January 25 2008- AFS-USA Organizational Study Update

From AFSWiki

Dear Volunteers and Staff,

Since the Organizational Study began in March 2007, we have gathered a tremendous amount of data, research, and input on our organizational structure, all of which have been posted and communicated on AFS Online and in the AFS-USA Inbox. These inputs include:

• High level process review

Completed a high level review of the core processes in AFS-USA which included; hosting, sending, volunteer development, sponsored programs, HR/training, fundraising, and business development

• External research

Surveyed and interviewed other volunteer based non-profit organizations based on criteria developed by volunteers and staff in AFS-USA, researched volunteer trends in the U.S and developed a profile of the 21st century volunteer. This was accomplished with assistance from the Rutgers University MBA Program

• Volunteer and Staff Structure Review

Reviewed and sought input on our current volunteer and staff structure in AFS-USA. Input and feedback gathered through online survey and in-person focus group discussions

In every step of the Organizational Study including all the various workgroups to support it, we have been conscious to engage volunteers and staff from all areas of the organization.

The POC (Planning and Oversight Committee) of the AFS-USA Organizational Study met Friday January 18 and Saturday January 19, 2008 in New York at our National Service Center. The purpose of this meeting, as was communicated in previous updates posted on AFS Online and in the AFS-USA Inbox was to review all the data and research gathered relating to the Organizational Study and make final decisions on the organizational structure.

In reviewing all the background documents in preparation for this meeting, the POC identified the following areas that were commonly agreed to and supported by the data, research and input to the Organizational Study. During our meeting we knew that we had to make sure that any decision we made regarding AFS-USA’s organizational structure had to take into account these common areas of agreement. These areas of agreement are:

• We want to retain the passion for the mission shared by volunteers, staff, and participants
• We need to guarantee high quality support for our participants
• Our customers/participants would have a better initial experience with fewer people to contact prior to the start of the program – we should modify our system so that students and families are passed off from one person to another less frequently
• We need to simplify our core processes by reducing the number and complexity of the steps involved
• We need to increase cross-departmental coordination and collaboration
• We need to have a single, streamlined data system that helps us automate our processes and make them more efficient – this includes processes for accurately entering data
• We need to increase resources dedicated to technology
• We need more effective internal communication mechanisms to increase broad knowledge, cohesion, interpersonal relationships, understanding of roles, understanding of processes, and understanding of our programs
• Information and materials needed to do staff and volunteer jobs should be readily and easily accessible to all who need it
• Staff and volunteers want and need more interpersonal connections across the organization
• We want to develop a “culture of inclusion” where new people feel welcome
• The overall emphasis on volunteer development should increase, be more defined, and be more purposefully focused
• We especially need to improve the way we bring in new volunteers, orient them, and integrate them into existing volunteer teams
• We need to offer opportunities and information that create a long-term relationship between returnees and the organization
• We should modify the volunteer structure to match today’s volunteer profile, needs, interests, and commitment level, including developing more opportunities for short-term and episodic volunteering
• We need to engage more volunteers in sending
• Volunteer unit geography needs to be realistic for the volunteers to manage
• Staff and volunteer roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities need to be clear to ourselves and to each other
• People need to have clear priorities that can be accomplished
• We want to retain competent and effective staff
• We need well-defined and healthy volunteer and staff leadership teams
• We need to maintain a positive reputation with international partners through the choices we make about how AFS-USA operates
• We need to lower overhead costs and reduce costly duplication of efforts
• We need to improve the overall financial health of the organization

Once the POC had identified these “common areas of agreement” we then addressed the key questions that came through the Organizational Study that needed to be resolved. The key questions or issues were easily grouped into 4 main categories. The 4 categories and questions related to each category were:

1. Volunteer Structure

• Should AFS-USA attempt to cover the whole country’s geography?
• Should Area Teams be the primary organizing unit for ensuring that the whole country’s geography is covered by AFS programs?
• How many different volunteer structural models can the organization support?
• Should we modify the existing local/area volunteer leadership roles?
• How will volunteer arrangements support volunteer structures?
• How can we encourage the integration of returnees and young people as volunteers?
• How should we dedicate volunteer development resources to enhance our volunteer base?
• Who is responsible for facilitating the integration of new volunteers?

2. Centralization-Decentralization

• Should we strengthen the regional model by increasing regional autonomy under the leadership of the Regional Directors?
• Should we strengthen the national model by organizing staff departments on a national level with a single national director overseeing each specific function (hosting, sending, support, etc.)?
• Should we have different structures (regional or national) for different functions?
• Should we maintain a staff system in which people have specialized functions or increase the number of people who are generalists and can work across several functions?
• Should some or all roles in certain departments, including leadership roles, be spread around all offices rather than centralized in one office – IT, Admissions, Marketing, Development, HR, and Sponsored Programs?

3. Decision-Making

• How should volunteers be involved in strategic and operational decision-making at the regional and/or national levels?
• What formal structures, mechanisms, or bodies would best serve volunteer interests in strategic and operational decisions at the regional and/or national levels?
• How should annual hosting and sending commitments be set?
• How should staff at all levels be involved in strategic and operational decision-making?
• How do we increase transparency and clarity about what decisions were made and how they were made?
• How do we ensure we are more disciplined about implementing and enforcing decisions that have been made?

4. Geography

• If we maintain volunteer regions, what should be the boundaries of AFS-USA’s volunteer regions?
• What criteria should we follow in locating offices and staff?
• Where specifically should we locate offices and staff?
• Where should we locate specific staff functions?
• How should resources be allocated to support different departments and geographic locations?
• How should market demographics and market realities impact our geographic locations?
• Should we maintain an office in New York City over time? If so, what functions would be best located there?

During the process of working to resolve the questions in these key categories, it became evident that the first area that we needed to focus our time and attention on was the volunteer structure. Changes to the staff structure could not be addressed until we first knew what changes we would be making to the volunteer structure. Simply put, the staff structure needs to support the volunteer structure.

At the end of our meeting time on Saturday, the POC made the following decisions related to the volunteer structure. It is important to stress that these decisions were made through a process of consensus. This was not an easy process and many of the decisions were not easy ones to make, but every member of the POC was committed to making decisions based on the data, research, input from the Organizational Study and what we perceived was the best criteria on the above, and not based on what we may individually like or felt most comfortable with.

Decisions on the Volunteer Structure

• We do not need to cover all U.S. geography in our hosting programs
• We do want to cover all U.S. geography in our sending programs and therefore need to develop ways in which to facilitate sending in areas that are remote from volunteer units.
• We recognize that Area Teams are not the sole viable way to organize volunteers in the U.S. and therefore want to establish and recognize multiple levels in the volunteer structure including:

• Individuals
• Independent Chapters
• Districts (Clusters of Independent Chapters)
• Areas (the term “Areas” is replacing the term “Area Team”)

• Students and Families will, going forward, be linked to the volunteer unit that is operating in their community, whether it is an area, district, independent chapter, or individual. We will look into the possibility of alternative methods for distributing co-support payments to the volunteer units
• Where they are currently functioning well, we want to maintain healthy Areas
• Areas must meet specific criteria to remain Areas and participate in an annual evaluation process to confirm that they meet these criteria
• We will ask the Regional Directors and Regional Council Chairs to list Area Teams in their regions that are currently considered “high functioning” and convene representatives from those teams to create the minimum criteria for an Area to remain an Area
• We recommend that the following be considered in setting the criteria for Areas: that the area has functioning local units, that the area has a minimum number of annual hosting and sending participants, that the area fill certain area-level positions, that the area meet specific quality standards, and that the area manage specific centralized functions such as orientations, finances, communications, and volunteer/chapter development
• Once the Area criteria have been established, we recommend the organization complete an analysis of all existing Areas in relation to those standards and determine which of our current volunteer units will remain Areas and which will be categorized into one of the other levels listed above. This analysis will also then determine what the specific geography will be for each area, district, and independent chapter.
• The organization will devote more resources to the development of local volunteer units, which can be either chapters or individuals
• Local volunteer units will be the primary units responsible for delivering hosting, support, and sending programs directly to our participants
• We recommend that the organization redefine the Area roles for hosting, sending, and support to ensure that the responsibility for program delivery is dispersed to the local units and not being accomplished directly by Area leaders.
• For participant travel, some orientations, and other functions where there are economies of scale and logistical considerations, the organization will need to group independent local volunteer units together
• While most volunteers will be affiliated with a local unit, individual volunteers can also choose to be affiliated only with a “national” function such as gateway orientations or departure day and not necessarily be linked to a local volunteer unit.
• All volunteer units would have assigned staff contacts for specific functions such as hosting, sending, support, orientations and travel, volunteer development, and finances

Volunteer Governance and Decision-Making:

• Volunteers must be involved in both strategic and operational decision-making
• We endorse the work that has already taken place in the National Council about the scope of their involvement in specific decisions. A copy of the document outlining the National Council’s role in decision making was posted on AFS Online and in the AFS-USA Inbox
• We want to preserve and build the volunteer-staff partnership through governance and decision-making bodies
• There will continue to be a National Council composed of a diverse group of volunteers and staff that helps to direct the strategy and operations of the organization
• There will be an annual General Assembly of volunteer representatives from across the country that helps direct the strategy and operations of the organization and where the volunteer representatives to the National Council are elected
• Representation to the General Assembly will be determined by criteria still to be determined – it is very likely that representation would be proportionate to the number of annual participants hosted and sent by a volunteer unit
• Representatives to the General Assembly might also have “virtual” opportunities throughout the year to be involved in strategic and operational decisions
• The number of National Council positions is still to be determined
• The demographic make-up of National Council members is still to be determined – positions could be based on geographic representation, functional representation and/or at-large representation using a system of designated seats. For example, there could be one seat reserved for a “young returnee” member, certain seats reserved for volunteers representing various functions like support, hosting, sending, or seats reserved for various geographic areas. Council members would have set terms and each year nominations would be sought for the specific seats that are coming open.
• There will be a nominating committee for National Council positions
• Once the General Assembly is established, Regional Councils will no longer operate and regions will no longer be the primary organizing unit for governance and decision-making

It is important to clarify this last point regarding Regional Councils. Although the decision by the POC is to no longer have Regional Councils as they currently exist, volunteers will continue to have representation and a voice in decision making through this new body which we are calling the General Assembly. Many of our AFS partner countries use a General Assembly model in their volunteer structure. The General Assembly is a volunteer representative body. In some partner countries these volunteer representatives are the AFS Chapter Presidents in some other partners, volunteer representation is determined through a different set of criteria. Possible functions for the General Assembly could include:

• Information sharing
• Problem solving
• Decision making
• Identifying priorities for the organization’s annual plan

In terms of the staff structure, the POC was clear that we could not make any final decisions regarding the staff structure until the final volunteer structure is more defined. What the POC did decide concerning the staff structure is the following:

• Staff should be organized in a way that best supports the work of the volunteers
• We need to have staff positions specifically dedicated to volunteer development that operate at the field level

The process for defining the new volunteer structure, its operations and governance will include the following steps:

• Each of the Regional Directors along with their Regional Council Chairs will identify volunteer representatives from current well-functioning chapters/local units and Area Teams
• We will bring together these volunteer representatives to work with the National Council Committee focused on Volunteer
• Organization and Development to develop criteria, further define and develop the volunteer structure, including governance based on the decisions made by the POC
• National Council to review criteria and definition of the new volunteer structure and operations Feb 23-24, 2008 at their face-to-face meeting in Baltimore, MD
• Recommendations on volunteer governance and decision-making to be presented to the National Council May 31 – June 1, 2008 at their face-to-face meeting in St. Paul, MN

Once the new volunteer structure for AFS-USA has been defined, we will begin the process of exploring staff structure options. Implementation of our new organizational structure will be done over a period of time that will not negatively impact our current sending and hosting season.

The members of the POC felt very positive at the conclusion of our meeting. As a group we were able to accomplish a lot and recognize that there is still more work to be done. We also recognize that volunteers and staff may have questions about the decisions that were made and the process that we have put forward for finalizing the organizational structure. In the next few weeks the majority of the Regional Councils will be holding face-to-face meetings and these will be opportunities to further discuss the Organizational Study and decisions that were made so far. Additionally we would like to encourage any volunteer or staff to contact a member of the POC directly with any questions or concerns they may have. The members of the POC and their e-mail contact information are as follows:

Judy Weyand (Volunteer National Council Chair) judith.weyand@verizon.net Krista Hawthorne (Volunteer Eastern States Territory) klas1985@adelphia.net Larilyn Carpenter (Volunteer Great Lakes Territory) larcar293@sbcglobal.net Mary Porterfield (Volunteer Central States Territory) mmp@goodland.ixks.com Damian Pisanelli (Volunteer Western States Territory) damonsea@aol.com Margaret Crotty (President, AFS-USA) mcrotty@afs.org Theresa Collignon (Vice President, Partnership Projects) tcollignon@afs.org Carl Moccia (Chief Financial Officer) cmoccia@afs.org Jorge Castro (Regional Director, Central States) jcastro@afs.org Kristen Bates (Regional Director, Eastern States) kbates@afs.org Andy Smith (Eastern Participant Support Manager) asmith@afs.org Margaret Hunt (Vice President, Business Development) mhunt@afs.org Kerry McCollum (Vice President of Human Resources, Training & Volunteer Services) kmccollum@afs.org

Regards,

Joanne Yokoyama-Martin on behalf of the POC Members