Training Ideas, Resources, Tools

This training exercise aims to get participants to explore their own perceptions around cultural diversity. Nancy Nuñez, Training Service Manager for Volunteering Ireland, shares an exercise she learned in ‘Anti Racism Training for Trainers’ that she usually uses with volunteer coordinators, but which can be done with both paid staff and volunteers of an organisation. Using photographs of real people and discussing participants’ reactions to them, the exercise demonstrates that perceptions are the way we perceive something; a perception is not necessarily right or wrong, but something that is constructed by ourselves and our society.

South Australia boasts the highest volunteering rate in Australia, celebrates a strong level of government support for volunteers and even has volunteer involvement featured in the state’s ‘strategic plan’. The northern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia’s capital city, has often been viewed as a hot bed for volunteerism, and so there were few surprises when a strong volunteer management sub-committee was formed as part of a broader initiative, called the Northern Collaborative Project (NCP).

A key problem tackled by this working party was the question of how to encourage more volunteers to undertake the training required of them by their organisations. The solution was that the group developed an annual training conference for their volunteers called ‘Volunteer Fest’.

Now gearing up for the third event, this article shares the experiences of the volunteer leaders who, through this forum, have revolutionized volunteer training in their local area.

Direct action organizing is a powerful instrument for change while engaging your organization’s supporters and volunteers. It is how ordinary citizens become involved in the democratic process and have an impact. Its tools are many, ranging from voter registration drives to lobbying local school boards, from letter writing to media campaigns. Grassroots organizing places power in the hands of people, enabling them to shape their community, its policies, priorities, and services.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) has decades of experience in successfully training staff and volunteers for activist efforts. In this Training Design, PPFA Senior Manager for Training, Jordan Fitzgerald, highlights techniques from their innovative “Live Action Camps.” Included is a PDF of PPFA’s Direct Action Organizing and PowerTrainer’s Guide.

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.

In March 2005, a pioneering 48-hour event was held in Canberra, Australia: The 1st Annual Retreat for Advanced Volunteer Management . The 50 participants came from all of the Australian states and territories, plus representatives from New Zealand, Singapore, and the US. The intense but relationship-building retreat exceeded all expectations, with prospective outcomes that will strengthen volunteerism in the Pacific region in many ways.

The co-producers of the event explain how it evolved, the goals of the program, how the facilitation model was designed, and participant reactions. They also reflect on what the retreat meant to the emerging national professional associations of Australasia and plans for making the opportunity an annual one. They also explain the provocative slogan “Not just 50, not just 3” to which the retreat “alumni” committed in the last session.

The article is accompanied by audio “sound bites” recorded on site, in which participants explain what made the two days an “advanced” experience for them.

You don’t need to be a drama queen (or king), or the star of your 1971 high school production of Bye Bye Birdie, or even a Shakespearian scholar to tap into the rich tool kit of theatre techniques available to any trainer.

While a few very successful trainers go out of their way to avoid exercises that resemble theatre games in any way, the reality is that most of us need a creative way to share information, enliven our presentations, and reach out to a diverse group of adult learners who tend to have short attention spans and their own, unique learning styles. Using drama, a catchphrase that includes a variety of theatrical techniques, is the perfect way to make a good presentation more effective and memorable.

A word of caution : Drama can make a good presentation great, but it won’t make a bad presentation good. As in the use of any training technique, before you begin to think about what drama exercises to add, start with a solid strategy and make sure that your curriculum is well thought out to meet the stated objectives of the course.

This article is adapted from the very popular workshop the authors first taught together at the International Conference on Volunteer Administration in Phoenix in 2000. Like the workshop, this article is divided into two sections and explores the continuum of theatre techniques, from creative drama to fully scripted skits, and looks at how they can be adapted to virtually any training.

The first part of the article looks at Creative Drama and includes examples of how these techniques can energize an ice breaker, help participants explore a complex concept though individual role playing, and work through tough issues with fully improvised group scenes. The second part of the article explores the use of scripted scenes in training, and how to bring out your own Tennessee Williams in the process.

There are some wonderful pointers here for any trainer, along with an an icebreaker and several skits (with and without scripts).  

Meetings, no matter what format is used, take considerable time. I hear many stories about the difficulty organizations are experiencing as they recruit volunteers for the board, a committee or a special project team because of the number of meetings required or because these individuals have ‘heard about the meetings’ from others! Imagine the difference if current volunteers were promoting involvement by saying: “You really want to be part of our group…we have the best meetings I have ever attended!”

So, we want to ensure we aren’t wasting volunteers’ time, nor discouraging others with unproductive, boring, never-ending meetings. This training design might be used as part of an orientation for individuals taking on the role of chairing a committee or as a tool to assist a group that has identified that their meetings need to be more focussed….

Barb Gemmell provides group exercises and worksheets on the five key meeting elements – Minutes, Agendas, Groundrules, Involvement and Consensus – so that you can add MAGIC to your meetings, too.

Nametags are your best friends – especially in volunteer situations where new people constantly come and go. They provide outlets for communication not unlike front porches, in that they make people less uncertain and more approachable. What’s more, with the disclosure of personal information, nametags close the chasm between synergy and isolation, thereby transforming strangers into friends.

This Training Design explores four basic principles of nametags:

• Preparation and Creation
• Designing and Wearing Nametags Effectively
• Implementing Nametags during Meetings and Activities
• Leveraging Nametags in Specific Fields

And it does so with humor, illustrations, and even a cartoon! Scott Ginsberg is "the world's foremost field expert on nametags" and the author of HELLO my name is Scott.