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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
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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
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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."
Contact:
Jaime Ulloa
Asociación Trabajo Voluntario
Calle Batallón Tarma 572 Dpto 402
Lima 33
Peru
Tel: +(51.1) 435-5948
Cell phone: +(51.1) 9995-0330
Email: Jaime@trabajovoluntario.org
Web site: www.trabajovoluntario.org
Freda Wolf de Romero was born in Aurora, Illinois. She studied anthropology at Barnard College (Columbia University) and Cornell University and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Lima. Coming from an amalgam of North American cultures, her special interests encompass Peruvian national culture, traditional Andean culture, and the interface of psychology and culture. She is married to a Peruvian dairy farmer, has two sons and has lived in Peru for more than 25 years. She works as a freelance writer and translator, is writing a novel, and is still trying to figure out Peruvian national culture.
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