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.
Volunteer Management Best Practices: Tips for Your Nonprofit
Your
nonprofit organization
may see tens, hundreds or thousands of
volunteers
come through your doors. Depending on the number of paid staff members you have, managing volunteers can become tricky. After all, you’re juggling different schedules, personalities and needs, all while trying to increase volunteer turnout at your organized events. Points of Light is here to help. That’s why we’ve put together these volunteer management best practices to
equip your nonprofit
with tips and tools for managing volunteers efficiently and effectively.
Lead Volunteers Through Challenges
Whether you’re addressing volunteers one-on-one or in groups, as a leader you’ll need to know how to well…lead, whether you’re navigating different
personalities
or situations. In times of crisis or
disaster response
, this skill is particularly crucial because your volunteers are champions of your mission and want to know how to support your efforts.
Empower Your Volunteers
Empower those volunteers who have
leadership potential
. Many of these individuals may be looking for ways to spread their wings and use their skills. Recognizing the qualities of “
social intrapreneurs
” can help you identify which volunteers you’d like to spend a little more time mentoring and offering new opportunities to grow at your organization.
Leverage Social Networking
Rallying volunteers for your planned events and encouraging donors to use their
purchase power
for good takes a lot of effort. In these times, when
social media
reigns supreme, nonprofit marketing doesn’t have to rely on internal staff alone. Call on your supporters and volunteers to spread your message, like promoting your annual toy drive or
Family Volunteer Day
.
Look to Skills-based Volunteers
For clear, consistent marketing, you’ll need to take the time to
establish your mission,
find your voice
and hone all of your external communication into a cohesive and unified effort. If you don’t yet have a marketing liaison or team to strategize around your content, consider establishing positions for this effort alone. And if you don’t have the capacity or budget, consider engaging a
skills-based volunteer
to take on this responsibility.
Recognize Your Volunteers
Feeling appreciated is integral to volunteer engagement, so make a plan for how to
show your volunteers some love
. Nominate them for a
Daily Point of Light Award,
which honors volunteers who are driving real and sustained change in their communities, or become a certified organization that offers the
President’s Volunteer Service Award
to help recognize your most exceptional volunteers based on annual hours served.
Build Trust Among Volunteers, Communities and Donors
Finally, your organization’s efforts amount to little if you don’t receive buy-in from all parties involved. Whether you’re working with
families
who want to volunteer together,
communities
that rely on your organization’s people power or
donors
who help keep your lights on, you’ll need to build trust among your stakeholders.
Two key activities can help with this effort:
listening and learning
from your stakeholders and communicating openly with them. First, you’ll need to understand the interests, challenges and values of each group, then address them with authenticity and transparency. Ensure that you have ongoing dialogue with all parties involved in your organization. Seek to understand where they’re coming from, and consider how you can bridge any gaps in trust through communication about your efforts.
Family Volunteering Insights for Small Organizations
We interviewed 1,000 participants of organizations with under $1 million in revenue
to understand how to encourage schools and
nonprofits
to engage families in
volunteer activities
. We wanted to know how to create programs that work for families, how to recruit families to participate and how to make it easy – and fun – for them to volunteer.
Here’s what we heard from project coordinators we surveyed about how to engage families and young people in volunteer efforts:
Include Youth Voices When Planning Family Volunteering Opportunities
Talk to young people about why volunteering matters. Let their excitement help make it a family priority. Let them describe what they’re doing, and explain how they’re having an impact.
Communicate Via Multiple Methods Well in Advance With Reminders
Send an email and a text. Remind volunteer families several weeks before, a week before, a day before and the day of. People are busy, and reminders help ensure they fulfill their intention and their commitment to volunteer. If you can, keep your events at the same time of year to make it easy for families to plan and stay engaged year after year.
Create a Family-friendly Environment
Ensure families know that children of all ages are welcome. Make plenty of age-appropriate activities available and create opportunities for little ones to help. Provide kid-friendly refreshments, too.
Reward Volunteers
Create incentives for your volunteers to want to come back, and share the impact they’re having. Offer student volunteers extra hours if they bring parents, or feature students with families who volunteer on social media.
Start Early, Plan and Be Organized
Make sure people feel as if their time is being used well. If they have a great experience, they’re more likely to return. Some organizations don’t have a lot of success doing several small family volunteer events throughout the year in cities where there are so many competing interests. However, doing an “end of the year” project, for example, where students get to show off their work and win prizes, combined with the group volunteering experience, often results in higher attendance and participation each year.
Family and youth volunteer projects are so impactful, and getting them right makes a huge difference for families and for the people and organizations who benefit from their service.
Download the full
Small Organization Family Volunteer Insights
.
7 Tips for Managing Volunteers
Volunteering is often painted as a rosy prospect — you don’t typically hear people acknowledge the challenges that can come along with bringing a variety of personalities together. The truth is, managing volunteers can involve managing conflict resolution and people with different perspectives. Understanding who your volunteers are can help you assign them to the right task on the project so they can have the best chance of personal success and compatibility with you and other volunteers. Some volunteers want to lead, some want to socialize, some pay attention to details, and others are compassionate and dependable.
You may also encounter volunteers who are headstrong, who aren’t actively involved or who might complain excessively. When dealing with volunteer groups, you are almost guaranteed to encounter clashing personalities at some point. Just remember to treat every individual with dignity and respect, and use these tactics to help navigate any problems that come up.
4 Tips for Conflict-Resolution When Managing Volunteers
When dealing with conflict from or between volunteers, here are some quick strategies to manage the issue effectively.
- Talk openly and professionally with your volunteer to try to mitigate the problem.
- Consult with another staff person or volunteer leader who can troubleshoot with you on ways to resolve the problem.
- Document any incidents immediately, and contact a supervisor if you do not feel you can resolve the problem.
- If the project is taking place at a partner organization or school and a client/student of that partner organization is causing the problem, consult with the organization/school contact immediately. Keep in mind that the organization/school is responsible for managing the clients/students. You are responsible for managing the volunteers.
3 Ways to Manage Challenging Volunteers
It is important to recognize and know how to deal with challenging volunteers. You can’t simply ignore the problem and expect it to go away. If you do, the circumstances may affect other volunteers and their experience, and may influence them negatively.
Here are three ways you can deal with challenging volunteers:
- Ask them to play a leadership role in solving the problem. Doing so allows you to determine whether or not the challenging volunteer is willing to step up and help lead everyone toward a solution, or if they just want to complain about the situation.
- Assign them to a volunteer “partner” to help address their specific issue(s). If they don’t want to help resolve the situation, assigning a volunteer partner to work with them may be the next best strategy for controlling an otherwise negative influence on the project. The one-on-one attention that an assigned volunteer partner (who has been fully briefed by the project leader) can offer a challenging volunteer will likely diffuse their complaints.
- In very rare instances, it is necessary to ask a volunteer to leave if their behavior is too disruptive or inappropriate. This should be a last resort and only used when no other strategies are proving effective or the success of the project is threatened.
If you’re a volunteer coordinator or leader at your organization, remember that managing volunteers – even the challenging ones – can be done with the right leadership and techniques. If you approach a challenging situation like a puzzle, you can begin to find ways to show your volunteers how opposite personalities can complement each other if they try to understand the other’s perspective.
3 Ways to Leverage Volunteer Leaders to Build Capacity
There are many factors that influence the number of volunteers you should plan to have involved with your organization’s service projects, including budget, supplies and space. However, if the barrier to hosting a larger project is staffing, it’s time to think differently about how you manage projects.
Leveraging volunteer leaders is a great way to increase the size and scale of your projects while also building your organization’s capacity and community impact. As you explore adding volunteer leaders to your projects, consider these three ways to make the most of volunteers who want to impact their communities as well as your own organization’s capacity opportunities: .
1. Create a Position Description
It’s important to know what you’re looking for in a volunteer leader and which role you want them to play. What experience do they need to have? Do they need to be comfortable with public speaking? Should they have a specific skill or certification? Be clear on the profile you’re targeting when searching for volunteer leaders, as well as their roles and responsibilities, and then capture the details in a position description.
2. Recruit Volunteer Leaders Strategically
Sometimes you need to look no further than your existing network of volunteers to find great leaders. Most of us have that group of rock star volunteers who bring a lot of energy to projects, demonstrate great leadership and are dependable. Let these volunteers know that you recognize their contributions to your organization by sharing the opportunity with them.
Consider other ways to recruit volunteer leaders:
- Post the position on your website.
- Promote the position on your organization’s social media channels.
- Reach new potential volunteers by posting the position on Points of Light’s volunteer database.
- Share the position with local professional groups, civic engagement organizations and community service clubs of local universities.
- Ask those rock star volunteers to share the position with those they think would be a good fit.
3. Offer Training and Support for Volunteer Leaders
Volunteer leaders are still volunteers, and it’s important to maintain a personal connection with them. After orientation and training, you will still want to coach and mentor them to help individual leaders grow their thinking and capacity to lead.
Provide clear guidelines, due dates, reminders and clarification of requirements. More importantly, know your their strengths, as well as opportunities for growth, so that you can better help them develop their skills. If you foster their development as you do for staff, your organization is more likely to retain a strong and growing body of committed, qualified volunteer leaders.
Decide whether you want to support volunteer leaders formally or informally. Formal support can include regularly scheduled meetings and task-specific training. Informal support occurs as it is needed rather than at scheduled times and can include calls or emails to check in.
Provide opportunities for volunteer leaders to share best practices and learn from each other, such as casual gatherings at a coffee shop or a virtual meetup. Recognize outstanding and dedicated volunteers by nominating them to be a Daily Point of Light or become a certifying organization for the President’s Volunteer Service Award.
Through this continued support, you are preparing volunteer leaders to take greater responsibility, and in doing so, engage even more volunteers.
