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Leadership in Focus: Colleen Kelly
By Elisa Birnbaum
May 5, 2008
This month in our Leadership in Focus series we feature Colleen Kelly, executive director of Volunteer Vancouver. Having joined the organization in 1999, Colleen now leads a team of ten and oversees close to 200 volunteers and the delivery of nine programs. Always on the move, Colleen also helped develop the Canada Volunteerism Initiative, announced by Prime Minister Chrétien as a legacy to the International Year of Volunteers in 2001. A world traveler and always in demand, Colleen has addressed audiences across the globe, in places as varied as Cape Town, Amsterdam, New York, Barcelona and Sao Paulo, speaking on such topics as board governance, employer-supported volunteerism, and engaging skilled volunteers.
CharityVillage: What do you see as the main challenges facing the nonprofit sector today? Are they any different than those of 10, 20 years ago?
Colleen Kelly: Well, we look to the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations (NSNVO) to determine what is happening in the nonprofit sector. We use what they collect as our facts. In that survey, they highlight four main challenges of organizations: (i) not having time to plan, (ii) shortage of volunteers, (iii) lack of new perspectives on their boards, and (iv) financial sustainability. And from what I can see, I absolutely agree with those findings.
As far as my perspective on whether it’s changed much, I have to say I’ve been in the sector now for 25 years and I don’t think it has changed that much. I think it was always that way. You have to be very disciplined to plan. Organizations have to focus way more on themselves instead of always on their clients. And they don’t always do that (or do that well).
CV: Do you think being a leader in the nonprofit sector differs from leading other sectors? How?
CK: I definitely think it’s different. Though I’ve worked in the corporate sector, I’ve never been a leader in that sector. And I have never worked in government or labour, but I have done a lot of training in both of those sectors. The fact that we have so many stakeholders in the nonprofit sector makes it hard to be a leader. We have to build alignment all the time and I think it was Jim Collins who once said that the leadership in our sector is much more about legislative leadership than about executive leadership. So we have to get everybody on board. It’s not that we can say, “Okay, I know this is the right way, so do it.” That just doesn’t work.
CV: You’ve spoken on the topic of volunteer engagement to audiences worldwide. How do you feel Canada compares to those countries in terms of how well it engages volunteers and perceives the voluntary sector?
CK: The distinction is the way we view volunteers. It’s not necessarily unique in Canada; we see it in North American and probably Australia too. But it is very different in Africa or South America. We certainly do see that the idea of volunteering in the developing countries is very much defined as, “if it’s not altruistic, it’s wrong.” That’s how developing countries see voluntary engagement. It has to be totally altruistic. It’s actually often quite patronizing and I found a lot of the way they talked about volunteerism in those countries to be very condescending.
For most of my time in those countries, I was working with companies and my focus was on employer-supported volunteering. It absolutely got my back up. I left a session in Cape Town because I couldn’t stand how the company was talking about volunteer engagement. I learned that in Cape Town, “volunteer” is not necessarily a good word because the people who were volunteers were the white-gloved society ladies who came in and were very disrespectful to the people who worked in those organizations. So, the whole concept of voluntary engagement can be very different in other parts of the world.
CV: Do you feel organizations are doing enough to foster young leaders? What do you feel they could be doing better?
CK: The sense is that young people are not coming in with the same type of passion that we, the baby boomers, had. They are much more analytical about what they are doing and are looking at being in the nonprofit sector as a career choice because they really do care, but they don’t do it quite the same way. I don’t think it’s wrong; it’s just different. I think that what happens with my generation of leaders is that we aren’t necessarily ready to hand over the reigns. I am speaking very broadly, of course, I am very fortunate to work with a lot of young, brilliant people. But I’m not sure leadership development is at the top of everyone’s agenda across the sector.
I have been at Volunteer Vancouver for almost nine years and I would say we have had ten brilliant young people go through the organization. We encouraged them to do greater things because we’re a small, flat organization, so for them to get the kind of experience they need, they did need to move on. It breaks my heart, but that’s how it works. When you have young people come in and you give them lots of responsibility and all kinds of choices to make their own decisions - and therefore, their own mistakes - they are at a place of passion; they really are. But you have to be able to let go a little bit to get there. Some leaders are willing to let go and some are not.
CV: What specific leadership challenges do you face in your role?
CK: Within our organization, I think it’s always about how we build a continuity of leadership. How does everyone become the kind of leader that they can become? We would say all of our board members are leaders in the community, all of our employees, our volunteers are leaders in the community. And my role is to make sure we are all aligned and have a really clear vision of where we are going and that everyone understands that they have a role as a leader in our community around volunteer engagement.
In addition, we are always asking how we can ensure the voluntary sector is as strong as it can be. That’s a continuous challenge, but it makes it very exciting too. When you’re a leader, you notice that change happens by decades, or generations; it doesn’t happen quickly. It takes a long time for real change.
CV: What’s the state of volunteerism in Canada today?
CK: We see it as being very different from what most people think. In terms of the supply and demand equation, everyone would think it’s the supply side that’s lacking. But we would say it’s the demand side that doesn’t have it quite right. People really want to be engaged in community - all kinds of people do - but not in the way that they always were. That kind of civic loyalty of the past is definitely not here anymore. At the same time, the baby boomers and the Gen Xers - both of whom we see - are really wanting to be engaged in community. And they want to be engaged in four different ways.
First, they want to be passionate about the mission. They want to connect to an organization in which they are really aligned to its mission. Second, they want to see that they make a difference. They want to see what happens with what they do; what’s the outcome. Third, they want to use their own skills and expertise. For example, in the boomers case, they have so many years of experience. With the Gen Xers, a lot of them are smart, young, MBAs with specialized expertise, but they are annoyed with having their time wasted by doing a repetitive task or something they think anybody can do. Fourth, they want their volunteer experience to be much more time-specific and project-based; they want to see a beginning and an end. They don’t want to sign up for every Monday afternoon for the rest of their lives. And this applies to the boomers too.
So, after studying it pretty carefully for the last six or seven years, these are the four areas where we can see the possibility of volunteer engagement in the sector today. As a result, organizations are really unhappy that they can’t find the volunteers they want, but they are looking for volunteers that don’t exist anymore. And, for the most part, organizations don’t know how to engage this “next generation” of volunteers.
CV: What has to occur to ensure organizations engage these new volunteers? Who needs to change?
CK: Well, I don’t think the volunteers are going to change. In 2007, at Volunteer Vancouver, we worked with 203 specifically-skilled volunteers. People who managed projects for us, acted as mentors, advisors. Every single one of our volunteers comes with a specific skill-set. We contract out the repetitive kinds of jobs - we don’t look for volunteers to do those kinds of things. And volunteers love the engagement. And you know what? When they get to the place of being engaged with their skill-set in the mission of the organization, they go to a place of then being ready to be engaged in any area in the organization. If you give them an exciting opportunity and a chance to meet new people, they will say, “I’ll do anything.” But you have to engage them first. It’s the sales pitch that the organization has to do differently. That ultimately means the executive director, the CEO, the leader of the organization has to understand that.
CV: How is Volunteer Vancouver encouraging volunteerism?
CK: Because of National Volunteer Week (last week), we hosted a celebration in line with our mission of inspiring and building leadership in the voluntary sector. It was a brand new format where we brought together about 2,400 people who volunteer in British Columbia, and it featured the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and a comedian. We attempted to inspire people to volunteer by giving them an opportunity to be entertained, and laugh about how volunteerism is really experiencing a paradigm shift.
We had no dignitaries; we didn’t announce all the corporate CEOs. Everyone who was there was being celebrated because they were a volunteer. We thought it was a success because we had everyone laughing. They had a good time and came away feeling volunteering was a good thing to do.
CV: What is your leadership style or philosophy?
CK: I don’t think I have one particular style. But when we talk about a continuity of leadership, we always talk about the engagement and development of all the people - both paid and unpaid. So if I would say anything, that would be it. It’s always important to keep people at the forefront.
CV: What practical advice on leadership would you offer others?
CK: I would probably mention two points. First, you have to understand how to be a good follower before you can be a good leader. And second, I think it was Jim Collins who said, “it’s more important to be interested than to be interesting.”
CV: Who are the leadership mentors who have inspired you over the years?
CK: In this field, two larger-than-life people have had huge influences on me and my career. Paddy Bowen - she is the most visionary, brilliant person around voluntary engagement that I have ever worked with. And Martha Parker, who is just so very knowledgeable and passionate.
I would also say that I have had amazing board members both at Volunteer Calgary and at Volunteer Vancouver, particularly the chairs. I have worked with seven great chairs. And, lastly, I would say I have learned a lot from our two daughters and daughter-in-law, who I refer to as my three daughters. They are so inspiring and they often cause me to be much more reflective than I normally am. They give me a reason to stop and think.
Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She is also president of ellecommunications.ca and can be reached at: info@ellecommunications.ca.