Transform Your Volunteer Appreciation: Become a Service Enterprise Organization
Often organizations that I have worked with and supported pre-COVID had a big volunteer appreciation event, but during the pandemic those events had to be put on pause, so organizations began to ask volunteers how they really wanted to be appreciated. Many said a simple and genuine thank you, to use their time well and to include them in the organization.
What better way to show volunteer appreciation than to invest in improving how your organization engages and supports them? During
Global Volunteer Month
, I encourage you to take a moment, pause and reflect on how your organization is engaging the skills, talents and time that volunteers are giving.
- Do you have opportunities for volunteers to serve throughout your departments or service lines your organization offers?
- Do you have volunteers and pro-bono services sprinkled throughout the organization chart?
- Does your organization’s culture embrace volunteers as a key resource for realizing your mission?
If your organization’s culture doesn’t yet have answers to these questions, start by exploring how your organization can participate in Points of Light’s
Service Enterprise Program
, run by
AL!VE
(Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement).
In addition to giving your volunteers a token gift and/or celebratory event, you can showcase all of the work your organization was able to accomplish due to their contributions, assure them that you are investing their time and talents in the most impactful ways, and that the organization recognizes and appreciates all that volunteers bring to the organization. This transformation doesn’t happen overnight, but with the help of our Service Enterprise Program, you can begin to evolve the organization’s culture through this change management process that helps nonprofit organizations effectively and efficiently leverage the time and talent of volunteers to help deliver their social mission.
We realize that you may have a great
volunteer engagement
program, but to take it to the next level, to truly integrate volunteer engagement into the organization culture, you are going to need more. Service Enterprise helps your organization through this change management process.
First, we facilitate a self-assessment research-based diagnostic and offer a debrief that will help your organization recognize the strengths and areas of opportunity that currently exist. Together, we select a team that will carry the organization through the change management process and bring together leadership, volunteer engagement professionals and more. The team attends training and has dedicated time and activities to focus on better engaging and supporting volunteers (and often all human capital) at the organization.
You will also join a network of peers working toward operating as a Service Enterprise. This network often shares resources and helps each other along the journey. Your Service Enterprise Trainer will provide you with additional coaching and support to meet unique needs and address challenges within your organization.
Imagine, at your next volunteer appreciation event or in your April 2024 newsletter, you’ll be able to tell your volunteers that you not only appreciate the way that they continue to lean in and fight for your cause by sharing their time and talents, but your organization has achieved the national volunteer engagement accreditation of Service Enterprise. As a Service Enterprise certified organization, they’ll know that their time is well invested when they spend it advocating for your mission.
To learn more about Service Enterprise or how to connect with volunteer engagement professionals across the country contact Kayla Paulson at
[email protected]
or (319) 310-0901.
Volunteer Engagement Professionals: Take Your Program to the Next Level
Service Enterprise
is now being operated by
Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE)
. As this program changes hands, Points of Light is partnering with AL!VE to ensure a smooth transition. This is part of a series of updates from AL!VE. This one comes from Service Enterprise Administrator Kayla Paulson and highlights the organization’s work with Service Enterprise.
There is something about the change of a calendar year that helps us reset, refocus and reflect on goals. That’s why
Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE)
is excited to be leading
Service Enterprise
— because it gives us the opportunity to help
Points of Light Global Network
affiliates, volunteer centers, commissions, nonprofits and community organizations maximize their
social impact
. This change management program empowers organizations to reach new heights in leveraging volunteers and their skills throughout the organization to achieve their social mission.
Almost 10 years ago, when I was part of the team piloting the national rollout of Service Enterprise by Points of Light one of the volunteer engagement professionals in my cohort reflected on the amazing improvements that she made at her previous organization and how things were on a positive trend when she left, but in her absence, they reverted to the old way. Her realization was that she changed her processes, policies and perspectives on volunteer engagement, but she didn’t get the organization to change its culture and the collective way it engaged volunteers. As volunteer engagement professionals we know how to reach volunteers, but sometimes we may try to convince ourselves otherwise — that no organization can have a highly effective and efficient volunteer engagement strategy if it’s solely the volunteer engagement professionals who believe in the power of volunteers.
Service Enterprise is that catalyst for fundamental organizational culture change. It brings together a cross-functional team that is committed to your organization’s mission and maximizing the human capital of the organization. To kickstart the effort, organizations take a multi-person independent self-assessment and debrief the results with a coach to help identify strengths and areas of opportunity, which shines a light on the areas most ripe for change. As a cross-functional team, which includes leadership and volunteer engagement professionals, you attend a multisession cohort-based training program that guides you through conversations and activities that are dedicated to changing the volunteer engagement culture within your organization. During the training and up to a year after, an accountability coach provides support in creating and completing an action plan that will ensure your organization follows through on the changes needed to influence the culture.
Change isn’t easy, but with research-based strategic improvements in your organization’s approach to volunteer engagement, you can have an impact that extends well beyond this calendar year and will have an exponential effect on your organization’s ability to deliver its social mission. If you want to learn more or even add Service Enterprise to your 2023 goals, check out
AL!VE’s website
or
watch this five-minute introductory video
that dives into the research behind the work as well as the 12 characteristics of organizations that operate as Service Enterprises. You’ll have the opportunity to connect with Service Enterprise Certified organizations, trainers and hubs at the ASC regional conferences this spring and the
Points of Light Conference
in Chicago this summer. You’re welcome to join an AL!VE social and informative sessions, or stop by the information booth. When you are networking at conferences, look for Service Enterprise stickers on name badges so that you can connect with top-tier volunteer engagement organizations. If you can’t make it to a conference, check out our map to find a training hub or certified organizations near you, and make 2023 the year you take your volunteer management program to the next level.
Points of Light Partners With AL!VE to Grow Service Enterprise
Service Enterprise
is now being operated by
Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE)
. As this program begins to change hands, Points of Light is partnering with AL!VE to ensure a smooth transition. This is the first in a series of updates from AL!VE. This one comes from Service Enterprise Administrator Kayla Paulson around the organization’s work with Service Enterprise.
It is exciting to be part of the Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE) and to help create the next progeny of the Service Enterprise Program. From the rich and collaborative infancy with Reimagining Service and California Volunteers to
Points of Light
nurturing Service Enterprise through the national pilot initiative and continuing to push forward the growth and research, build a vibrant network of hubs and make curriculum improvements, the program has been able to be housed with entities that are uniquely qualified to guide and support the program through its next stage. AL!VE’s national presence, partnerships and membership base uniquely position us to lead Service Enterprise with Points of Light’s support and continued guidance. Our existing national connections create opportunities to identify and develop new hubs along with our proven track record of providing training and technical assistance to leaders in the profession, demonstrating our ability to expand resources and support for hubs and participants. A direct connection to AL!VE members will create a pipeline of potential participants already seeking to enhance volunteer efforts and strategy at their organization.
How AL!VE is Uniquely Positioned to Operate Service Enterprise
AL!VE continues to listen to members and partners about the needs of volunteer engagement practitioners, changes in the sector, and potential services to further leadership development and develop programming to address these needs. We also plan to expand our offerings through various modalities that fit different styles of learning (e.g., presenters delivering training through AL!VE Academies, peer in-person or virtual learning through the Hybrid Conference, information sharing and peer coaching through Communities of Practice, and one-on-one leadership development through the mentor program). In the last annual member survey, all AL!VE programs received over 95% favorability for being important to member growth and development. Our program offerings and attendance continue to grow year over year, yet the key piece that we were missing was an organization-wide approach to volunteer engagement. Service Enterprise will fill that gap.
Many of AL!VE’s Board Members have been longtime advocates of Service Enterprise. I, personally, have been a trainer with a certified hub since the national pilot. Our Board President, Michelle Raymer, runs a certified state-wide hub. Past-President Megan Vixie took her organization through Service Enterprise achieving certification. We also have additional board members who are currently starting their organization’s Service Enterprise journey or have already achieved certification. AL!VE is not yet a Service Enterprise certified organization but has been focused on implementing practices and laying the foundation to position us to participate in the Service Enterprise program to become a certified organization. Our leadership and committed volunteers value the Service Enterprise process as well as achieving certification.
Looking Back at Service Enterprise
During Points of Light’s leadership tenure, Service Enterprise has transformed the culture of over 600 organizations across the country. AL!VE, with the support of Points of Light, will take this program to scale through expanded access, continuing to build on Points of Light’s momentum, creating a movement that captures the attention of nonprofit leaders, funders and stakeholders. With the support of our members and Service Enterprise hubs, we will empower Service Enterprise to be the game changer it was designed to be, breaking the cycle of scarcity so organizations can do more with more to meet our world’s most pressing needs.
“When we first started this work, we knew we were looking at the transformation of how an organization leverages a diversity of resources to build capacity. Over the following decade our re
search has consistently proven that nonprofits operating as a Service Enterprise can operate at a 50% decrease in revenues while achieving the same results as their peers
,” said Elizabeth Schwan-Rosenwald, Chief Program and Network Officer of Points of Light. “We chose AL!VE because they are uniquely positioned to take Service Enterprise to the next level.”
The AL!VE team is already beginning to transition the technology and systems over to AL!VE’s platforms and we have begun conducting listening sessions with hubs to ensure that we are taking a collaborative needs-based approach to creating additional infrastructure and support to empower more effective promotion and delivery of the program by the hubs. Initially, we are focused on creating a smooth transition for hubs and participants but will soon begin looking for philanthropic partners, subject matter experts and industry leaders to help us ensure program sustainability and accessibility.
“Service Enterprise aligns perfectly with AL!VE’s mission and values, and its national presence will allow for further promotion of the initiative within the field of volunteer engagement,” says member and Service Enterprise Trainer Lisl Hacker, Director of Training & Technical Assistance at Massachusetts Service Alliance. “They are also well respected and connected not only to their members but to other leaders and partners in the field, which will help move the program forward and bring further credibility. They have what it takes to evolve, implement and cultivate this transformative program.”
As trainers and participants of the hub network, we know that we need to update the curriculum for dynamic in-person, virtual or hybrid delivery models using inclusive language and designing an equitable approach to Service Enterprise, both for hubs and participants. We are committed to designing an equitable model that can help hubs identify and acknowledge the barriers which historically positioned some organizations from being able to participate and/or prevent equality in opportunity and acting to remedy this problem. We will work with DEAIJ (
diversity, equity, anti-racism, inclusion, and justice
) experts and plan to design an approach and resources that further empowers our hubs to tailor support, terminology and program delivery dependent on the type and severity of barriers faced and focus support to underserved communities.
We look forward to integrating Service Enterprise characteristics into our internal volunteer engagement practices at AL!VE and foster the development of the program to meet the needs of the nonprofit sector while honoring the dreams and practices that Points of Light has championed over the last 10 years. If you would like to explore how you can bring Service Enterprise to your community, help your organization begin its Service Enterprise transformation, want to help AL!VE create a vibrant and inclusive program, or just want to learn more about AL!VE
I would love to hear from you
.
