Evaluation/Program Assessment

Introduction

Nonprofit organizations everywhere are engaging in strategic discussions to discover how they can be more efficient and effective in delivering services to enhance their missions. Too often they are not thinking about the impact of proposed changes on their volunteer manpower. Or they are having the discussion after the changes are made. At that point in time, it may be too late to consider the effect on volunteer involvement. I have observed national and regional organizations that, through benign neglect, did not engage volunteers in their initial strategic planning discussions. The impact was tragic. They lost many dedicated volunteers and donors who felt overlooked in the process.

“A Tool for Engaging Volunteers in the Change Process” provides a series of questions which should be addressed by staff and leadership volunteers as they are starting the process of major change within their organizations. The changes can be as great as mergers or can be less drastic internal changes dealing with how services will be delivered in the future.

It is often very difficult for paid staff to think about the effect on volunteers when they are concerned about how planned changes will impact their own positions within the organization. So, although these volunteer-focused questions may sound natural to ask, they must compete with the uncertainty felt by others about the organizational changes.

This article includes a print-ready handout of the change process Tool and a ready-to-use Microsoft PowerPoint presentation of the Tool to use in a meeting or training session.

Every one of us has experienced at least one if not many times when we approached an organization and were treated in a less than satisfactory way. Perhaps it was the first time we arrived to volunteer and no one really knew what to do with us. How many of us have called an organization to get information only to be put on hold and transferred repeatedly, causing us to re-tell our story over and over again? Maybe it was the lack of signs outside to direct us to the right place. These experiences are “moments of truth”: moments that cumulatively create our opinion of an organization. The key to examining the moments of truth in your organization is first to recognize them and then work to eliminate the negative ones so that you create mostly positive moments of truth for your volunteers. This Training Design provides strategies for doing this.

 

On a recent visit back to the United States, I heard very different opinions about volunteerism from two good friends. The first said that she will never volunteer again...she tells why. The second friend said she couldn't get enough of volunteering...and she tells why.

These two testimonies regarding volunteerism make me wonder if the organizations these two assisted are aware of their feelings. And so I ask volunteer managers reading this to consider: What would people who have volunteered with your organization say about their experience?

Do you know? Do you care?

If anything, these two episodes have made me realize yet again the value of surveying volunteers about their experience, and how easily this can be done using e-mail.

In the mid-1970s, the Association for Volunteer Administration embarked on a revision of its professional credentialing program. AVA selected a performance-based system, based on a core group of competencies deemed essential for the effective administration of volunteer programs. At the recent international conference in Toronto, Canada, Sarah Jane Rehnborg - the system developer - offered her reflections on the competency-based credentialing format. This article is based on her presentation, which includes an important call to recognize that "our work is steeped in purpose and energized by passion."