Echo Food Shelf

By: Shayla Schumacher and Mason Vlaanderen

 Each month it Deisy De Leon
distributes roughly Esqueda is the
Started in 1981 in a
160,000 lbs. of manager and
church basement
food to 1700 seems to do a little
households bit of everything

(ECHO Food Shelf, 2014).

ECHO Structure
Warehouse Store Front
 Receive food from vendors  Greet clients
 Unload and sort food in  Following procedures
appropriate locations
 Assist clients in food orders
 Stock food
 Restocking shelves
 Bag produce
  Most volunteers at ECHO are a result
of mandatory volunteering
 This includes international student's
cultural distribution hours, Church of the
Latter-Day Saints missionaries, class
requirements, and other volunteering
requirements for scholarships.
 To assist these volunteers...
Volunteers  ECHO has created a system with easy
to use software that efficiently logs
volunteer hours.
 This ensures that the volunteers receive
credit for their work while also allowing
ECHO to monitor the number of
volunteers
  Mandatory Volunteerism

 Requiring someone (often a student) to volunteer for

a certain number of hours in order to receive a

The Issue
reward (such as a scholarship)

 It's an oxymoron to receive compensation for

volunteer work

 This can result in lower qualities of customer service

and overall productivity
Benefits and Drawbacks
Benefits
 Provides nonprofits with an abundance
of volunteers
 Requires people to become more
involved in their communities
 Increases awareness around social
issues
 It can encourage people to look for
future volunteering opportunities (if
they have a positive experience)
(Henney, et al. 2017).
Drawbacks
 It can result in lower quality of work
 Breaches altruistic nature of
volunteering
 Can hurt the reputation of the
organization
 It can discourage people to look for
future volunteering opportunities (if
they have a negative experience)
(Sparks, 2013).
 At ECHO...

 There is a difference in quality of customer service

between those who are required to be there and those
who choose to be there.

 Those who are there by choice are more active and

dedicated to giving the clients the best experience

 Those who are required to volunteer are not as

dedicated or engaging
 This includes...
 Staff
 Clients
 Local businesses, churches, and community organizations

 After talking with Deisy and some of the volunteers, we concluded that
mandatory volunteering is affecting ECHO's reputation with its stakeholders

 ECHO's donors expect quality service and standards

 Their affiliation and assistance to ECHO is dependent on ECHO's reputation
 This can be affected if the volunteers don't exemplify ECHO's dedication to the client
 Introduce performance evaluations at ECHO
 These reports would benefit both ECHO and the
volunteers

 It helps improve productivity and efficiency within the

organization
 It can benefit the volunteers by providing them
constructive feedback on how to grow and develop
 Can also increase motivation within ECHO and create
a stronger sense of unity among the volunteers
Research shows that "providing
feedback to volunteers can
potentially maximize Conducting performance
the benefits of volunteer evaluations can help keep the
performance and help them community involved indefinitely
remain motivated to serve the
organization” (Rose, 2016).
 Set up meetings with Deisy to create a short
performance evaluation form for mandatory volunteers
 Contact International Student Services at MSU to
discuss the possible addition of performance
evaluations
 ECHO Food Shelf. (2014). Retrieved from echofoodshelf.org
 Henney, S. M., Hackett, J. D., & Porreca, M. R. (2017). Involuntary volunteerism: what
happens when you require people to “do good?”. Retrieved from journnals.sfu.ca
 Rose, A. (2016). Performance evaluation of volunteers. Small Business –
Chron.com, Retrieved smallbusiness.chron.com
 Sparks, S. (2013). Community service requirements seen to reduce
volunteering. Education Week. Retrieved from edweek.org