One of the enduring mysteries of the volunteer management field is how often those who lead volunteer efforts do not build a team of volunteers to help them in their important work. Here we are, trying to get our paid staff colleagues to develop creative assignments for the right volunteers -- and being frustrated when we encounter resistance to this idea -- while we miss the opportunity to be role models in demonstrating how valuable volunteers are to building the organization's volunteer involvement strategy! Not to mention that we could be getting some great, talented, and much-needed help.
Ask yourself some revealing questions:
- I see volunteers as:
- My staff
- My responsibility
- My charges
- Allies
- Partners
- My bosses
- Helpers
- Advocates
- Consultants
- Other ________________________
- How many volunteers now work specifically with me in coordinating volunteer involvement and do not hold any other assignment in the agency?
- Do I have a functioning advisory committee or management team to give me solid input and share the decision-making about volunteer involvement?
- I strategically involve volunteers in the following activities (always, often, once in a while, never, or never thought to do it):
- Designing new roles/positions for volunteers
- Strategizing and carrying out recruitment campaigns for new volunteers
- Interviewing prospective new volunteers
- Orienting and training other volunteers
- Evaluating the program overall
- Assessing the performance of volunteers themselves
- Going to meetings (with or without me) with executives or the board to report the volunteer perspective on a topic being considered
- Educating paid staff about working with volunteers
- Representing me on online discussion forums
Are you satisfied with your responses? If so, that's great! But if not, can you identify what has been holding you back from sharing your work with volunteers? Often the reasons will give you important insight into why other paid staff are reluctant to take a chance on donated talents. But you have no real excuse!
The idea is not to divert people who are interested in other volunteer assignments -- you need to intentionally recruit volunteers for whom working with you will be genuinely appealing. However, that doesn't mean you can't tap current volunteers in some ways:
- Do a skills and interests inventory - who has additional talents you have not yet tapped?
- Offer a promotion into agency-wide volunteer management (but be sure this is what the volunteer really wants)
- Offer a leave of absence to work on a special project for you
- Find cyber deputies, especially to handle social media for you
Keep in mind that, if you like your job, so will other people! You can recruit:
- Students and career changers who want to explore volunteer management. In fact, consider creating a formal internship which allows someone to learn about the profession. You can even post an available internship for free in the special section of the Energize Job Bank.
- People with demonstrated skill in coordinating volunteers, even if they do not realize they are "in" the volunteer management field, including:
- Officers of all-volunteer associations
- Leaders of political campaigns and advocacy efforts
- Alumni coordinators
- Special events coordinators
It is your goal to run the best possible volunteer effort for your organization to support its mission and expand available resources -- this is a vital role with which many people will be happy to help, if you ask