Digital Arts Service Corps - volunteer management

The DASCorps Survival Guide: Volunteer Management

Bill Brown — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:34:12 +0000

Volunteers are the backbone to most any nonprofit. VISTAs (who are also a type of volunteer) often have to set-up and develop volunteer recruitment and management programs and systems. Occasionally this is part of a VISTA workplan, but typically VISTAs create volunteer programs because they find that accomplishing their work without additional help would be nearly impossible.

What can volunteers do for you? Well, just about anything. Some nonprofits even have executive directors who are volunteers. Volunteers can fill any type of role, need, or niche.

Before You Recruit

Keep Outreach Materials on Hand
Outreach and recruitment materials are key towards getting qualified volunteers to come work with your organization. You should have a ready-to-go set of solid recruitment materials at your organization, which should include:

Single-sheet flyers or posters
Promotional DVDs
Ready-made “blurbs” about organization and volunteer needs (to be posted in community newsletters, college newsletters, volunteermatch.com, etc.)
Volunteer Fair kit (includes flyers, posters, reports, DVD’s, fold out display, banner with organization name)

Know the Legal Requirements
Your organization needs to be up to speed on exactly what the legal requirements for your volunteers are. For example, if you are finding volunteers to work with an afterschool media production program in a Boston Public School, you need to have each volunteer CORI checked (essentially a criminal background check) before they can work with any students or youth.

Create Applications and Agreement Forms
You may want to create a volunteer application form, but most nonprofits DASCorps members serve with are rather small, so often times volunteers will be brought on ad hoc and informally without an application. However you should definitely have a volunteer agreement form drafted that each volunteer must sign that stipulates their responsibilities and your organization’s responsibilities.

Recruitment

Define Your Ideal Volunteer
Draw up a list of the skills and qualifications for what you would call your ideal volunteer for each opportunity your organization has.

Find Your Targets
If you are looking for more technical volunteers with skills in web design or media production, then go find a local college or university that has a program strong in those departments. If you have a concert fundraising event, you can probably recruit unskilled volunteers locally through personal contacts or through posting at community centers.

There are also many effective online volunteer matching services as well such as volunteermatch.org, idealist.org and craigslist.org to post opportunities (especially easy if you keep ready-made recruitment ‘blurbs’).

Colleges, Universities, and Service-Learning
Colleges and universities are excellent sources of skilled and motivated volunteers. Nearly every college now has a volunteer or community service center that coordinates volunteer opportunities with local organizations for their students. Contact the volunteer/community service center director and explain your needs and they will likely recruit on-campus for you.

Service-Learning is a new movement at colleges and universities. S-L (also sometimes referred to as ‘experiential learning’) connects students’ course work with real-world community action. Typically these opportunities must be coordinated 2 months prior to the start of the next semester.

Individual professors may offer S-L opportunities or a local college/university may even have their own Service-Learning Department. S-L volunteers typically can do both direct service and/or capacity building depending on the course and the professor. It is highly recommended to seek out S-L opportunities.

Volunteers are not Made, but Asked
Most people will be more than happy to volunteer with you if you simply ask. Passive methods of volunteer recruitment such as flyers and online posting may get some volunteers, however research shows that most people will not seek out volunteer opportunities, but will volunteer if asked directly.

The Independent Sector, a nonprofit think-tank, published research stating that of “51 percent of teens reported that they were asked to volunteer, 93 percent actually did. The results were stark if young people were not asked: among the 49 percent who were not asked, 24 percent actually volunteered. In other words, teens were nearly four times more likely to volunteer if asked than if they were not.”

Interview Process
You will probably want to conduct an interview with potential volunteers unless it’s for one-off, informal events. During the interview you will want to lay out expectations of both the volunteer to the organization and your organization to the volunteer. It’s a good idea to get a ‘feel’ for the volunteer and make sure the opportunity is actually in line with their personal or professional interests of the volunteer.

When possible the staff person who will most closely work with the volunteer should be present during the interview. Definitive scheduling and availability of workdays, dates and hours should also be determined during the interview process.

Orientation
All volunteers should receive a basic orientation to your organization and how their volunteer work fits in with your organization and its mission. If necessary be ready to provide any training to ensure the volunteer is up to speed and prepared, for example if a volunteer is working with a youth media program that’s doing a photo project, make sure the volunteer is trained on digital camera use and Photoshop prior to volunteering.

You may also want to give the volunteer a printed out detailed job description, contact information for their supervisor, and even an organizational handbook (if you have one). If nothing else, make sure volunteer tasks are clear, concise, and communicated. Nothing extinguishes a volunteers’ spirit like not knowing what they’re supposed to do or being unable to say what they’ve accomplished after they’ve finished.

Management (VISTAs cannot directly do this!)
As you can guess, and hopefully what Project HQ informed you of during your PSO, VISTAs cannot be direct supervisors of volunteer labor. VISTAs can develop outreach materials, run recruitment drives, create orientation materials, but cannot be the direct supervisor of volunteers. The reason: CNCS tells us there was once a lawsuit concerning a VISTA who supervised volunteers. ‘Nuff said.

But this does not prevent you from creating volunteer management systems or databases, which are essential to managing any volunteers. The database system should include the name of the volunteer, phone number, address, why they joined, when and where they volunteered, etc.

There are a number of cheap and easy ways to set-up a volunteer management system/database on a shoestring budget. Here are some low-cost methods:

Spreadsheets with Microsoft Excel
Open-Source Content/Constituent Relationship Management software such as CiviCRM, Drupal, and Joomla
Google Docs spreadsheets and documents which are free and can be shared with anyone else who has a Gmail account
Salesforce.com Foundation donates free licenses to nonprofit organizations (www.salesforce.com/foundation/)

Retention
Informally known as the “60 day window”, the first 2 months a volunteer is with your organization is the length of time it takes to shape the volunteers’ attitudes towards the work, their supervision, and your organization. Make them feel like they belong or you may lose them after this period. Building volunteer relationships, recognizing volunteers, and maintaining open and clear communication are all key to retention.

Tips toward keeping volunteers happy, productive, and committed:

Take time to know your volunteers’ personal and professional skill-sets so you can put those to work for your organization
Make organizational language and terminology easy to understand (ditch confusing acronyms)
Proactively communicate news and events about your organization with volunteers
Reimburse volunteers for reasonable expenses incurred such as travel or food
Take your volunteers out to lunch
Have a volunteer recognition event or dinner with your volunteers and organizational staff

Evaluation
You will want to evaluate your volunteer program so you can:

Assess the quality of volunteer experiences with your organization
Measure the impact your volunteers have had with your organization and its programs
Find ways to improve your volunteer program
Identify causes of volunteer turnover
Develop recruitment strategies based on how people found out about volunteering at your organization

If you have already set-up a volunteer tracking database, evaluating your volunteer program will be much easier since some data will already be available to assess. This data is typically demographic and will help define the “who”, “what”, and “where” of your volunteers and program.

Beyond your database, you should develop and schedule regular volunteer surveys and exit interview questions. Here is where you can find out the “how” and “why” behind your volunteer program. All you have to do is gear your questions towards the information you want to see, such as “why was your experience as a volunteer good or bad?” or “how can we improve our volunteer opportunities?”

Further Resources
Free Management Library/Management Help
Idealist.org Volunteer Management Central
CiviCRM
Salesforce.com Foundation

Volunteer Management

Bill Brown — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:47:27 +0000

This area is for any and all resources related to Volunteer Management.

DCN's Volunteer Management Handbook

Rian Graves — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:36:49 +0000

The handbook I've been working on for the past few months is listed below (and it's also found on the Volunteer Management Wiki.

rian

6 Volunteer Management Presentations

Kelli Williams — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:03:59 +0000

These are some of the resources I present to donors and to agencies. They are rough and they require extra explanation in many places. But, since I haven't trademarked them, unfortunately, I am sharing them with you. Feel free to email me with any questions...I also have a list of websites and reading that supplement this. I'll get it on the wiki sometime soon hopfully.

Big Job

Kelli Williams — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:24:56 +0000

I've been here two full weeks now and my boss has been gone for a week and 1/2 of that. Plus, she's going on vacay next week, so I'm kinda winging it. The good news about that is that I'm getting the opportunity to settle into the job and people watch while getting comfortable. The bad news is that my boss and a few others are the only ones that know I'm a VISTA. Everybody has been told, but apparently sharp memories are scarce around here. The sticky part is that the United Way has what they call a "loaned executive" program where companies extend their employees for a certain amount of time for a specific project here. People think I'm one of those and there are some serious territorial issues surrounding that and the money that goes with it. I've just stopped trying to correct people-they'll either get on board or get out of my way sooner or later I figure. I was told by one Senior VP of Resource Investment, in no uncertain terms, that I was not needed. When I asked what she thought I did, she admitted she didn't know-but she knew I wasn't needed. Funny.

So, I've got more of an uphill battle in a sharply divided workplace than I had originally thought. The really good news is that IBM and Sysco Inc. are funneling a lot of money into bringing the United Way's volunteering program online. It's self serving, they want a place to send their employees to volunteer so their community presence is increased--but hey, it gets me guaranteed volunteers! Right now, more than anything, I'm conducting research to help formulate a plan of action to get us more involved with our external volunteers and outreach. I've had positive feedback from my bosses and other more direct co-workers who actually understand what my position is. I'm very encouraged about the future of the project and where it can go--which is a good thing!

Next week I will be conducting interviews in a psuedo-digital storytelling medium as the program Teaming 4 Technology gathers data for grant applications. T4T distributes computers to organizations that apply to us to help bridge the digital divide. I'm going on the 10th to interview a center for the mentally handicapped and how they use their computers from us. I'm really looking forward to that. I'll try and post pictures. These kids come and fill our vending machines, so I've already met some of them and the staff and they're just fantastic.

I have amassed a tremendous amount of research and data on volunteer management in a broad sense. I'm going to try, when I get a chance, to post some of the better info and links on the Wiki, but until then-email me and I'll be glad to share if you need.

3 External Resources for Volunteer Management

Kevin Palmer — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:37:28 +0000

Listed below are a variety of external links related to Volunteer Management:

Management Help's Extensive Volunteer Management Resource

Volunteer Today's Volunteer Resource Clearinghouse

Idealist Nonprofit HR Center

A Few Good Case Management Tools

Ben Sheldon — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 01:50:26 +0000

The attached pamphlet by www.idealware.org provides a brief overview of case management system to keep track of volunteers and/or clients.

Volunteer Management SWOT analysis

Rian Graves — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 04:27:09 +0000

The first (and possibly only) meeting of the Volunteer Management working group that was held at the June 2007 DASCorps Pre-Service Orientation went through a basic SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis using collective experience for organizing and implementing a Volunteer Program. The following is the SWOT list generated from that meeting.

Strengths:
Organization
- Leadership
- Understanding People (Emotional Intelligence)
- Solid Communication
- Protocols
- Assessments

Weaknesses:
- too much idealism/unreasonable expectations
- Poor communication
- Unclear Chain of Command
- Lack of volunteer recognition
- Lack of ground rules

Opportunities:
- Previous volunteers/Alumni
- Networking
- College volunteer centers/student service organizations
- Senior organizations
- Community Centers
- Online volunteer sites (craigslist.com, volunteermatch.com, etc.)

Threats:
- Absence of Shared Vision/People not understanding volunteerism
Size of organizations (both a large and well-known organization where people assume a large contingent of volunteers where they may actually be few or a small organization that is not well-known enough to gain volunteers' interest/trust)
- Recruiting qualified volunteers
- Lack of interest
- Bad timing of recruitment (i.e. volunteer recruitment at college level mid-way through semester)
- Transportation availability/affordability for volunteers to travel to work site
- Excuses, people saying "I already gave too much"
- Public knowledge of how to get involved with volunteering

The Volunteer Management working group aims to address all these issues and more in its final output. Keep posted for more information and resources as they are added.

A sample Volunteer Management plan/handbook is attached below. It was developed for HOME, Inc. in January 2007.

In addition, take a look at another Volunteer Management handbook, also listed below, created by our own VISTA!

Felicia Sullivan's "The Three C's of NPTech: Contacts, Communication, Cash"

danielle martin — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:57:03 +0000

Felicia Sullivan presented at last week's Pre-Service Orientation (PSO) about "The Three C's of NPTech: Contacts, Communication, Cash." The full powerpoint presentation (with loads of helpful links) is available at http://organizerscollaborative.org/presentations. Felicia is the new Executive Director of the Organizer's Collaborative, as well as an ongoing advocate for community media and technology projects in Boston and in Lowell, MA. The CTC VISTA Project is partnering with the OC to hold then next PSO in Lowell in June during the Grassroots Radio / Grassroots Tech June 21-24 in Lowell (http://www.grassrootsradioxii.org and http://www.organizerscollaborative.org/conference). Stay tuned for more info!

Turning Blind Nonreaders into Readers

Denise Meise — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:52:19 +0000

by Denise Meise

West Tennessee STAR Center

The West Tennessee Special Technology Access Resource Center, better known as the STAR Center, is a non-profit organization in Jackson, Tennessee that specializes in assistive technology. In 1988, Chuck and Margaret Doumitt discovered that their two youngest children were losing their eyesight, and doctors eventually determined that they had a rare condition called Batten’s disease. This disease would cause blindness, seizures, loss of motor skills, and ultimately death. Chuck and Margaret began to dream that George and Angela would someday have access to assistive technology. Instead of moving to a larger city that already had an assistive technology center, the Doumitts decided to start one on their own.

What started as a vision for two concerned and loving parents has now become the largest assistive technology center in the country. Every year, the STAR Center serves close to twenty thousand people, including adults and children with disabilities, their families, and those educators and health professionals who serve people with disabilities. With 18 different programs, the STAR Center has services for people with every disability imaginable.

I started as a CTC VISTA at the STAR Center on September 11, 2006 with the title of Volunteer Coordinator. As such, I quickly realized that the first step toward having great volunteers is to have specific and organizationally accepted work plans that describe exactly what a great volunteer means to that specific organization. Great volunteers also need to know that they will have adequate training in the beginning of their service as well as intermediate training if needed.

The newest program for the STAR Center is an adult Literacy Lab made possible by the Jackson Rotary Club. In June, they committed to donating five thousand dollars per year for five years to help get the literacy lab up and running. The Rotary Club also committed to providing volunteers for the lab. Because these volunteers will be an essential part of the lab, they should know about the constituency with which they will be working. To that end, I have been doing a lot of research on adult literacy so the volunteers feel informed, knowledgeable, and confident when they start their work.

My main focus with the Rotary Club members will be encouraging them to volunteer and motivating them. They will come to the STAR Center on October 25 for the dedication of the literacy lab. With the information that I gathered on adult literacy, I created a packet that the Rotary Club members will receive at that time. It includes detailed descriptions of volunteer roles in the lab, information on adult literacy, and a list of resources for any who want to learn more. The packet also includes a brochure that was created for adults who cannot read well in order to advertise the literacy lab.

All of the Rotary Club members who wish to volunteer will then choose a time to come in for a group training that will last about two hours. This training will provide them with a general overview of the services of the STAR Center, teach them about individual differences in adults who are learning to read, and offer information on various tutoring techniques.

After the group training, each volunteer will be assigned to one client. Many of the adult learners at the STAR Center are already using computer programs to reach their literacy goals. In addition to computer training, Literacy Lab clients will also have access to a library of books for new adult readers, direct teaching, flashcards, homework lessons, and opportunities to read aloud. Because of the variety of programs and methods of teaching literacy, it is important that each volunteer has in-depth training on which techniques the client is using. The volunteers will have detailed training at the beginning of service and access to more training as needed. Instructors in the lab will be available to monitor the progress of the client and answer questions for the volunteers.

The STAR staff and I have worked diligently to find resources for adult literacy learners and volunteers. Hopefully, the Rotary Club members will be motivated to volunteer!
Anyone who is interested in learning more about adult literacy or adult literacy volunteers should check out the following websites:

http://nces.ed.gov/naal contains statistics on adult literacy
http://www.literacyonline.org/ncal.html contains information from The National Center on Adult Literacy
http://literacyconnections.com/AdultLiteracy.php contains The Key: A Newspaper for NewReaders
http://www.readinga-z.com contains literacy assessments and various resources
http://www.lakeline.lib.fl.us/programs_and_services/family_literacy_program/adultlit_vol.aspx contains information on adult literacy volunteer tutors
http://www.adultliteracyleague.org/volunteer/tips.asp#1 contains a list of books for new readers
http://www.altn.org/techtraining/student.html contains resources for adult literacy learners and tutors

Denise Meise is currently serving as a CTC VISTA member at the West Tennessee Special Technology Access Resource Center (STAR Center) in Jackson, Tennessee. She serves the STAR Center as Volunteer Coordinator and Technology Specialist, and has recently spent much of her time building resources for the Center's new adult literacy lab. As the Literacy Lab gets up and running, Denise will work closely with volunteers from the community, ensuring that they receive adequeate training on literacy software and methods of teaching literacy.