Is Philanthropy or Volunteering a Fit For Today’s Professional Woman?
After being deeply conflicted on the topic of philanthropy and volunteering for some years, I have arrived at a commitment to my community to the tune of 8 completely free, no strings attached hours a month. This takes place primarily on Saturday afternoons. Through research, it appears to be the ideal amount of time. Configured this way, it doesn’t interfere with my work in and on my company, Medigram and my professional goals as an entrepreneur and CEO. I have learned not to volunteer in an organizational context where their needs do not match my skill set, strengths, or interferes with goals. One example when looking at any organization is to verify that they have an operating model that is managed by excellent staff; we are able to validate that they’re not looking for volunteers to cover basic administration, event planning, manage meetings, logistics, perform general management (vision, mission, culture, policies, procedures, hiring), accounting, program/project management, social media, content or any marketing, business operations, or fulfill any actual operations because that would not be a fit for us. I have shared our filtering process about how we choose to volunteer in this post: https://medium.com/@SherriDouville/how-we-set-community-service-priorities-the-personal-spiritual-parts-of-life-c91c85e1a603
I also participate with the Board of Fellows for my alma mater, Santa Clara University. I am blessed to have been mentored into that by a work mentor’s wife and to continue to receive ongoing business and life advice through successful businessmen that I have met in the group (as well as honored to learn other great things about life from their wives). The staff at SCU does such a great job and it’s fun; therefore I’m not sure if I can even call it volunteering. This is how I learned to see that volunteering could also be a venue for learning and meeting exceptional people. In this post, I seek to define the challenge and questions about what role Philanthropy might have in a professional woman’s life.
This post is not for anyone whose life is characterized by nearly unlimited amounts of free time and resources.
I have no clear answers. The purpose of this post is to facilitate dialogue between family friends and agencies seeking volunteers. First, some background.
- I am not an expert in Philanthropy. I fell into a regular habit of volunteering through preparing for college, attending a Catholic college, then joining a volunteer organization as a young professional. My best friend from high school and I joined one together when we were 26. This was a way to make and spend time with female friends while I was working in a mostly male field. At the same time, in Corporate America, I felt that the act of volunteering worked against me professionally and that colleagues generally disapproved of it or didn’t understand it. Generally, neither they nor their families appeared to have much experience with Philanthropy either. This is not a dig at any former employer. I have heard this same sentiment from dozens of women who grew up in California, the East Coast, the Southern and other states with Philanthropic traditions with regards to the work world and the many organizations that they have worked for. I also suspect there might be a widespread, general work stigma today against women who volunteer and this is illustrated by the finding posted by the Lean in organization and pictured below.
2. Women have had a large role in the history of Philanthropy. This article linked just below provides a nice discernment between what the definitions of charity (short term) and philanthropy (systemic) actually are: https://www.learningtogive.org/resources/relationship-philanthropy-industrial-revolution
3. Today, the most attractive and competitive volunteer opportunities appear to provide educational and networking opportunities that support professional and intellectual growth. I asked someone I admire and respect to learn how they assess when to allocate their scarce time to volunteering. This is the kind of person with the combination of material, social, professional, and cultural capital that any organization seeking resources or connections would want to learn from. The below is what they had to say:
4. Now that many women’s roles are changing and vary, it is unclear to me how it all should work between our work goals with the aforementioned “Philanthropic system” that developed in conjunction with the industrial revolution described in the above article. I want to be clear that I am not against (and we have literally supported) and do not judge traditional women’s leagues and volunteer venues. For women of a specific lifestyle, these kinds of leagues are great ways for them to connect with other women and have fulfillment. Though I am unclear how and if those same specific venues fit with professionals, in particular those who have executive positions and aspirations.
Below, I lay out some thoughts that all executives might have when they consider organizations and affiliations.
How Executives Make Decisions For How to Spend Time
Every executive that I know seems to have at least a subconscious if not deliberate filter for how they prioritize their time. This is against their personal and family’s vision and strategy for them and their family. It might look something like this blue, green, and yellow quadrant.
How people and organizations might think of “matching” to one another:
All organizations (and individuals) need to take a hard, honest look at every skill and capability they offer and be able to develop a true clear picture of what they can and more importantly, cannot deliver on for which kinds of stakeholders.
Successful leaders sound like they are obsessed with alignment between people, purpose, and priorities in all matters be those at home, at work, and in their off duty time. To meet the needs of executives, organizations in my view need to be able to define success, define milestones, and define performance expectations or lack thereof (when something is designed just to promote fun and friendship for example).
Executives Seek High Accountability Opportunities in Every Sphere Because They Are Continually Judged. This is How They Win Opportunities Including Professional Ones. It’s All Based Upon Their Continued Track Records.
Organizations struggle with accountability in my view when:
- They underestimate the scope of work and skills required to plan and execute on the tasks and work streams that have to be done to succeed on goals.
- When teams underestimate the above, they don’t know how to define, identify and secure the resources and skills required to complete the work. This results in “boldly going nowhere” as depicted above at bottom right of the “alignment” quadrant; this translates into low accountability. The latter creates bad feelings of disempowerment, frustration, and cynicism amongst stakeholders in my view.
Executives Would Assess For the Presence or Lack of Good Governance
Pictured below is one graphic that could potentially help organizations frame input from people they seek to affiliate with (top layers of yellow for purpose and priorities) and also help to define their goals with milestones depicted by the bottom red base).
I don’t imagine that I have all or any of the answers about this topic. If you have identified great mechanisms for aligning and matching people with any related Philanthropic situations in particular as they relate to executive women, then please share them.
By: Sherri Douville CEO & Board Member at Medigram, Inc. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sdouville/
