Funding a Volunteer Program

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.

For nearly a decade, Susan J. Ellis, the publishing editor of e-Volunteerism, has been encouraging (read: nagging) Andy Fryar, the journal’s manuscript developer, to write about an innovative volunteer program that he oversees in Adelaide, South Australia. After nearly 10 years of resisting, Fryar recently concluded, “I find myself completely out of excuses!”

In this feature article, Fryar presents a rather unique structural model for volunteer engagement and the innovative method of volunteer recruitment employed at the Lyell McEwin Regional Volunteer Association, a 750-strong, health-based volunteer involving agency based in Elizabeth, a northern suburb of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. Fryar has been chief executive officer of the Lyell McEwin Regional Volunteers since 1997, growing the organization from a workforce of around 180 volunteers to its current 750 members. Though volunteering at Lyell McEwin Hospital began in fairly typical hospital fashion, Fryar explains why the Regional Volunteer Association today is an outstanding example of new and innovative ways to run a volunteer program – in hospitals and other volunteer-dependent organizations. And he thanks Susan Ellis for 10 years of nudging and nagging to tell this story.

This is a landmark article, in that it tackles a critical subject rarely presented in depth:  what it takes to raise money to support volunteers and the infrastructure of a volunteer program.  As the title says, noted trainer and author Betty Stallings covers both the attitudes necessary to fundraising success and a wide variety of ideas for finding or generating adequate funds.  Included are:

• Reasons why it is a challenge to raise money for a volunteer program.
• How to develop a strong case for support – specific “talking points.”
• Moving from begging to marketing.
• Visualizing success.
• Suggested methods of raising resources for your volunteer program, including donations from current volunteers, outreach to corporations and foundations, special events, gifts in honor of volunteers, and other creative approaches.
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  • Read more about Generating Funds for Your Volunteer Program: The Mindset and Methods

The people who must raise funds often have little idea about the volunteer management aspect of their own agencies. Development staff and Coordinators of Volunteers frequently know little about the financial assets of volunteers active with the organization and rarely ask these volunteers to make financial contributions. 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. Development staff also fail to recognize that there are funders who would be willing to fund projects to improve an agency's effectiveness through better management of its own volunteers.