Advice for "Expertise" Volunteers

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Organizations greatly appreciate volunteers with particular areas of expertise or experience that staff may lack. However, it is important that volunteers balance making their expert topics -- such as legal advice, computer technology suggestions, health-related resources -- accessible to organizations they are assisting, without talking "down" to the staff person or another volunteer.

To keep your volunteer experience beneficial rather than frustrating for the person or organization you are trying to help, we suggest you keep the following (gathered from various resources) in mind, particularly when you are offering "expert" advice in a highly-specialized area:

• Listen to what the staff member and the organization need as a result of your donated services. Is there a concrete goal or outcome that is wished for as a result of your activities? Making sure you understand the expectations of the organization will help prevent misunderstandings about the service you are providing.
• Mutual agreement on a plan of action between you and those you are helping is the most crucial step of successful technical assistance and expert advice. Outline the expected outcomes, approaches and resources and estimate the time you think it will take to complete the project.
• Remember that you were a beginner too, once upon a time.
• Those that you are helping are experts in many areas as well. Respect their knowledge, as you would expect them to respect your own. Don't forget that you are talking to professionals; it is ignorance about a particular area, not stupidity, that has put the staff in need of your services.
• Respect the time of the staff and other volunteers. They have many responsibilities outside of what you see as a volunteer. They may not be able to devote as much time to an issue as you think they should; help them to do the most they can with the time they have available.
• Organizations serving developing countries operate in a world of very limited resources and ever-shrinking budgets.Don't be surprised if they don't have a staff member devoted solely to human resources, legal issues, computer systems, etc. Also don't be surprised if they don't have a budget to buy and maintain a large computer system. Respect those limitations by helping them to do as much as they can with their available resources.
• Think about the language you are using to explain something; using terms that only a fellow expert would understand will frustrate the person you are trying to help. Use common language whenever possible, and fully explain technical terms or jargon you use a lot. Learn what you can about THEIR work and put things in a context they can understand.
• If you encounter resistance to a suggestion, particular in an area where you consider yourself an expert, try to diagnose the cause: differing priorities? lack of information about you? lack of information about them? bad timing? preconceived assumptions? Once you have identified the reason for the resistance, it will be much easier for you to deal with it constructively.
• Build sustainability. Don't just do it for them - involve them in the process. Explain each step, give background, recruit someone to write down procedures or troubleshooting steps if applicable. The most important part of your "mentoring" is that what you leave behind works and can be sustained by the organization.
• Provide complete "technical" documentation (e.g., how parts of a database relate to each other) and user documentation (e.g., how to do the data entry and how to solve the most common problems faced by the user) for all systems you build for an organization. This way, if you must discontinue work on a particular project, the staff has the documentation needed to easily integrate a new volunteer into the project.
• Make sure whatever system or method you recommend for the agency to use, whether this is a type of software or an organizational model, meets the unique needs of the agency you are helping. Is this a widely-used system? Is there sufficient documentation available on how the system works? Can the staff effectively use or even alter this system without always relying on your expertise? What kind of support is available for this system?
• If you are designing a Web site, a database program, or other computer-related product, what you may view as a "feature" may be viewed as unnecessary or distracting by the staff member or other volunteer who has to use it. If a flashy interface doesn't provide the user with an easy-to-use tool, it's of no real use to the user.

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