Know Your Own Bone

Photo from trendbouwers.nl

At first thought, personal branding and the strength of nonprofit organizations appear to have little to do with one another, if anything. However, the Nonprofit Time’s recent article, “Americans Cut Volunteer Time, Focus on Priorities” may hint indirectly at the existence of an inverse relationship between self-focused activities (personal branding is what comes to my mind) and volunteering in nonprofit organizations– at least for the time being.

The article indicates that, compared to last year, 72 percent of Americans report having cut back the time they spend volunteering and have focused their efforts on activities that fulfill more “inward” personal needs; activities that support themselves and their own families more than the community at large.

How is it possible that the number of volunteers may have decreased? Throughout the Summer, weren’t we all inundated with blog entries aimed toward the recently unemployed, encouraging them to volunteer to continue utilizing their skill sets?  There were even articles at the start of the recession touting an increase in volunteers.  Moreover, the idea of volunteering during a recession to make contacts and stay on top of your field seems to just make sense.

Though they could both be seen as vehicles for self-marketing during a rough time in the economy,  volunteering is the “outward” method (promoting yourself through aid to the community) and personal branding is the “inward” method.

I cannot imagine that people are sitting at home thinking, “I’m going to create a personal brand instead of volunteering this year!” At least I hope that the connection is not that strong. But I do think it’s interesting that, at a time when self-branding is so important, the “outward” method of doing so has decreased. As a side, I’d be interested to learn how much personal branding has increased in the last year. How much of that may be due to the recession– and for the same reasons that might have ignited an increase in volunteerism?

Does our need to “focus on priorities” right now really necessitate a decrease in civic engagement as the Nonprofit Times article suggests? Perhaps this is all about self-marketing, and personal branding just beat out volunteering as a self-marketing tool during the recession. This does not, however, account for the potential decrease in volunteers since this time last year.

It’s clear, though, that social networks are not the bad guy here. The study found that Millennials who use online social networks are more likely than non-users to volunteer, give food and money, and attend public meetings. Though it’s stated that the survey did not conclude that social networks alone promote more civic engagement, there’s certainly a fondness for the computer-savvy generation indicated in the article when David Smith states that, “what [Millennials willing to aid the community and having the highest volunteer rates] shows is that the youngest amongst us are truly this next greatest civic generation. They are coming to age in a very difficult time economically and globally.”

As a strong supporter of the power of personal branding, and an admittedly stronger supporter of civic engagement, I cannot help but wonder: would volunteering continue to increase during the recession (in large part due to it’s self-marketing power) if personal branding did not take off?