Author Interview – “A People Lens”

Here’s an interview about a brand new book from Volunteer Vancouver, A People Lens: 101 Ways to Move Your Organization Forward. I spoke with Colleen Kelly, executive director of Volunteer Vancouver, and Aaron Sanderson, Philanthropy Coordinator for BC Children’s Hospital Foundation and a key volunteer who helped produce the book. You can listen to Colleen’s and Aaron’s answers to my questions by clicking "Audio", or read a transcript of our conversation by clicking the “Read More” link below.

Do you have a question about engaging highly-skilled volunteers or implementing a people lens model in your organization? Post your question as a comment or email it to us. Aaron and Colleen will pick a question to answer in a future blog post, and we’ll try to provide some advice for everyone who writes in. You can purchase the e-book of A People Lens from the Energize Inc. Online Bookstore for only US$8.50. If you prefer the paperback, visit the Volunteer Vancouver website.

What exactly is a people lens, and why is it important for volunteer-involving organizations? Audio

What prompted Volunteer Vancouver to produce this book? Audio

Aaron, from a volunteer’s perspective, what’s different about working with Volunteer Vancouver versus an organization that’s not using this people-first approach? Audio

What’s the most important piece of advice you’d give to an organization that wants to increase the engagement of highly-skilled volunteers? Audio

How do you think that the current economic crisis is going to affect organizations and their use of volunteers? For example, will organizations look to highly-skilled volunteers for services that they might have paid for in the past? Audio

Colleen asks Aaron to share what Volunteer Vancouver did well and could have done better in their work with him on this project. Audio

Read more…