Volunteer like a Rockstar

Why startup community leaders should treat you like a diva

Dear Volunteer:

When you engage with entrepreneurs, you help them avert disasters and steer for successes. Your contributions are not for sale. They’re freely given, which makes them all the more valuable.

You give before you get. You are here to help. On behalf of entrepreneurs everywhere, Thank You!

But, you juggle lots of obligations between your day job, your family, your friends, and keeping yourself healthy. Any leftover free time is precious. You have a nagging suspicion that your volunteer hours are not optimized. This is a bummer.

Too often, you have raised your hand to help only to have the overwhelmed leaders fail to get back to you. Too often, leaders shrink the volunteer pool down to an easier-for-them-to-manage size and wind up asking too much of you. Too often, you’re asked to sit through meetings where you cannot add much value.

It’s time for them to start treating you and your fellow volunteers like divas. After all, there is no show without you.

What would Van Halen do?

Back in the day, hard partying Van Halen had an infamous contract rider specifying their dressing room be stocked with a bowl of M&Ms with all of the brown candy removed.

But, “David Lee Roth was no diva; he was an operations master.” The bowl of M&Ms was the canary in the mine: when a venue wasn’t paying attention to the details, it was easy to tell. To the casual observer the band were divas in the extreme.

You should be treated like David Lee Roth when you give the community your time. What should you ask for?

The Startup Volunteers' Bill of Rights

Since the folks organizing your startup community are often unpaid themselves, we cannot ask them for complex contract riders. But, you can start to lay down some solid operational practices in exchange for your time and expertise. Here’s what to ask.

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Dear Community Leaders:

(1) Give us volunteers an à la carte menu with specific time estimates associated with each option. Allow us to pick one activity, or participate in multiple areas.

(2) Measure our time invested. Be sure to account for travel time, consensus-building meetings, and organizational chores.

(3) Attempt to measure the value of our contributions. If I am adding value, you, as leaders, should be able to measure it. (If you cannot measure it, it might be time to look for a new operational model.)

(4) Use the resulting ROI data to optimize the program moving forward. My time is precious. Its investment deserves a clear return.

I hereby challenge you as our leaders to deliver a positive return on the time and energy invested by the community.

Sincerely,
One of your amazing volunteers

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If startup leaders would follow this approach, the “concert” you’ve signed up for will be a better experience for everyone. Rock on, Divas!

(This post first appeared here.)