United States

As volunteer managers struggle with a lack of time, the hours spent on volunteer training typically shrinks. The up-front investment in a volunteer decreases dramatically, depriving volunteers of a crucial connection with the organization’s mission.

In this Training Designs, Meridian Swift—a well-known volunteer manager, author, and blogger—explores why training should be embraced as an investment that will influence a volunteer's future commitment. Through this article, Swift will help volunteer managers discover ways to manage the time they need to make this investment. 

Why do volunteers break the rules? This Research to Practice reviews an ethnographic study of an animal shelter where disruptive behavior by volunteers was a regular occurrence. This disruptive behavior was defined as “any behavior that either explicitly violated a rule or was identified by more than one staff member as disruptive” (Jacobs, 2017, 31). Researcher Molly Jacobs volunteered four days a week for a year at the shelter, keeping extensive notes of her observations and interactions. She also interviewed paid and unpaid workers. In her analysis, Jacobs was able to identify different ‘rule breaking’ categories and analyze why this occurred.

This Research to Practice review of this study provides an opportunity to think about these types of disruptions in your own volunteer context, and perhaps determine different ways to handle them.

When volunteer management consultant Sheri Wilensky Burke hears about an organization’s poor volunteer retention, she often discovers that the organization has not defined retention goals. “It’s common to set goals for recruiting volunteers and other metrics, but often organizations don’t consider what successful retention really means,” she notes. “Surely it is not realistic (or even desirable!) to expect that every volunteer will stay forever. But without setting goals for the desired length of volunteer commitment, it is difficult to assess if the organization has an actual problem keeping volunteers engaged or instead has a perception problem in its assessment of their retention.”

In this e-Volunteerism feature, Burke argues that volunteer evolvement is critical to volunteer retention—and makes the case that volunteer evolvement goes a long way toward meeting volunteer retention goals. Here, she defines volunteer evolvement as enabling volunteers to take on greater responsibilities within an organization, much like a volunteer “career ladder” that offers them the opportunity for growth and new experiences. “Even the most engaged volunteers can get bored from doing the same thing repeatedly,” she argues. “Just like paid staff who want professional development and promotion, many volunteers similarly desire new challenges in their volunteer careers. What better way to recognize your most committed volunteers than by asking them to take on new tasks and/or assume a leadership role?”

Volunteer recruitment messaging is long overdue for an overhaul. But what wording works best? This Training Designs article will walk you through the technique of “testing” messages to determine which are most effective with different audiences. You’ll learn how to design and develop your own recruitment test using a simple A/B (split testing) method that Training Designs Editor Erin Spink has used successfully. Through this article, you will have all the tools you need to design your own tests. And you’ll be on the way to improving future recruitment results.

What role can volunteering and leaders of volunteer engagement play in developing future leaders? This Research to Practice reviews a new instrument developed specifically to help volunteer resource managers identify future leaders in their volunteer base.

Recognizing that many of the qualities that prompt individuals to volunteer are also qualities of leaders, leadership development researchers Janina Fuller and Curtis Friedel set out to develop a way to identify volunteers who had the desire and potential to develop as leaders. To do so, they conducted two surveys with volunteers from HandsOn Network affiliates across the U.S. The first survey aimed to understand volunteers’ perceived advantages and disadvantages of developing leadership as volunteers. The second survey posed questions to volunteers to capture leadership behaviors and intentions. As the authors write, “Organizations that purposefully recognize their volunteers’ leadership skills generate positive consequences not only for themselves and their volunteers, but also for the clients and the communities they serve.”

Loyal readers of e-Volunteerism will remember Ivan Scheier as part of the journal’s advisory team and frequent contributor until his death in 2008. He was a pioneer and mentor to many of us and we devoted an entire issue in 2009 in tribute to him. He was also a prolific writer. In this Voices, we reprint one of Scheier's article on values that evolved in various stages between 1975 and 1998. It does not surprise us that the challenges Scheier laid down more than 40 years ago remain pointed today.

Here is part of Scheier's introduction to the topic:

I believe volunteerism has the potential to integrate with the best and most powerful values in our society today. We can draw more fully on that power if only we will understand, appreciate, and publicize values. This means raising our own consciousness first, launching dialogue and debate, reaching some decision on what the main values are, then announcing them.  The first announcement should be to ourselves – volunteer leaders and volunteers. Then announcements should be made to the world. The purpose is to buttress our case for fundamental, rather than ornamental, status in the world of work and caring, to place us more securely in the mainstream of society. This article attempts to stimulate dialogue.

One week after this issue launched, the 2017 National Summit on Volunteer Leadership Engagement began in St. Paul, Minn. A special track at the summit convened a group of funders (public and private foundations and other donors) who met with volunteer resources managers and other nonprofit organization leaders. The purpose? To discuss the challenges of funding volunteer engagement efforts. JFFixler Group, led by Beth Steinhorn, partnered with Jane Leighty Justis of the Leighty Foundation and volunteer training expert Betty Stallings to revise and republish a “guide for funders” that was originally developed in 2003 to provide companion resources for nonprofits. Summit participants received this hot-off-the-press booklet on site, which is also available electronically for free at the Leighty Foundation website. 

In this article, Steinhorn excerpts and consolidates tips and strategies from the guide to help non-profits make the case to funders: investing in volunteer engagement is beneficial.

Imagine teen volunteers in a healthcare setting. Admit it: Your first impression probably centered on teenagers pushing carts, delivering flowers or books, or escorting therapy dogs to patients’ rooms. But in the Medical Center Health System in Odessa, Texas, teenagers did more than push carts – they pushed the proverbial teen volunteer envelope to help develop an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) or Electronic Health Record (EHR) volunteer interdisciplinary team within the health care system.

In this feature story, Patricia Q. Garcia, Director of Volunteer Services and Community Relations Coordinator at the health system, highlights how teens became involved in developing the EMR and EHR systems. She explains the benefits derived from this youth volunteer initiative, and why the administration supported this volunteer-driven program. According to Garcia, this initiative was not only a success, “it serves as a best practice for future volunteer-led programs.” And it helps illustrate how to engage, value, and retain tomorrow’s leaders by working with teen volunteers.

Editor-in-Chief Susan J. Ellis met “DR CurlyBubbe” a year ago in the parking garage at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) as Ellis arrived for one of her weekly chemotherapy visits. DR CurlyBubbe, a/k/a Esther Gushner, was hard to miss, what with her bright yellow knee socks, hat with a red rose, and doctor’s coat covered with smiley faces and various badges. As Ellis took in her whole outfit, including a badge saying, “Eat a prune – start a movement,” she realized she was watching a volunteer “clown doctor” report for duty at the hospital! And naturally, they started talking.

This special feature by Ellis tells the story of Esther Gushner, who nearly 18 years ago became a clown doctor and founding member of Bumper “T” Caring Clowns. Readers will soon discover why Caring Clowns prefer to be described as “Hospital Visitors with Red Noses;” why Gushner doesn’t really like the word “clown;” and how these “faux doctors” focus on one-to-one conversations (most often with adults) instead of trying to be funny with patients in critical and often frightening situations.

With 120 trained Caring Clowns in 27 hospitals in six states, Ellis and Gushner explain how the Bumper “T” Caring Clown volunteers mesh with each hospital’s existing Volunteer Services department, a part of the story that sends a strong message about how volunteer resources managers can successfully collaborate with community organizations. And by the end of this story, it will be perfectly clear why each Caring Clown’s signature red nose is the passport to people’s hearts - including Ellis’ own.