Volunteering Drives Development and Upward
Mobility
By Freda Wolf de Romero
Social entrepreneur Jaime Ulloa is
building Peru's first extensive system for volunteering.
His organization, Asociación Trabajo Voluntario
(Volunteer Work Association), encourages individuals,
citizen organizations and business corporations to
donate time and
 Jaime
Ulloa |
resources
that will raise the quality of life and bridge social
gaps that are hobbling this country.
Peruvians are struggling. The popularity of Peru's
President Alejandro Toledo has dipped to six percent as
his government is beset with scandals and is trying to
quell violence from rebel, terrorist groups and drug
trafficking groups.
Most Peruvians work hard for the barest survival
necessities. Despite a recent uptick in economic growth,
at least 55 percent of Peru's population lives below the
poverty line.
About half of Peruvians earn just US$2 per day and
some 13 percent live in conditions of extreme poverty.
Eating one meal a day and completing even the primary
school years are beyond the realistic expectations of
many children in Peru.
Children at the Hogar Santa Maria orphanage watch a
puppet show put on by volunteer puppeteers
Peru's government provides virtually no social
benefits beyond limited, low-cost medical aid and even
more limited pre-school daycare services. There is no
government unemployment insurance nor welfare.
Unemployment is high and wages are low.
An Engine for Development,
Upward Mobility
Trabajo Voluntario is creating
pathways for development and upward mobility in Peru by
applying business strategies to the development of a
system that recruits volunteers and supplies them to
citizen groups that need help. The system relies heavily
on a Web site and corporate volunteering
programs, plus donations of time and resources from
individuals, organizations and businesses.
In the long run,
Trabajo Voluntario is envisioned as the beginning of a
large-scale and continuous investment in the social
capital of Peru, a vertical social and economic
dynamic to raise the general level of the quality of
life and development in Peru and in Latin
America
Building large-scale citizen
participation in volunteer activities helps address some
of Peru's most pressing needs. Peruvian volunteers
provide a wide variety of services from creating and
refurbishing orphanages, schools and public hospitals to
providing specialized skills in areas such as public
relations, management, strategic marketing, fundraising,
and organizing events.
People enjoy volunteering because "it gives them a
sense of satisfaction in helping others, of giving back
something to society," Ulloa said.
Getting
something to grow is hard work: volunteers planting in
the Sagrada Familia Community, looking over the dunes of
Ventanilla, in the Lima area
"It also takes people out of home and work settings,
and adds a new dimension to one's life. We live in a
country with huge problems; volunteering makes us feel
part of the longed-for solution."
Even in the short run, everyone benefits from
volunteering, Ulloa argues. Individuals and corporations
feel good about helping society and citizen
organizations receive the expertise and resources they
need to deliver services and do effective functioning.
And in the long run, volunteering seeds large-scale and
continuous investment in Peru's social capital.
Building on a Tradition of
Volunteering
Fortunately, there is already a
culture of volunteering in Peru. One of every three
Peruvians volunteers in some way, usually for a short
period of time, every year.
However, many people do not consider "volunteer" to
be a part of their personal identity, and volunteer
activities tend to lack visibility and visible results
throughout the country. The popular image of volunteers
often assumes they are upper middle class, middle-aged
women who work through religious organizations or
provide medical services.
Teamwork: One, two, three, heave ho! Moving fertile
earth to make a green area at Sagrado Familia, a young
community on a sand dune in the Lima area.
But the reality is that people of all ages and social
classes volunteer in Peru. Volunteering is well
developed in communities with fewer economic resources
where it is based on traditional patterns of reciprocity
and working in a group. Still, many people who feel the
urge "to do something to help" are at a loss to know
where or how to begin, Ulloa said.
Combining Business Savvy and
Altruism
Ulloa's vision for a network that
matches volunteers to citizen organizations for maximum
social impact grew out of Ulloa's experiences early in
his career. He implemented a highly-successful social
marketing campaign for Backus and Johnston, one of
Peru's largest food and beverage companies, where he
held an executive position in sales and distribution.
Ulloa took leave from his job and traveled to the
University of Pennsylvania in the United States to study
English. At the same time, he volunteered to work at an
after-school program and a senior citizens group in
Pennysylvania where he began to truly understand the
value of volunteering activities.
Motivated by his experiences in Pennsylvania and
equipped with the business skills and extensive
experience he had acquired at Backus, Ulloa founded the
Asociación Civil Trabajo Voluntario world in October
2000 with a group of four like-minded friends. They had
undergraduate degrees in industrial engineering or
management and worked in the corporate sector for
Backus, Lucent Technologies, IBM, BancoLatino and
Procter & Gamble.
Trabajo Voluntario founders (left to
right) Jaime Ulloa, Ricardo Braschi, Daniel Duharte, and
Pedro Gonzalez-Orbegoso.
His co-founders worked part-time on Trabajo
Voluntario and kept their other jobs, but Ulloa made the
difficult decision to quit his job in August 2001 and
committed himself full-time to his idea. Together they
conducted research, talking and emailing with an
extensive network of friends and contacts.
"We learned a lot about organizations, procedures to
institutionalize and types of volunteering, and in the
process we extended our vision," Ulloa said. A
consultant with McKinsey & Co., a leading business
management consultancy, referred Ulloa to Ashoka, which
elected him a fellow in January 2002.
"Just filling out the forms for Ashoka helped me
organize my ideas to make long-term plans for the next
two or three years," he said. "Later, I got to know
other social entrepreneurs, exchange ideas, and hear
other points of view. From there things really got
going."
Applying Social Networking
Technology
VolunteerMatch in San Francisco
served as a basic model for Trabajo Voluntario's Web
site, as did volunteer organizations in other countries.
The co-founders distilled the best ideas from these
organizations to create a system that would most
effectively serve Peruvian needs.
Trabajo Voluntario got a boost when 2001 was declared
the International Year of Volunteers by the United
Nations. In February 2001, the Web site was launched, bringing a wide
assortment of volunteer opportunities to any individual
or citizen organization that can find their way to an
Internet-connected computer.
Trabajo Voluntario's Web site
Nearly all residents of Peru's large cities have
access to a computer. Computer parlors are everywhere,
sometimes several to a block, and they charge as little
as the equivalent of 35 American cents for an hour of
computer use.
In its first week, the Web site recorded 500
subscribers, and it now services more than 18,000
subscribers. More than 7,000 subscribers have
participated in volunteer services.
Targeting: Individuals,
Organizations, Corporations
Trabajo Voluntario works at several
levels of Peruvian society by providing higher
visibility for the volunteer sector, training, and
encouraging a social dynamic that gives upward mobility
to volunteers. It provides individuals with the
motivation, information, and training they need to be
volunteers.
Citizen organizations receive help in recruiting
volunteers and
Refurbishing a playground in Hogar Santa
Maria, an orphanage for 150 children in Villa
Maria del Triunfo, on the outskirts of Lima |
staff training in
the management of volunteer programs and volunteers.
Trabajo Voluntario helps corporations develop and
maintain their own volunteering programs.
Potential volunteers – either individuals or
corporations who want to provide access to their
employees – register on the Web site and indicate the
types of activity they want to participate in. Citizen
organizations register and post their needs for
volunteers, with time requirements and schedule options.
Trabajo Voluntario forwards information about
potential volunteers to the relevant citizen
organizations. It also provides training and orientation
services for the employees of corporations that want to
volunteer to enhance their performance and ensure that
the maximum benefit accrues to both the volunteer and
the organization for which they volunteer.
Bridging Corporate and Social
Sectors
Corporations are a mainstay of the
Peruvian economy. While small and informal businesses
provide nearly 85 percent of jobs, the corporate sector
– including industries such as mining, fishing, and
corporate agribusiness – generates export earnings that
help stabilize the economy and maintain growth. It draws
employees from the most educated members of the
populace.
For these and other reasons, Trabajo Voluntario's
founders look to corporations as a large and
well-organized segment of society that can serve as an
engine for social change in their communities. Trabajo
Voluntario has been encouraged in this direction by
foundations that support it, such as the Avina and W. K.
Kellogg foundations, which emphasize that encouraging
corporate social responsibility will help bridge the
corporate world and social sector.
"They helped us realize that we should not stop at
just looking for more and more volunteers, but should
also foster a culture of social responsibility among
Peruvians," Ulloa said. "We've learned a lot of lessons
along the way, and have developed ideas about how to
accelerate geometrically."
Peru's business sector is beginning to embrace
corporate social responsibility. Trabajo Voluntario's
philosophy is that the best way to support this trend is
by encouraging it to take root and grow among the
employees within a corporation, rather than being
imposed by requirements from the outside.
A
Backus company volunteer teaches a theater class in
Ciudad de los Niños, a large orphanage run by Capuchin
Franciscan monks. The children will present the play on
the same day.
Trabajo Voluntario launched a program to foster and
facilitate corporate volunteering during the second half
of 2002. "After the first 18 months of executing
projects and trying to involve more companies, we had a
dozen companies-mining companies, plumbing pipe
manufacturers, mass distributors of goods, beverages
manufactures," Ulloa noted. "We are aiming for 20
companies by the end of 2004."
One of the biggest challenges large companies face is
how to keep employees engaged and highly motivated. They
are finding that social volunteering helps their
employees feel there is a larger purpose to their lives
than financial or commercial goals.
More and more, volunteering is being perceived as an
antidote to the "ivory tower" syndrome, especially for
more senior executives. Businesses benefit when their
executives get out of the office and talk to employees.
Contact with the outside world reaps other benefits
for corporate managers who are otherwise preoccupied
with reconciling the various, and often conflicting
demands of a multitude of stakeholders and special
interests. These experiences builds leadership
qualities, awareness of social issues, and the needs and
characteristics of different socioeconomic groups that
are potential markets for a company.
Volunteer activities also create opportunities for
communications and interactions that would not otherwise
occur within a company because they tend to be more
horizontal than vertical, which creates fragmented
"islands."
All
115 volunteers from the Backus company in Ciudad de los
Niños, an orphanage for 500 children
"A company can spend US$10,000 on a Labor Day lunch
to promote integration among their employees, but then
everyone sits at tables with their everyday peers,"
Ulloa notes. "In a volunteering situation, besides
helping others, people from different professional
levels and divisions get to know each other and are
provided with an opportunity to learn intangible
leadership skills, such as persuasion and mediation.
"Without their job titles or recognised status, they
have to earn the trust and respect of those around them
– what is called 'permission leadership.'"
Training: Key to Success
Over time, Trabajo Voluntario has
developed today a complete set of training courses
targeted at different audiences, some of which are
unique, such as those that help to professionalize
citizen organizations. Ulloa notes that many social
leaders are not administrators, despite the fact that
managerial skills are required for an organization to
have social impact. "We realized early on that volunteer
programs didn't lack the people needed to achieve social
impact – lots of people are attracted to volunteer, " he
said. "What was lacking were management skills that a
nonprofit needed to make effective use of volunteers.
"At first, we weren't focused on training either the
social leaders who direct and manage nonprofits, nor the
volunteers – but it turned out to be necessary if we
wanted to achieve our long-term goals." Trabajo
Voluntario tackled this problem by partnering with
Corporacion Simon de Cirene, a Chilean nonprofit
specialized in social management.
Trabajo Voluntario training session for
managerial skills held in a parish hall
Last year, they provided a three-day training
workshop in management techniques for some 60 social
leaders, many of them managers and directors of citizen
organizations. In addition to management training,
several social entrepreneurs and leaders discussed
possible partnerships with other participants, and
expanded their own views. This workshop will be offered
again this year with some added components targeted at
business people who want to apply their management
skills to volunteer activities.
Trabajo Voluntario also gives an introductory seminar
to volunteers to orient them to the concept of
volunteering. It gives them an idea of how to maintain a
constructive attitude and what they can expect from the
experience.
Walking the Walk
From its birth, Trabajo Voluntario
has aspired to be self-supporting. Beyond the grants it
receives, it generates revenues from the training
programs and by providing services to corporations.
Eventually, it plans to be a self-financed organization.
By reaching out to businesses from its early days,
Trabajo Voluntario has gained the support of
corporations and individuals who provide volunteer
assistance – showing that Trabajo Voluntario practices
what it preaches. Some businesses have made in-kind
donations or have provided important strategic and
tactical inputs that have helped broadening the concept
of Trabajo Voluntario.
Volunteers from Minera Yanacocha plant a field of
maize at Aldea San Antonio, a state orphanage in
Cajamarca
For example, the technology company Asix, provided
the Web site free of charge and continues to update it.
Other companies have donated office equipment, printing
services, and publicity banners to use at events.
Individuals have helped in the conceptualization and
startup stage by contributing professional know-how to
the development and smooth running of the organization,
handling relations with volunteer organizations, doing
probono graphic design, and more. These contributions
have allowed Trabajo Voluntario to offer more
volunteering opportunities in graphic design, market
research and other services.
Even Trabajo Voluntario's staff is largely volunteer,
making it as volunteer-dependent as the organizations it
seeks to help. There are just "two-and-a-half" paid
staff, who help provide continuity and growth.
Making Society and
Individuals Humane
Trabajo Voluntario is still a young,
evolving organization, but already the benefits of a
strengthened volunteer sector are obvious. Volunteers
have helped build new infrastructure for communities,
and made institutional settings, such as orphanages,
more cheerful.
For example, in one 50-bed orphanage dormitory, a
volunteer group helped each child decorate and
personalize the wall above his bed. This kind of
involvement goes a long way toward fostering a greater
sense of self-worth among a society's most vulnerable
people.
Ulloa
and friends at the Ciudad de los Niños orphanage with a
member of a group of university students who volunteer
on a regular basis
A longer-term impact is that volunteering is catching
on now in Peru, particularly corporate volunteering. "A
lot of companies have repeated the program, with Trabajo
Voluntario, or on their own," Ulloa said. "Most people
find out about our service by word of mouth, and of
course, our business customers and partners spread the
word. We also do a lot of direct marketing."
Trabajo Voluntario plans to scale-up its program to
the national level by creating volunteer support centers
in each of Peru's municipal area. Ulloa is consumed with
the greater goal of spreading social responsibilty in a
way that makes Peru's citizens more humane.
"Volunteering does not necessarily foster social
responsibility in the sense of making people different
in their work or home situation," he notes. "There is no
guarantee a person will not go home after a day of
helping others and mistreat his or her spouse or
children. Work has to be done on extrapolating the
behavior learned in volunteering to other spheres of
peoples' lives, and Trabajo Voluntario is aiming in that
direction."
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