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The people who must raise funds often have little idea about the volunteer management aspect of their own agencies. Coordinators of Volunteers are happy to remain ignorant of the financial concerns of the agency and could not even imagine asking for money from those who already offer their time. Development staff are also unaware that funders may see data on volunteer involvement as a measure of how effectively an agency will manage their human and financial resources. All these issues and more have fueled the mission of Jane Leighty Justis, who is doing her best to educate small foundations on the importance of funding volunteer management efforts.

A Familiar Scenario

At this very moment, in a small Midwest city in the United States , the Development Director of a nonprofit agency is preparing a grant proposal to fund a new program her agency seeks to launch. She is frustrated because similar proposals have been turned down by a number of the city's major foundations. She does not understand what her proposals lack. The grant proposal that she is engaged in writing describes the program and its potential recipients. It contains information about her organization's financial assets and paid staff. The proposal does not, however, offer any information about the agency's volunteers, how they are managed, the way in which they might be involved in accomplishing the proposed project, or their role in helping the organization to accomplish its mission in general. In truth, the Development Director could not actually include such information since she has little knowledge of the coordination or management of the volunteers.

In another office in the same organization, the staff member assigned to coordinate volunteers is setting up the volunteer assignment schedule for the week. He is frustrated too -- for his own reasons. He has willing volunteers, but cannot put them all to work because he lacks the staff assistance he needs to train and to supervise these individuals. He has repeatedly met with failure in his attempts to have the agency's leadership hire a full-time (and professionally skilled) volunteer program manager to facilitate the maximum participation of volunteers. He is happy about one thing, though: He did not have to attend the previous evening's strategy meeting on organizational sustainability. As the Coordinator of Volunteers, his job is isolated from development issues. He would much rather work with volunteers than have to ask for money.

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