Blazing a Trail for Virtual Volunteer Opportunites
Who is at the heart of all wishes granted through the chapters of Make-A-Wish® America? The volunteers! For this month’s VolPro Member Spotlight, we are chatting with Lisa Brinkerhoff, CVA, CNP, the Director, Volunteer Engagement at Make-A-Wish® America, about how volunteers continue to pivot, finding new ways to connect and grant wishes for children battling critical illnesses.
Chelsey: Welcome Lisa! Tell me a little bit about Make-A-Wish America.
Lisa: Make-A-Wish has 58 chapters across the country that are granting wishes to kids in their local communities. Some states have more than one chapter and some chapters cover more than one state.
We know that for a child who’s facing a critical illness, a wish can be a game changer. We know that it’s going to provide them the hope that they need. That belief guides everything we do within our chapters and at the National Office.
Organizationally, last year we granted more than 12,000 wishes to kids across the country. We have more than 24,000 volunteers helping us with a wide variety of activities. I would say the most popular way that a volunteer gets engaged at Make-A-Wish is to help within the wish-granting process.
It looks a little different for each of our chapters, but essentially roles would include things like meeting with a wish kid and talking to them about their interests and what their wish might be. It could be sending birthday cards to wish kids. It could be building a play set or something similar depending on what that wish entails.
But we also know that meeting with a child who has a critical illness can be hard and it may not be the best fit for everybody. We also have opportunities for volunteers to speak on our behalf, help in the office, translate documents, work at a special event, and more.
Last summer, our wish-granting volunteers helped identify more than 3,500 wishes. That means that 3,500 kids went from being brand new to the organization to meeting with volunteers to discover their wish ideas. And now that we know those children’s wishes, our staff can start the wish-planning process.
Chelsey: How do the kids come to you? I would assume they’re referred through medical professionals or you know, counselor, social workers, people like that?
Lisa: Kids can be referred in three different ways. The medical professionals can put through a referral for a child, a parent/guardian or other close family member can submit a referral, or if a child is old enough, they can go onto our website and submit a referral for themselves.
All kids that are referred go through a process to determine eligibility. There are three pieces to becoming eligible for a wish. First, we grant wishes for kids between two and a half to 18. If you are older than that or younger than that, you unfortunately are not eligible for a wish with our organization.
Second, you cannot have received a wish from us or another wish-granting organization. The third piece involves working with the child’s treating medical team to confirm that the child meets our medical eligibility criteria.
Chelsey: Identifying 3,500 wishes over a summer is amazing! What goes into researching a wish and making it happen?
Lisa: Once a child is deemed eligible, volunteers will be assigned to meet with the child. Our volunteers spend time getting to know each child, learning what are their interests, what are their likes, what’s something they’ve always dreamed about, and more.
Our volunteers are trained in how to build a strong rapport with the child and to help discover their own wish ideas. Once they capture the child’s wish vision, the volunteers will connect with staff to begin the approval and planning process.
I must give credit to our staff across the country because in a single day they could get a wish for a trip to a Disney Park, a backyard playset, and a puppy. Our staff are truly the jacks and jills of all trades because they have to know how to plan all types of wishes.
After the planning of the wish is underway, volunteers are re-engaged for special boosts such as sending wish announcements to let the child know the wish has been approved or sending a treat or “thinking of you” gift.
Chelsey: How do chapters and national work together?
Lisa: Make-A-Wish is a federated nonprofit, meaning our local chapters have their own CEO and their own board of directors. The chapters approve and grant the wishes, and our team at the National Office provides guidance, best practices, and support as needed.
The National Office provides consistency and leans in, when necessary. In my position, I develop tools and resources for our chapters related to all facets of volunteer engagement. As an example, we were able to create a recruitment video this summer that chapters could then use at their discretion to recruit volunteers in their own local communities.
Chelsey: Working at a prior organization with a national arm, I found it comforting that there were those best practices in place and that there was some guidance in how to approach a project. It was definitely nice to have the support, and that continuity is good from the volunteer perspective.
How did you get into the field of leading volunteers and leading people that lead volunteers?
Lisa: I love sports. It’s one of the things that I just really enjoy. When I graduated, I worked in athletics for a junior hockey team and then several different college programs. I was looking for a chance to make a bigger difference in my community and there was an opening at a local Make-A-Wish chapter. I did a 180-degree career change and started managing volunteers at one of our local chapters.
A few months later, I accepted a role to lead the program team responsible for granting wishes and continued to manage the volunteer program. A few years later, I accepted my current role at the National Office advising our chapters on their volunteer programs. My journey to this career field was definitely interesting and wasn’t a normal pathway.
Chelsey: What’s the biggest challenge you see at Make-A-Wish right now with volunteerism?
Lisa: I would say the largest thing that we’re seeing across our organization is the impact of COVID on volunteers. Like so many nonprofits, we had a lot of volunteers that wanted to hold out for that return to normal.
One of the things that our organization learned over the pandemic is how can we all can work a little smarter, and how we can make changes that result in more wishes being granted. While they may have been difficult at the time, many of our chapters have made shifts for the better.
We’ve also realized that some of our volunteers may be hesitant about any change. I think the challenges we are facing are how to help volunteers understand the benefits of the changes that have been made, how to re-engage volunteers in our current needs and for the first time in a long time, how to recruit volunteers in the new post-pandemic world.
Chelsey: Well, I could see if you’re used to going out to meet children with a critical illness and then this global pandemic happens, what does that even look like? How did your volunteers pivot to zooming in to talk with children about their wishes and even getting a child to engage in conversation virtually?
Lisa: All wish visits were done virtually during the pandemic and many of our chapters have actually decided to continue conducting virtual visits. There are a lot of advantages to doing a visit virtually, right? These are kids who have a variety of medical conditions, many are immunocompromised, and so meeting virtually is a great option to keep them safe.
Was that shift challenging? Absolutely. We’re talking about volunteers who prior to March 2020 were used to getting on the floor and playing with a kid who quickly had to shift to interacting via a screen.
It was a big shift for many volunteers to be online all day for work and then to join a call with a wish kid in the evening, because the high energy they needed just wasn’t there. But while it was hard for our volunteers to shift to virtual visits, they embraced them and some people found they really liked meeting virtually.
Chelsey: Were you able to give the chapters ideas for how to run the meetings so it didn’t feel like they were filling out a business form and not so buttoned up?
Lisa: Our team released information on how to conduct a virtual visit, best practice guidance, and tools for success. We included things such as practicing to make sure your audio and video works, encouraging volunteers to wear their Make-A-Wish shirt, and to set fun Zoom backgrounds to help engage a child right from the start.
We even gave guidance on how to kick off a meeting with a child with tips like asking the wish kid 20 questions or asking them to show you something that represents themself. In return, our volunteers would show the child an item that was meaningful to them in order to build rapport.
The other thing that we did, which I think helped, is we encouraged our volunteers to schedule multiple meetings with the wish child. By encouraging them to connect multiple times – one meeting to get to know the kid and then another to really dive into the child’s wish ideas – it seemed to take some pressure off both the wish families and volunteers.
Pre-pandemic, our volunteers were very used to going into a home, meeting with the kid and leaving that meeting with everything they needed. By giving our volunteers the opportunity to meet multiple times with a child, it allowed both the volunteers and the families the chance to take things at a more comfortable pace.
Chelsey: I love that pivot because it also gives that kiddo more opportunities with the volunteer to get to know them a little bit better and build that trust, you know?
Lisa: Absolutely. With having the flexibility to have multiple sessions, the volunteers really get to know the wish kid. If the staff would ask volunteers to tell them about the child and how or why they landed on a particular wish, volunteers could do that. They spent the time to build that relationship with the child. But if you go in all business, all you are capturing is what is on a form…you’re not capturing any of the nuance behind it.
Chelsey: I would see that and maybe not getting at the heart of the wish, you know?
Lisa: We actually use that phrase often, what is the heart of the child. What is the why behind the child’s wish?
Chelsey: Even though we probably already could guess, what do you love most about your job?
Lisa: Naturally, I would say the wish kids, but I think another favorite part is when I can really strategize with our chapters. When I see them make a small change that’s really going to make an impact with their volunteers.
It might be conducting a volunteer survey; they see the results and now they’re implementing the feedback. I don’t get to meet most of our volunteers, I don’t get meet most of our wish kids, but the resources and the strategy that I can share with the chapters is how I can make an impact.
Chelsey: What advice would you give someone that leads volunteers?
Lisa: Years ago, I heard the now Secretary of Defense General Austin speak. He talked about being a good leader and what that means. Some days are going to be really hard and it’s going to be a challenge to be a good leader. But if you can leave work every day and confidently say “yes, I was a good leader,” then you know you’re on the right path.
So, my advice to anybody in the field is to think about that every day. Were you a good leader today? Did you do the best that you could today? Did you advocate for your volunteers? In my case, am I advocating for the volunteer staff at their local chapters? If the answers are yes, I can leave work knowing I was a good leader, I did my very best, and today was a good day.
Chelsey: That’s great! We all get so stuck in all the tasks and like getting things done and checking off the list and this and that. But it’s nice to be like, you know, I was a good leader today.
What would you say to someone about joining VolunteerPro?
Lisa: I have loved being a member of VolunteerPro. We have a team of two, and VolunteerPro was an opportunity to hear ideas from other non-profit leaders at various organizations. Not everybody is a national nonprofit like Make-A-Wish America. Some are very small, some are federated, some aren’t. I think it provides this incredible community that will meet you where you are.
You can sit in the background, which admittedly sometimes I do, and just listen to what people are saying. You can actively contribute if you want to share, which I also sometimes do. I also think that the resources that Tobi puts out are phenomenal. And honestly, any nonprofit, regardless of the size and regardless of a person’s tenure, could get something from it.
Chelsey: What keeps you busy outside of work?
Lisa: Beyond being a chauffeur for my kids, my family loves to be outside. We love camping and we all love hiking. Last year, as a challenge to myself, I decided to sign up for one of our chapter’s Trailblaze Challenge events. The event was a 26.3-mile, one day hike.
It was important for me to show my kids that you can do hard things, no matter your age. I spent several months training for the challenge which while physically demanding was also a good mental challenge – all while raising money for one of our chapters.
Chelsey: Lisa, it was such a joy to visit with you today. I love that you are willing to push yourself outside of your comfort zone to try new things and encourage everyone around you. Way to be a trailblazer!
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