Free Advice
If you are a involved in an organization that asks different professionals to volunteer for your cause, you need to read this.
The rest of you can read it to.
As a graphic designer, I get requests from local orgainzations to help them out with posters, signs and booklets, whatever they need printed. I am usually happy to help out, and have gotten a few decent clients who saw work I did and needed something done.
But I was really irked this shabbos when someone from our shul sisterhood asked if I could help her with the sisterhood's newsletter.
I have done work with them in the past, and will forever refuse to do so again. After the Casino night I worked on for them, which included hundreds of dollars worth of work and laying out money to have things printed (which I was reimbursed for) I was not sent a thank you note, like the event volunteers were. I was also left off the shul listing of volunteers.
It wasn't intentional. It was an oversight. Even more ironic, I set up the mail merge for the thank you notes, I just never checked to see if I was on the list of people receiving the note.
And even though I do not need the recognition, I do need more than a warm thank you for that amount of work.
If you are running an organization or event, and you are asking professionals to volunteer their time and expertise, you need to treat us right.
At the very least, a thank you note. Inclusion in the newsletter or program, along with what we did, and perhaps our business name.
Otherwise, the next time you need great-looking print materials, you'll find yourself fighting with some desktop publishing piece-of-garbage software to try and get your materials to look good, and it will never look right.
The rest of you can read it to.
As a graphic designer, I get requests from local orgainzations to help them out with posters, signs and booklets, whatever they need printed. I am usually happy to help out, and have gotten a few decent clients who saw work I did and needed something done.
But I was really irked this shabbos when someone from our shul sisterhood asked if I could help her with the sisterhood's newsletter.
I have done work with them in the past, and will forever refuse to do so again. After the Casino night I worked on for them, which included hundreds of dollars worth of work and laying out money to have things printed (which I was reimbursed for) I was not sent a thank you note, like the event volunteers were. I was also left off the shul listing of volunteers.
It wasn't intentional. It was an oversight. Even more ironic, I set up the mail merge for the thank you notes, I just never checked to see if I was on the list of people receiving the note.
And even though I do not need the recognition, I do need more than a warm thank you for that amount of work.
If you are running an organization or event, and you are asking professionals to volunteer their time and expertise, you need to treat us right.
At the very least, a thank you note. Inclusion in the newsletter or program, along with what we did, and perhaps our business name.
Otherwise, the next time you need great-looking print materials, you'll find yourself fighting with some desktop publishing piece-of-garbage software to try and get your materials to look good, and it will never look right.
posted by Air Time at 10:04 AM
13 Comments:
Why do I have a feeling that SW will have a lot to say on this matter?
He might chime in with something
he surely will. I've heard him gripe on this subject. Rightly so I may add.
FR5TJew -
I don't have a problem with that concept. I have done plenty of work with committees and groups without payment.
But I don't think it is asking too much for appreciation, especially if you are going to come back to me and ask me to work on another project.
I have done plenty of computer work for two organizations in detroit and was thanked heavily for it. Both of the organizations put me in the sponsors list for their major fund raisers. They insisted that the work I did was more useful then the money I could have given. I requested that they not put my name in the list and they refused to take it out. One group honored us at their annual breakfast when we made aliyah.
I enjoyed working for them, not because of the recognition, but because they were fun to work with and didn;t act like I owed them the work, but they were very appreciative.
Kudos to NCSY and machon l'torah
Mirty-
First, welcome to Air Time. I have enjoyed visiting Mirty's Place, particularly your posts relating to your religious journey.
I would add two things.
First, if you do have a project down the road that is a paying project, call you professional volunteers first and, if the quoted price is reasonable, don't see if you could do better.
Second, when you are asking someone to volunteer and do a specific job, don't automatically assume the person wants to be on the committee. Speaking for myself, I may be happy to design your print materials and deal with a printer to make sure the finished product is what you expected, but I am not that interested in the menu or other parts of the event. I will come to whatever meeting requires my attendance, but I generally don't want to sit through the caterer discussion, the decor discussion, or any of the details that don't pertain to my role.
Other helpful points are to define who the decision maker is (seems obvious but you would be surprised how often it is unclear), don't assume that just because I printed the materials means I want to stay up all night and stuff them in an envelope (I might do that, just don't take it as a given), and finally, don't dump off things that are related to what I do on me. Case in point, with the organization that I will not volunteer for again, they were supposed to supply me with an up to date mailing list so I could print up their labels. The list they gave me was three years old, and they needed me to go through and manually add new people and take away people who were not on the current list.
While I could have refused to do it, the program was already behind schedule and getting someone else to do that would have added days and ensured that the invitations would go out too close to the event.
Eight hours later the mailing list was clean, and shortly thereafter, and so were my hands from the organization.
that lesbian is a total ingrate.
i know other people who did volunteer work for her whom she hung out to dry in a somewhat similar dont-give-a-damn-about-you way. once again, the lesbian has earned her place as one of the top three most unpopular women in schul -- and im being generous.
and i only thought she was a man-hating, self-centered, self-righteous bitch, not to mention a control freak.
just ask some of the important board members about her attitude -- especially regarding 'her' sisterhood -- toward the schul, especially its male members and leaders.
thank god someone else, who is so much more of a mench and at least as capable and devoted to the schul, will begin running the sisterhood in a short time.
anyway, the lesbian is hardly part of the schul anymore anyway. and good riddance to the snitching excresance.
well, at laest I know who you are referring to when you keep bringing up the lesbian. Interesting, or perhaps disappointingly to you, she was not involved in this.
"Vchal mi sheoskim bzarchei zibur - Hakadesh Barush Hu yeshalem sechorom ..."
This phrase kept me going for three years volunteering for the thankless, agonizing, self-destructive shul in my old neighborhood. (better late than never)
Did you work today?
as the wise rabbis said, a fish stinks from the head.
go figure.
"Did you work today?"
I was in and out. Were trying to get me? Is that question even directed at me?
SW
Yes it was. I didn't see you around, so i thought you were probably working.
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