Peggy Hoffman is president of Mariner Management & Marketing LLC, an association management company.  She twitters at @peggyhoffman and blogs at the Idea Center.

ASAE’s study Decision To Volunteer verified what we in associations knew intuitively — the vast majority of our members just weren’t interested in traditional leadership positions. The reasons are varied (too long a commitment, too much pressure, too much responsibility, not sure of the value) but the bottom line is the same, members aren’t clamoring to volunteer. But, the study also tells us something of great importance: that doesn’t mean members don’t want to volunteer. In fact, many members are volunteering (more than we had suspected!) but they are performing low-profile services such as mentoring, membership recruitment, technical writing, event hosting, and other short-term roles. Turns out that nearly 60% of members choose these “under-the-radar” roles.

In our associations, we’ve been exploring this adhocracy model. Our approach is to break big positions (like newsletter editor) into narrower roles (like event reporter, event photographer).

One of the best examples of how an adhocracy works — and the value of it — was seen at ASAE’s 2009 Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada. The workforce for the meeting swelled to large numbers when you added in the all the ad-hoc volunteers. Nearly all of the learning labs (120 in total) were prepped and presented by ad-hoc volunteers. First-time CEOs were assigned ad-hoc volunteer ambassadors. The live-stream and Twitter stream that captured the event came from ad-hoc volunteers. And a team of 5 ad-hoc volunteers created a pool of video blogs — check out Amanda Bateson’s work.

What really wowed me about the adhocracy behind the conference was that it drove the community at the conference. And, it extended the reach of the conference well beyond the walls of the convention center (there was a post using the conference hashtag as recently at Oct. 13!).

What also was a “wow” was the way members responded to the call for volunteers. Jennifer Williams who coordinated the first-time CEO attendees ambassadors turned away volunteers!

So what spurred them on?

Jeff De Cagna was prompted to jump in and provide the video-stream because he felt a certain sense of responsibility to v-attendees, especially those people who couldn’t make it to #asae09 because of the economy. He had experience video-streaming from another conference and figured it would be a way he could contribute. He says, “no one told me I could do it, and no one told me I couldn’t. I just did it, and I’m really pleased it worked.”

Deirdre Reid answered an email request and became a table moderator for a session. It was nice to have “a drive-by role” after which she could be done with it — allowing her to help and have fun in the process.

For Lindy Dreyer, SAE 09 was a transition time. She went from a ad-hoc volunteer to an appointed volunteer as she accepted her first section council appointment. But her eyes were perhaps a little brighter when you asked about her ad hoc roles. She had two roles — one co-presenting with Jeff Cobb on a session designed by the professional development council. The council actually contacted her through her role in the association blogging community. The other role is an open volunteer with the tech council on RUTI, (the beta online community for ASAE) – a role she calls a “labor of love.” Bottom line her motivation is driven from relationships.

Brian Costanzo, Entrepreneurs’ Organization, offered an interesting counter point in his decision about being an ad-hoc volunteer in that he reflected on the money it saves ASAE when they can draw on members as presenters. So while it was about the value to him (opportunity to share and he likes public speaking) it was equally about the greater good (fits another finding from ASAE’s Decision To Volunteer).

Where’s the value for associations in cultivating this ad-hoc volunteerism? Well another ASAE ad-hoc volunteer Maddie Grant summed it up: “So I would say perhaps my role as a volunteer has followed a fairly predictable trajectory where participating in small ways got me involved and wanting more. My work now is all about building community and I truly think there’s no better way to do that than getting people involved in a million small ways, thus giving them ownership in the whole system.”

The lesson from ASAE 09 is enable, encourage and support member involvement is narrowly defined jobs to (1) create great content, (2) extend your reach, (3) build loyalty and (4) develop the next generation of leaders.

Related Posts:

• Association Membership Remixed
• 3 views of volunteering
• Fix My Chapter – Please
• Get your committees off life support
• Headed to ASAE in Toronto