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Volunteer Program Evaluation and Assessment
Articles/excerpts on this subject
- The Cost of a Volunteer, 2003 report by the Grantmaker Forum on Community and National Service reveals the level of infrastructure neccessary for an organization to effectively involve volunteers.
- The Dollar Value of Volunteer Time, by Susan J. Ellis
- Inputs Matter, 68-page PDF by the Charity Finance Directors Group in the UK, with an Appendix on "The Development of Recommendations on Valuing Volunteers"
- Measuring Up from Measuring Up: Assessment Tools for Volunteer Programs
- Measuring Volunteering: A Practical Toolkit, by Independent Sector and UNV, designed as a toolkit to assist countries in conducting surveys assessing their national, regional, and local volunteer levels (2001, 40-pg. PDF).
- A Note On Assessing Value, from BEST OF ALL: The Quick Reference Guide To Effective Volunteer Involvement
- The Socioeconomic Resource Statement from What Counts
- Volunteer Management Audit, from the book Volunteer Management Audit
Free electronic books on this subject
The Impact of Investing in Volunteers
by Ben Cairns and Romayne Hutchison from the Centre for Voluntary Action Research at Aston Business School (UK, 2006 - 40 pg. PDF)
Measuring the Difference Volunteers Make: A Guide to Outcome Evaluation for Volunteer Program Managers
by Melissa Eystad, Editor
With permission of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, this
extremely useful 1997 guidebook (now out of print) is available
free of charge in electronic form. (Thanks to Melissa Eystad of
World Spirit Consulting for sharing this copy.)
Voluntary Sector Evaluation Research Project (Canada)
Canadian initiative to improve the capacity of voluntary organizations to assess their performance and communicate their effectiveness to their funders, stakeholders and the public.
W.K.
Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Handbook
Excellent introduction
to the why and how of program evaluation, written to guide organizations
in self-evaluation without an outside consultant. Includes
the importance of volunteers as an information source and as users
of the evaluation results. (116-page PDF)
W.K.
Kellogg Foundation Logic Model Development Guide
A companion publication
to the Evaluation Handbook above, this guide introduces
a "program logic model" – a picture of how your
organization does its work, to facilitate thinking, planning, and
communications about program objectives and actual accomplishments.
The 72-page PDF integrates volunteers into the variables studied.
Websites with information on this subject
Economic Impact Of Volunteers Calculator
http://www.handsonnetwork.org/tools/volunteercalculator
Created by the Points of Light Foundation estimates the appropriate wage rate for volunteer time based on what the person does and the value of specific tasks according to market conditions as reported by the US Department of Labor. A starting point for organizations to determine the value of the time their volunteers give doing a wide variety of volunteer jobs.
The Economic Value of Volunteering
http://www.cev.be/113-economic_value_of_volunteering-EN.html
The European Volunteer Centre's compilation of efforts in Europe to measure the economic impact of volunteering.
Innovation Network OnlineTools
http://www.innonet.org/pointk
Innovation Network’s Point K Learning Center offers collaborative tools and resources for assessment, planning, and program improvement.
Investing in Volunteers Project (UK)
http://www.investinginvolunteers.org.uk
Investing in Volunteers is the UK quality standard for all organizations which involve volunteers in their work. The Standard enables organizations to comprehensively review their volunteer management, and also publicly demonstrates their commitment to volunteering.
Mentoring.org Evaluation Resources
http://www.mentoring.org/find_resources/resources/allresources/
#Evaluation
These resources are written with a mentoring program in mind, but can give useful ideas for other settings.
Online Evaluation Resource Library
http://oerl.sri.com/index.html
This site, although not specific to the field of volunteerism, offers resources for
professionals seeking to design, conduct, document, or review project evaluations
VIVA - The Volunteer
Investment and Value Audit
Description of VIVA, a
measurement tool that assesses the 'outputs' of volunteer program
(the value of volunteers' time) in relation to the 'inputs' (the
resources used to support the volunteers), from the Institute for
Volunteering Research in the UK.
VoVici
http://www.vovici.com/resources/survey-best-practices.aspx
A variety of articles on how to conduct online surveys and gain more participation from respondents.
Relevant Hot Topic essays
- What Would the Perfect Volunteer-Involving Organization Look Like? - Jan '12
- A Medal for Volunteer Service - How to Measure Success? - Sept '02
- Universal Standards vs. Your Own Situation - Oct '03
- A Medal for Volunteer Service - How to Measure Success? - Sept '02
- Spring Cleaning: Take a Fresh Look at Your Volunteer Program - May '02
- It's Time to Start Counting Volunteers Seriously - Dec '01
- Evaluating by Comparisons: Watch out for the Traps! - Aug '01
- Be Careful What We Wish For! The Cost-Benefit Analysis of Volunteering - Sept '00
- Mystifying Data: Can America's Promise Get Away with It? - July '99
3/29/11
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