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1. arnie draiman says

   May 2, 2012 at 1:19 pm

   all well and good for larger organizations, but small ones need volunteers as well. and they are often without resources to even begin to have a ‘staff member’ coordinate it, search, interview, assing, supervise, etc.

   not sure what the solution is, but i would love to hear your thoughts about that as well. thanks.

2. Stephen G. Donshik says

   May 2, 2012 at 2:49 pm

   Arnie,

   The solution is for a staff member, and if it is a really small organization, the director, to recruit a coordinator for volunteers in the organization who is a volunteer. There are organizations that do not have the resources for staffing volunteer departments so they look for one volunteer who will head up the department. Once the person is in place then he/she can receive supervision and support from one of the professionals or the director and the volunteer coordinator will implement the program. When this model is used, it communicates a nice message to the community that the organizaiton is really serious about using volunteers and they give the role to a volunteer.

   There are various other models that can be employed. This one happens to have a number of side benefits.

   I hope this provides some guidance.

   Regards,

   Stephen

3. Dan Brown says

   May 3, 2012 at 11:23 am

   The word “intern” can be freely substituted for “volunteer”.

4. Jill Friedman Fixler says

   May 3, 2012 at 3:56 pm

   Thank you Stephen for getting the conversation going. As a consultant who specializes in volunteer engagement, the most common mistake that organizations make is to recruit first and hope for the best. Rarely is recruitment the issue in volunteer engagement. Nearly all organizations, no matter their size, have sizable circle’s of influence (donors, venders, current and past volunteers, board members, employees, clients and their families, neighbor’s and funder’s) from which to cultivate volunteer talent. Too often organizations are in such a hurry to respond to a need that they barely take the pulse of a prospective volunteer and screening rarely happens. Then the organization is shocked when the relationship doesn’t work out. The organizations that we see who excel at volunteer engagement, do so because everyone in the organization is a talent scout cultivating talent to meet organizational need. These organizations wisely understand that when volunteers are cultivated for the skills and talents that they will willingly share, the organization has access to a broader talent pool and can meet the demands of their marketplace even in these challenging economic times. Finally, cultivating volunteers for their leadership ability and creating opportunities for volunteers to lead other volunteers addresses the staff capacity issue.

   In the world of robust volunteer engagement the role of staff changes from doing the work to delegating it. This requires the ability to convene, facilitate, and support volunteers so that staff can steward other critical initiatives.

5. Marla Gamoran says

   May 3, 2012 at 6:38 pm

   The topic of appropriate use and support of volunteers is an important topic for non profit organizations and volunteers alike to consider. At Skilled Volunteers for Israel we use a collaborative process to place our volunteers. As we work with professionals who come from outside Israel and want to volunteer in Israel, we play a critical role in screening the volunteers for the organization. We recognize that many non profits do not have the staff resources to do this screening, particularly for volunteers from outside Israel.

   Identifying a real need within the organization in which a volunteer can make a meaningful contribution, identifying the roles, responsibilities and expectations of the volunteer and the organization in advance of the volunteer’s arrival and documenting those expectations in a placement proposal are all methods in which we facilitate successful placements.

   Organizations interested in utilizing volunteers understand that integrating volunteers takes staff time and resources. However, with appropriate placement processes and use of organizations such as Skilled Volunteers for Israel which partner to support the organization in those processes, the value and contribution that volunteers can make to an organization is worthwhile. Volunteers also provide a means of expanding that non profits network.