At first I was excited to see this because it is great publicity and support for volunteerism. Then I thought it was a little awkward to be offering a reward/ incentive to volunteer- doesn’t that take away from the idea of being a volunteer if you are essentially paying them for the service with a ticket? However, I have had a few friends go through the program to get their ticket and they had the best reflection on the service- they were exposed to something different and new. They LOVED volunteering and made plans to return, and this time without the incentive. By the end of the day they felt a little guilty to be receiving the incentive, and were encouraged to continue serving sans incentive in the future. And isn’t that what this is truly about? Exposing the opportunities to people who may not otherwise consider it. Sure, there are people who will serve their alloted hours, take their ticket, and never return; however, the additional volunteers gained from this is still worth the overall program.

Maybe Rachelle and Sharon would rather Disney did not do this? You would rather if a million volunteers did not volunteer out of some sense that humans are depraved and therefore unworthy of being rewarded for good works?Why are we only allowed to reward people when they do things that do NOT benefit society as a whole? That’s not right, in fact its just plain stupid. That model is dead.It must have been difficult to find someone who hates such an obvious win-win. I’m not sure Sharon was worth quoting. Here is what she said:I find it wrong-headed to bribe people into “volunteering” by offering them a ticket to Disney if they do: http://bit.ly/cj2Zr6Talk about breadth and depth of insight.Ian Wilhelm – this is not Fox News. We do not need to search far and wide to find people who disagree with something just to be ‘fair and balanced’. Your article makes it seem that there’s a controversy here. There isn’t. There’s 1 tweet and 1 rant by a conservative from way back in October of 2009 who seems to have a problem with people doing good for any reason other than self-sacrifice. I’m here to tell you that self-sacrifice has gotten us exactly where we are today – many problems not solved. In fact not even getting close to being solved. Guilt-based sacrificing may work fine for the religious right, but it doesn’t seem to motivate a significant number of the rest of the population.On the other hand there are 1 million people who volunteered, were turned on to volunteering and who knows, maybe will continue, AND who got to go to Disney. Sounds like a big win to me. I notice you didn’t seek out any of those volunteers to see what they had to say.There is no controversy here. We don’t need to go out of our way to create one.

doesn’t everyone volunteer for some reason?…youth are asked to volunteer to prepare for college or receive honors…some are required to complete a certain number of hours. The important tranformative piece of volunteering lies in the reflection on the meaning of the experience and how the experience may impact one’s life. Often times, volunteering actually benefits the one doing “the service” more than those receiving a few hours of their time… As people are introduced through internal or external incentives to “volunteer” they may begin to develop a habit of giving of themselves to build upon the collective efforts for change.

What a short sided view of philanthropy and the role of honoring volunteers for their acts of kindness. Are all of those who participated tainted in their motives? Is there not an opportunity cost lost to Disney in not making a sale. Are they not forgoing profit in offering their value in order to help a good cause? I wonder if the purists, Schneider and Frieberg have ever claimed their charitable giving at the end of the year for tax purposes? Are they prepared to forgo that benefit for their good service and return all gain they have had in avoiding tax laiblity for the sake of purifying their service. Purity of motives in giving is a heart matter for the giver and not for us to judge. Apologies should be made to Disney and to the volunteers for questioning their acts of service.

Hi, all,The Mt. SAC Foundation recruited many volunteers for the Disney Program. I got so many responses, but I did get some great people from this program who later became interns for long-term so THUMBS UP TO DISNEY FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN!

We believe that this is an unprecedented opportunity for organizations. While the Give a Day, Get a Day may bring thousands to your doors with a plan to simply give “a day” – organizations can view this as a gateway to deeper involvement. With just a few strategic actions, organizations can make this an invitation to get more deeply involved. Disney’s efforts — and those of so many other corporations that have jumped on this bandwagon as well — bring people into an organization’s world, increasing its circle of influence and its potential reach. By gathering information on those “one day” volunteers, assigning existing volunteer leaders to find out what else motivates these people to volunteer (in addition to a day at Disney, of course!), and intentionally inviting them into a continued relationship, organizations can easily turn many of those individuals into volunteers who give many days. For more ideas and strategies on how to cultivate volunteers for deeper engagement, see http://www.JFFixler.com/blog

I am a member of two professional groups of Directors of Volunteers whose members work very diligently to support the concept of volunteerism with a “firm” commitment toward their organizations. My peers were very aware of the problems that the Disney campaign would create for those agencies that have a minimum hour volunteer requirement. The concept of a 1-day volunteer activity is difficult to support and so I attempted to be creative, join the site and list the “special events” that our organization would have during the year for the 1-day type community volunteer. I went as far as attempting to communicate with the Disney Day program to explain my concerns regarding the amount of response they would receive and to question what would be done when the maximum amount of nation-wide volunteers were confirmed. I wanted to know how they be addressing those volunteers who would be signing up for special events later in the year. I received a very insignificant response to my concern and now I have over 100 community volunteers who are waiting to participate in our events in May 2010 and who are no longer eligible for the Disney Day voucher. This has lead to frustration for the volunteers and I fear that a majority will no longer be interested in assisting with our upcoming events.Although I understand the need to “spark” volunteerism within our country, I find the organizations that chose to ignite volunteer interest without the benefit of consulting those professionals who have experience managing, recruiting, training and assigning volunteers in their organizations, undermine the quality of those efforts. Yes, we need to commend those volunteers who are coming forward for the first time and being generous with their efforts and hopefully they will continue to return to those organizations that they have been newly introduced to. I just feel that there are better methods of enhancing the idea of volunteerism in this country than a 1-day – 1-time approach.

I was a Give a Day Get a Disney Day Project specialist, meaning I recruited organizations that needed volunteers and were willing to follow specific guidelines as well as confirm volunteer service. As such, I saw several different aspects of this program. Overall, I think it did MUCH good. Every organization had at least a few volunteers who had not volunteered before, who planned to be return volunteers for the long term. I saw FAMILIES volunteering together, which was a specific goal of this program, and that was awesome to see, especially since it’s sometimes hard to find a family friendly opportunity with jobs for all age ranges.On the downside, I am sure it was necessary to have a database drive, computer/email dependent system to manage so many potential volunteers, but this made it difficult for some would-be volunteers and led to misunderstanding when the program reached the million vol mark and some people were caught “in limbo.” I had several parents say, “I don’t want my child to think you should get something in return for volunteering,” and I definitely understand where they are coming from. But on the whole I think volunteers deserve just a tiny bit of reward for their selfless hard work and I chose to view their Disney tickets as a sort of “karma payback” for the good they have done with no fanfare!