http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/managing-volunteers-making-the-most-of-a-valuable-resource/ Connect. Educate. Innovate. Thu, 24 May 2012 14:12:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/managing-volunteers-making-the-most-of-a-valuable-resource/comment-page-1/#comment-50586 Jill Friedman Fixler and Beth Steinhorn Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:59:50 +0000 http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/?p=6153#comment-50586 In a time where organizational Judaism faces many challenges because of the downturn in the economy, strategically engaging volunteers, their skills, and their profound circles of influence, is critically important. We agree completely about the need for organizations to intentionally plan for cultivation, training, and supporting volunteers – and we believe it goes even further than that. Engaging volunteers with your nonprofit can be viewed as either a “program that is nice to have” or as an organization-wide strategy critical to ensuring that the organization survives and thrives through good times and challenging ones. As Stephen Donshik writes, volunteers are a “valuable resource.” And we believe that the current and future generations of volunteers are, in fact, an abundant resource of skills and talents that could be harnessed to help organizations build capacity in program development and implementation, marketing, fund development, and more. Strategic volunteer engagement has never been widely used in Jewish organizations – but we have worked with many synagogues, Jewish educational organizations, and others who continue to reap the benefits of strategically engaging volunteers for their skills and their passions in ways that help them fulfill their missions. For specific ideas, see http://jffixler.com/blog . In a time where organizational Judaism faces many challenges because of the downturn in the economy, strategically engaging volunteers, their skills, and their profound circles of influence, is critically important. We agree completely about the need for organizations to intentionally plan for cultivation, training, and supporting volunteers – and we believe it goes even further than that. Engaging volunteers with your nonprofit can be viewed as either a “program that is nice to have” or as an organization-wide strategy critical to ensuring that the organization survives and thrives through good times and challenging ones. As Stephen Donshik writes, volunteers are a “valuable resource.” And we believe that the current and future generations of volunteers are, in fact, an abundant resource of skills and talents that could be harnessed to help organizations build capacity in program development and implementation, marketing, fund development, and more. Strategic volunteer engagement has never been widely used in Jewish organizations – but we have worked with many synagogues, Jewish educational organizations, and others who continue to reap the benefits of strategically engaging volunteers for their skills and their passions in ways that help them fulfill their missions. For specific ideas, see http://jffixler.com/blog .

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