Goodbye Andre, we will never forget you.

2) Andre loved to mark. I never got any exercise on our walks because he had to stop by every bush along the way (we joked that he was leaving “peemail” for his doggy friends). One day I came home and saw that Andre had jumped onto the kitchen table so he could mark a vase of flowers. We would always leave the chairs pushed in from then on!

3) My most cherished memory of Andre is when I would take him to the beach. He would smile and run zig-zags across the sand. His exuberance was so uplifting, and it was obvious that this was one of his favorite places. A year after I adopted him, I threw a beach party for Andre and his doggy pals. I made a liver brownie birthday cake, and at one point during the party ALL the dogs on the beach we surrounding me to try and get a piece. So many wagging tails and much happiness that day!

4) I used to bring Andre with me when I taught at San Jose City College. Many of my students were from Vietnam, and there were some communication barriers. They loved Andre, and many times his presence was what helped them feel comfortable talking to me about their lives and their dogs back home, and that enabled me to be a better teacher for them. One day, my students were taking a test, and Andre was lying on the floor in the middle of the classroom. The door was propped open, and he saw a squirrel outside. He bolted out of the classroom, and my panicked students all ran outside to try and catch him. There was also a time when Andre wasn’t eating well, and I couldn’t figure out why until I noticed that he would always sit under the same desk. Turns out that a student from one of my classes had been secretly feeding him burgers.

5) I remember the first time Andre saw a horse.  He only saw the legs, and must have thought they were trees. He was about to lift his leg on the horse when it moved and startled him. I’m not sure what he was thinking at that moment, but he was taken totally by surprise.

6). Andre was one of the ring bearers at our wedding, and he wore a tuxedo bandana that my mother-in law made for him. So handsome!  He barked at all the right moments during the ceremony.

And one more memory. For another birthday we took Andre to a restaurant in Carmel called The Forge in the Forest. They have an outdoor patio and a special menu just for dogs. We ordered Andre the most expensive item on the menu (steak) and he was in total disbelief that it was all for him. We bought him a new collar that day from some fancy dog boutique, and then when Andre had enough he slept in the car, totally blissed out, while we drove home in the rain.

The weekend of September 24th was the Eat Real Festival in Oakland, which my sister Marcy ran. We met my parents there on Sunday and had an awesome time. The festival was in Jack London Square, entrance was free, and the food was all under $5 (mostly). Corinne loved seeing the people and baby piggies and bock bock chickens. Raelene was finally able to try out the vegan falafel truck she’d heard so much about. I got to drink beer out of a commemorative mason jar, what a hipster!

Sunday night I went to a concert, the first concert I’ve attended in over a decade. I got there early, grabbed a spot on the front barricade, and throughly enjoyed the show. It’ll probably be another 10 years or so before I go to another concert, but that’s fine. Music has always been and will continue to be an important part of my life, but I’m getting too old to attend shows regularly.

Last Friday I ran a Trail of Cthulhu game for my normal gaming group. We try to get together once a month to play, usually on a Friday evening. I ran a cold war horror adventure set aboard an aircraft carrier. The players managed to save the world, or at least they thought they did. I managed to work in a cliffhanger ending that I think everyone liked. Everyone seemed to have fun, which is always a good sign.

Okay, I have a post written. Let’s see if we can turn that into momentum…

Things have been reasonably slow in our lives, which is good. Corinne took a 3 week swim class at the newly restored Point Richmond Natatorium. She loved it, and hopefully we can get her signed up for another class here soon.

Raelene and I are both trying to get healthier, and so we’re both walking for exercise and measuring our steps using a Fitbit. It’s really amazing how many steps you get (or don’t get) during a day, and I’m convinced that measuring and monitoring yourself is the key to getting healthy. I’m also finding that sharing your progress socially is important, too. It’s like having a buddy to go to the gym with; you’re much more motivated to go if you know someone is there waiting for you. If you’re interested in following my progress, create a Fitbit account and I will give you access to all my numbers.

On Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of Corinne’s friends. It was a lot of fun, even if it was a little bit claustrophobic inside the house.

On Sunday we visited Raelene’s brother and sister-in-law and met their new two week old baby. I’d forgotten what it was like to hold a baby, and I don’t think I’ve ever held a baby that light. Baby Athena was absolutely adorable, and we’re both really happy for Raelene’s brother and his family.

After the pageant we went to a park and had a pot luck while the kids played. Corinne played very hard, and by the time we got home she was over tired starting to melt down. I gave her a quick bath, and then we did bedtime. She tried to pretend she wasn’t tired, but she was asleep almost immediately. It was a lot of fun.

This idea has come up independently in two conversations now, and like Kiva, DonorsChoose and Kickstarter I think it’s going to resonate with people. I want to build a website that will help an individual organize a 1 or 10 or whatever person event for an cause he or she supports. In the same way, I want to help small organisations put on their own charity event. And because the world is social, I want to help people find charity events to participate in. I want to truly empower the power of one. You shouldn’t have to wait for someone else, you should be able to create Race for the Cure or Aids Walk/Run and have it succeed. You should be able to participate in charity events that are 100% free of corporate sponsorship. Your passion belongs to you,  and should not be associated with pink buckets of chicken, soft drink power votes, or branded marketing of any kind unless you want it to.

There’s a lot of stuff I need to do before I start writing website code, of course, so don’t expect to see something immediately. I also have no intention of quitting my day job any time soon, so the going is going to be slow. But I think there is something exciting here, something that no one else is doing. I’m excited by it. If this excites you too, please let me know.

For those that missed the mess on Facebook, I have decided to end my involvement with the Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue. I still support their mission, to help birds in need, but I no longer wish to be part of the organization. I do not speak for Raelene, she’s still tentatively a volunteer although I think she’s near her threshold as well.

Marketing Gone Mad

Micakboo incurs thousands of dollars in vet bills every month. It’s a largish organization, but not large enough to catch the attention of the big foundations that could fund their activities. So they do what every non-profit does, they fundraise. Unfortunately, over the past year or so these fundraisers have increasingly targeted their volunteer base. After all, it’s easier to hit your supporters for money than to rally outside the organization.

Recently this has been in the form of “votes” for Mickaboo on a major soft drink’s website. Each person can vote on the website once per day, but you have to create an account (including giving up demographic information) on the soft drink’s website to vote. This is part of a huge summer marketing campaign for the soft drink manufacturer to increase mindshare and sales, and as part of it they’re promising donations to the non-profits who do the best job promoting their products. The whole thing is designed to refocus attention from the non-profits and aim it at the soft drink manufacturer, but Mickaboo decided it was worth it to jump in the deep and become a quasi-viral soft drink marketing engine.

To this end, volunteers have been getting dozens of soft drink marketing messages daily from the folks who run Mickaboo. These are in the form of “reminders to vote”, and while you can only vote up to three different ways once a day, the Mickaboo fundraisers are sending out reminders at a much higher rate. Not only is the amount of marketing Mickaboo is doing for this soft drink manufacturer insane, but as the manufacturer intended it’s detracting from Mickaboo’s overall message.

The Tipping Point

The tipping point came when Raelene vented about the marketing on Facebook, and several other Mickaboo volunteers attacked her for complaining. Their point was they were ignoring the marketing, and that she should either use Facebook and email less or ignore it just like they do. No matter what she did, though, they were not okay with her publicly complaining. These volunteers were fairly aggressive about it, too, and someone from the core Mickaboo leadership jumped in as well. Wow. I got involved in the debate too, and it got a bit ugly with the volunteers.

At the same time, though, I also started getting emails and Facebook messages of support. That’s when I realized just how big of a powder keg the issue was. People hated the marketing, and were getting pissed off at the folks who were doing it. Even those that supported the fundraiser behind the marketing were suggesting that folks ignore those spreading the messages. It’s like being at a family reunion where “Uncle Jim” is drunk and loud and abusive, and half the people there saying just ignore him while the other half are wanting to call him a cab and send him home. Everyone is on edge, no one is having fun, and the only point of agreement is the hope that Uncle Jim passes out soon.

This soft drink marketing onslaught inside a bird rescue is fraying everyone’s nerves. The marketing is affecting people in ways they don’t fully realize, and is causing friends to turn on each other. This is dangerous, and I believe destructive to the organization.

To compound the problem, Mickaboo has no formal mechanism for complaining about these things. People keep telling me I should have complained earlier, but there’s no way I could have. There is no volunteer advocacy among the administrators or to the board. No one is keeping track of volunteer morale. The lack of ability to voice a concern is what send Raelene to Facebook, where others essentially told her to shut the fuck up. No one at Micakboo is listening, it is broadcast only from the top and volunteers are expected to take it or leave. I hope for their sake they fix that soon.

And that is, in a nutshell, why I left.

Monday Morning Quarterback

It’s easy to say what should have been done after the fact, but I doubt that will be useful.  Instead, here is some general advice to other non-profits to help avoid damaging your organization.

Volunteers are an invaluable resource for any non-profit. They are probably your most valuable resource. Volunteers are sources of labor, donations, new volunteers, etc. Treat them well. Survey them regularly for satisfaction, and keep a close eye on morale. Monitor volunteer donations levels, organization growth and churn, and the ability to get someone to step up and do some volunteer work. If you’re having problems, it’s probably because people are no longer listening to you.

Be careful with general calls to action. It’s fine to continuously ask for specific help, but be deliberate about anything that requires a large percentage of the organization. Your volunteers are just that, volunteers. They have busy lives with lots of distractions. They probably are not as devoted to the cause as you are, nor do they have as much spare time. The fact they want to use their time to help your organization is a gift, use that gift wisely and do not demand more. No action a volunteer takes is trivial or small, it is a gift they are giving you when they could be doing something else.

Give volunteers a way to anonymously give you feedback. You will be surprised at what they tell you. Also, give volunteers the option to identify themselves when they do provide feedback, because many people want to open up a dialog about why they feel this way. Don’t ignore these people. If someone contacts you, no matter what their tone or how vicious the email, it is because they cared enough about your organization to do so. Don’t just broadcast to your volunteers, listen to them as well.

Provide your volunteers with an advocate. Even small companies have HR departments, because employees need someone they can talk to. If you have more than a few dozen volunteers, you need someone whose job it is to listen to their concerns and bring them up with the folks in charge. It’s not enough to assume that anyone with a problem can email someone in charge about it. Not only do you lose the ability to centrally collect and correlate feedback that way, but not everyone is comfortable approaching someone who may or may not care about their issue. Make sure your volunteers know you care, and give that care a face.

Let numbers, not gut feelings and egos, decide your actions. Measure everything, and be willing to look at the results even if it’s hard. You might know in your heart that something is worth it, but if the numbers disagree then you have to change course. Make sure all your volunteers are placing your organizations goals, and not their egos, first.

Lastly, be wary of destructive forces within your organization. From business management 101, if you are an organization of any size you will have individuals with passion and drive who left unchecked will destroy it. They might be great people with the best possible intentions, but if they are destroying the morale of every around, if they are making it easy for your volunteers not to volunteer, they are a liability to your organization. It might be with a little help they can be refocused, but if not you have to ask them to leave. No single volunteer should be allowed to hurt your organization.

What’s Next

To be honest I’m not sure. I still love birds, and I’m sure there are other ways I can help them that don’t involve Mickaboo. Volunteer work can, and should, be very rewarding, so I probably wont stay idle for long.

On the plus side, life has been fairly quiet lately. Corinne is doing well in playschool, learning her letter and numbers and how to play well with others. She’s getting better at falling asleep, staying asleep, and waiting until a quasi-reasonable time to get up. We bought her this cool alarm clock with a built in nightlight that turns green when it’s okay to get up. She’s so proud when she manages to stay in her room until the light turns green.

Last weekend we went to a birthday party, which we seem to be doing a lot these days. Something like 60 people showed up, and it was a lot of fun. Luckily they were able to move it into a teen center, because bizarrely enough it rained last weekend. Yes, rain. In June. In the San Francisco bay area. I know that’s normal for other parts of the country, but unheard of here. It looks like we’re going to have another summer like last year, which means keeping the furnaces lit and running. Crazy.