side-links.jpg
|
Case Study #5
The US Government
|
| |
THE GOAL:
Help George H.W. Bush’s administration
increase volunteerism though the
“Thousand Points of Light” program by
understanding the underlying emotional needs
that reward and connect volunteers to
volunteering.
|
|
|
|
| |
Insight: Nearly every person who volunteered to help others in need had a deeply felt experience in their past that led to a present day compensation. This compensation allowed them to deal with their own fears and anxieties.
BENEFIT: Working with someone less fortunate gives the individual the opportunity to resolve their own feelings of helplessness. The unconscious and more profound benefit is helping the self; the more conscious benefit is helping another.
Advertising: The advertising always had a dual focus; on the needy person but more importantly also the volunteer. The tag line: “Do something Good. Feel something Real” is a powerful summation of the conscious and the unconscious connection to volunteerism.
Finally, the work also resulted in a blueprint for the Points of Light Foundation’s continuing efforts across the country. Fifteen years later the foundation’s work is guided by this research.
One-on one interviews with volunteers. A key tool was the Storytelling exercise that uncovered the impetus for volunteering. These interviews were extremely heartfelt and at times both sad and uplifting to observe.
For example: A woman talked about herself as a young girl who had a bother who was blind. As a child wit limited capacity to understand a handicap, she felt guilty that she could see and that he could not and that she could not “fix” her brothers eyesight.
She was marked by her inability to restore her brother’s sight when they were children. As an adult, she volunteers with blind children as a way to compensate for her own feelings of helplessness and guilt as a child.
|
|
|
|
 |
