeping those values. I still want to be a working mother, but I don’t want to be a mother that’s unavailable. I want to be able to be there, I want to be able to take Wednesday mornings off and go to whanau time and sit and watch presentations and productions and things, and be on school trips. Without having to take annual leave, and be able to fit those in, say, “Well actually I’m going this, here this week, so I’ll be working Friday instead,” and that sort of flexibility that you don’t always have in the corporate world.” Kate “I must say that’s based on a certain amount of security. I don’t have a mortgage to worry about, different story if I did. I can afford to work part time.” Jenny

Lack of boundaries “I actually say to people that I have the best of both worlds in that I’m getting paid for something I love to do and if I wasn’t being paid to do it I would be doing it as a volunteer. I am only working part time but a lot of it falls into more than those part time hours and I’m more than happy to do that because it’s just something I love doing.” Emma “Behind every good manager of volunteer services is a very good husband. (laughter) I would have to say that it’s not uncommon for me to be in here on the weekends if I’ve got a new volunteer starting, that’s fine you’ve just got to go with it. I’m certainly am very good at self care and know when I need to take time off, but I do think it requires your family to understand your job and what you do.” Miki

Managing ‘boundaries’ “I overstepped those boundaries I got too involved with two patients and when you do that you get pulled and sucked in with them and that’s when it becomes extremely emotional.” Nadine “Not with the patients, I did with the volunteers until I learnt because I befriended a couple of them and maybe go to the movies or go out for dinner, you can’t do that because you’re supposed to be in this management role.” Amanda

Conclusions • Career narratives not just about the paid work • Work-life flexibility but a lack of boundaries and separation • Social and spiritual values reflected in paid and unpaid work • Choosing voluntary sector, falling into volunteer management

Implications to consider • Recognising and valuing the multiple career paths, skills and transitional roles to volunteer management • Issues of recognition for volunteer managers and management within and outside voluntary sector organisations and professionals • Gender and generational framework • Balancing professionalisation of volunteer manager role with flexibility and values

Falling into a Career in the Voluntary Sector: Career pathways and identity of volunteer managers in New ZealandPreliminary Findings Dr Karen Smith Dr Heike Schänzel and Dr Sarah Proctor-Thomson Victoria Management School Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand karen.smith@vuw.ac.nz

References Brewis, G., Hill, M., & Stevens, D. (2010). Valuing Volunteer Management Skills. London: Institute for Volunteering Research. Harrow, J. & Mole, V. (2005) "I Want to Move Once I Have Got Things Straight": Voluntary Sector Chief Executives' Career Accounts. Nonprofit Management & Leadership. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Machin, J., & Ellis Paine, A. (2008). Management matters: a national survey of volunteer management capacity. London: Institute of Volunteering Research. Millar, S. (2010) ‘Understanding impact in social and personal context: making a case for life stories in volunteering research’ Paper presented at the NCVO/VSSN Researching the Voluntary Sector Conference, Leeds University, 6 Sept. OCVS (2007) Mahi Aroha: Maori Perspectives on Volunteering and Cultural Obligations. Office of the Community and Voluntary Sector, Wellington. Onyx, J. (1998). Career Motivation: A Cross Sector Analysis. Third Sector Review, 4, 43-54. Smith, K. A., Cordery, C., & Dutton, N. (2010). Managers Matter: Who Manages New Zealand’s Volunteers? . Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington. Taylor, R. (2004). Extending conceptual boundaries: work, voluntary work and employment. Work, Employment & Society, 18, 29.

Dr Karen Smith Dr Heike Schänzel and Dr Sarah Proctor-Thomson Victoria Management School