October 2011

No matter your political persuasion, looking at the Occupy Wall Street movement from a volunteer management perspective is an intriguing exercise. With images in the media of tattoos, piercings, and strange costumes, it’s easy to pooh-pooh protestors as slackers with no direction.  But look again. This uprising has similar features to the volunteer driven origins of many of today’s main stream organizations.

• Influenced by highly skilled, highly educated volunteer: Every social change action requires someone to get the ball rolling, whether it be the Tea Party, the March of Dimes, or the revolution in Egypt. David Graeber doesn’t claim to be the initial instigator, but he appears  to have laid the “ground rules.” There is also a YouTube video where David Graeber recounts the first night of protest as quite organized and not just “a few college students” getting together and deciding to camp out.

• Financial structure in place: Funds are managed at a central location by volunteers with

Last week a new neighborhood park opened in New York City called Planters Grove.  The New York Times described it as " Offbeat Corporate Giving: A Park Inspired by Peanuts."  It is a great example of a project that combines corporate philanthropy and volunteers to promote a business while meeting a list of large and small community needs. 

Planters, the snack nut brand owned by Kraft Foods, developed and paid for the new park at the Lillian Wald Houses, a 16-building public housing complex in the East Village.  According to the Times, Planters Grove "has an unmistakably peanut-inspired design, an effect created by the studied placement of poles amid beds of sage, rosemary and thyme" (see an artist rendering of the park).  Planters gains positive publicity while showing how a public-private partnership can benefit low-income neighborhoods.

• It created useful, open space for an area without such amenities, at no cost to government.
• Planters worked with Green City Force, an AmeriCorps