Preparing Your Agency

Much has been written about the differences between paid staff and volunteers and the need to develop a management style for volunteers that takes into account their unique characteristics. But to date much volunteer practice has lagged behind the research, with many organisations continuing to adopt a traditional ‘workplace’ model for involving volunteers drawn from standard HR practice that treats volunteers as unpaid members of staff.

In this issue of Research to Practice, internationally known British researcher Justin Davis Smith looks at a new study from Switzerland that examines probable elements in a distinctive volunteer management approach. The focus is specifically on the need to treat volunteers as a unique group within an organization, and to manage their relationship with other key stakeholders such as paid staff, senior leadership, and members. The study has important practical implications for the way we think about involving and managing volunteers in our organisations.

We all know that an organizational culture that values volunteers and volunteer management is an ideal environment in which to engage citizens in important, meaningful service. But how do we foster this culture? One approach is to design and implement in-house training and advocacy to educate staff peers on the inner workings of effective volunteer engagement, including why volunteer management matters, how it results in better outcomes, and how they can more actively participate as partners with volunteer talent.  

This Training Designs offers tips and strategies for how leaders of volunteers can facilitate in-house education for their staff peers. Ideally, this will result in better staff-volunteer relationships, greater volunteer impact on the organizational mission, and an organizational culture that is more inclusive and appreciative of volunteers.

  

Chris Linnell, volunteer services supervisor at the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County (FPDDC), Illinois, thought it was crazy when Eagle Scout Gavin Burseth approached her with the idea to bring a herd of goats to eat the poison ivy and other invasive plants at FPDDC’s campground. But sixteen-year-old Burseth, working to achieve the prestigious Hornaday Award from the Boy Scouts of America for significant contributions to conservation, was persuasive. After some creative volunteer management thinking and convincing advocacy from Linnell to the Natural Resources/Land Management staff, the project was approved. In the end, the goats did a perfect job of clearing the dangerous plants, and Burseth also delivered public education lectures and generated media interest in the project.

This fascinating example of an unusual set of volunteers (with lots of pictures) has important implications for volunteer resources managers in any setting. How do you react when a teenager proposes an unfamiliar or nontraditional service project? What does it take to convince others in the organization to support the idea? What special considerations arise when stepping into the unknown? This special e-Volunteerism feature will show you why the nontraditional and the unknown can be a very good thing.

Take a moment to think about your worst job ever. The one you struggled to get out of bed to go to. The one you gleefully left at the end of your shift or the start of your weekend. What job design factors contributed to your dissatisfaction? Was the work boring or repetitive? Did you have zero or low control?  Were you aware of how your work contributed to the organization’s goals?

Now take a moment to think about your best job ever. The one that made you just as eager on Monday morning as on Friday afternoon. How was that job designed? Did you perceive your work to be meaningful? Did you find the right amount of challenge? Did you receive both positive and constructive feedback? Were you aware of the way your work impacted others?

Now think about the volunteer positions in your organization, specifically the ones where you struggle with retention, absenteeism, motivation, or poor quality of performance. How can you apply the proven principles of paid job design to developing more satisfying volunteer opportunities? In this e-Volunteerism feature, author Debbie Anderson explains why it all begins with the work design when motivating volunteers to succeed.

In 1984, a very important article about funding volunteer efforts was published in the Spring issue of Voluntary Action Leadership: “The No-Apologies Budget: How to Justify the Financial Support a Volunteer Program Deserves.” Written by Neil Karn, then director of the Virginia Division of Volunteerism, this article was the first strong argument for truly adequate funding of volunteer efforts. Thirty years after it was first published, e-Volunteerism is pleased to re-introduce this seminal article, which remains as powerful today as it was in 1984. The budget line items might look a bit different now, but Karn’s points still resonate in advocating for the support and tools volunteers continue to need in 2014.

The Volunteer Program Assessment (VPA) provides consulting services to nonprofit volunteer programs across the United States and Canada. VPA consultants are graduate students and faculty from five universities who volunteer their time to work one-on-one with leaders of volunteers. VPA was established with the help of funding from The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which continues to provide financial support for volunteer programs – within the animal welfare sector and beyond – to receive VPA at no cost. Currently, VPA is seeking to expand its outreach efforts and diversify its nonprofit client base.

In this e-Volunteerism feature, four authors from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte provide a brief history of VPA, an overview of the process, and a summary of its success to date. Based on normative data from over 100 nonprofits, the authors describe three common areas for improvement among volunteer programs. They also provide additional information for those interested in participating in VPA.

Most organizations have a strategic plan, a fund development plan, a marketing plan and an IT plan. Why is it that so few have a volunteerism plan? Recognized as the oldest voluntary health organization in the United States, the American Lung Association began a three-year planning process for volunteer involvement only six years ago. The Association recently took a different approach to the process, resulting in a volunteerism plan that has ownership from many stakeholders, simultaneously building both the culture of volunteerism and the capacity to sustain it.

In this feature story, authors Mary Ella Douglas, Melissa Gilmore, Katherine H. Campbell and Marybeth K. Saunders explain how they created the Association’s latest strategic volunteerism plan. They first reached out to colleagues in other organizations to ask if they would be willing to share their strategies with them and learn from each other; surprisingly, they did not receive even one plan from their search. Instead, what they heard time and again was, “What a great idea!” and “We don’t have one, but we’d love to see yours when it’s finished.” Using a process that included representation from all levels of its structure as well as external volunteers, the American Lung Association proceeded to create a revised volunteerism plan in about nine months. This story documents the authors’ experience, one that produced principles and a process that can be applied to most organizations as they embark on developing a strategic volunteerism plan of their own.

After more than a decade in the classroom, Sarah Jane Rehnborg has taught volunteer management on the graduate level to students from public affairs, business management, social work, communications, fine arts and other areas of specialization. Along the way, Rehnborg discovered some interesting resources and methods to convey some of the key concepts in volunteer management — teaching tools that are equally applicable to students and any audience that needs to be educated about our field.

In Part 1 of this article presented in our last issue, Rehnborg explored a technique for developing role-play scenarios and the use of current events in the classroom.   Now, in Part 2, Rehnborg discusses ways to explore critical thinking skills, the value of guest speakers and the complexity of internship experiences. Just as she did in Part 1, Rehnborg shares useful resources that will help inform your own knowledge of the field, while helping you develop presentations that capture critical volunteer management issues for paid colleagues and volunteers as they learn the ropes of working with the community. 

Sarah Jane Rehnborg has more than a decade in the classroom – teaching volunteer management on the graduate level to students from public affairs, business management, social work, communications, fine arts and other areas of specialization. Along the way, Rehnborg found some interesting resources and methods to convey some of the key concepts in volunteer management. Since her students are frequently new to studying volunteer issues, these teaching tools are equally applicable to any audience that needs to be educated about our field.

In Part 1 of this article presented here, Rehnborg explores a teachnique for developing role-play scenarios and the use of current events in the classroom. In Part 2, presented in the next issue of e-Volunteerism, Rehnborg features ways to explore critical thinking skills, the value of guest speakers and the complexity of internship experiences. In both, Rehnborg shares useful resources that will inform your own knowledge of the field, while helping you develop presentations that capture critical volunteer managemnt issues for paid colleagues and volunteers as they learn the ropes of working with the community.

This issue’s Research to Practice provides great food for thought on organizational factors affecting volunteer management. For example, how do the goals of the organization, area of activity, or degree of bureaucracy impact the role that a volunteer management program can take in the strategic achievement of an organization’s mission? How can organizational settings be “assessed and aligned to the needs of volunteers, but also to those of the organization and society at large?”

In this article, reviewer Laurie Mook shares insights from Sibylle Studer and Georg von Schnurbein, two researchers from the Centre for Philanthropy Studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland. They reviewed and synthesized academic literature relevant to volunteer management from 1967 to 2011, looking for evidence to help explain how nonprofit organizational factors supported or restricted volunteer management. As the researchers found, there are many studies looking at ‘who volunteers’ and ‘why people volunteer,’ but studies from the organizational perspective are not as prevalent. Mook presents their findings and other conclusions about organizational factors and how they impact strategic volunteer management.