March, 2004 -by Peter C. Brinckerhoff

This Month's topic: Volunteers

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Websites of the Month

This section includes sites of interest on this month's topic. I urge you to give each a look, as they often cover different areas or have a different focus on the topic area..

Helpful Websites for Volunteers
Energize Inc	The best place, by far, to start with volunteer issues is at Energize, the website from volunteer guru Susan Ellis. This site has articles, books, a referral network, information on Susan's training worldwide. Start here.
Serviceleader	Service Leader is a site designed for volunteer managers. It has a huge set of resources, including many links on best practices, starting a volunteer program, working with new volunteers, and avenues for professional development. Check this out.
Nonprofitbasics	NonProfit Good Practice Guide has some great, very specific ideas in volunteer management for you. You can see some regular pitfalls that beset many volunteer managers and ways to avoid them, review best practices, and refer to the best glossary of terms I've seen.
Servenet.org	ServeNet is an organization that focuses on volunteer issues surrounding youth, but don't discount this resource if all your volunteers are over 21. They've got great ideas, very hands on applications, and you can register your nonprofit here to let people see you need volunteer help.

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Volunteer management in a Mission-Based Organization:

Volunteers. Some days it seems that they fit into that old adage "can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em". The truth is, of course, that we can't live without them. Every not-for-profit must have some volunteers: their board of directors. Many not-for-profits use volunteers in nearly every area of the organization. So volunteers are crucial to not-for-profit success. But if we treat them either as a necessary evil, or as a "free" resource, or as an uncontrolled resource, we lose some or all of the benefits volunteers can and should bring to the organization. Worse, by mismanaging our volunteers, we can often do harm to the organization and its mission.

While I am not a specialist in volunteers (and the people that wrote the recommended books are, so read them) I do have a management perspective on the volunteers. It's simple: manage them. Recruit volunteers for specific jobs, which means you need job descriptions. Match skills with capabilities. Require appropriate standards of performance, from attendance, to dress code, to behavior, to service provision. Evaluate volunteers and let them know your feelings about their work. Provide training. Let the volunteers evaluate their experience. Train staff to supervise volunteers and interact with them. Evaluate the relative risks of having volunteers versus staff in certain jobs.

All of this is consistent with my management philosophy of getting the most out of all your resources. Treat your volunteers with respect, and have high expectations of their contribution to your mission, and good things will happen. Employ volunteers in a haphazard fashion and you will have haphazard results.

If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

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Here are my recommendations for your review in the area of volunteer management. There are lots of good titles, some general, some very, very focused. You will see that three of my favorite six are by Susan Ellis, who runs Energize.com , one of my recommended links above. Susan is really the guru of volunteerism, and I recommend her publications, books and training highly.

My top recommendations in volunteer management are these:

If you want more information on these recommendations, click on the cover image and you will go the page about the book on Amazon.com. There, you can look at more info about the book, and read some reviews before you decide whether or not to purchase or look for this book at your local library.

Note: If you want more recommendations on publications in a wide variety of areas, including fund raising, go to the publications section of my website: www.missionbased.com/publications.htm

If you don't find enough choices there, type fund raising in the Amazon.com search box on the left hand side of the page and you'll have more choices than you probably want!

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There are a number of things you can do in the area of technology and volunteers.

Website:One place that is essential to focus on is your website. Assuming you agree with my management idea above and my marketing information below, ask yourself this: If I wanted to find out about volunteer opportunities at your organization, could I do so easily at your website? Is there a separate section for volunteers, including an area for prospective volunteers and one for current volunteers? Are policies, training schedules, work schedules, names of pertinent staff all listed? Some organizations have car-pooling bulletin boards for volunteers, pictures and contact information for all staff, even celebratory stories about the good works the organization is doing. The web is a wonderful tool for volunteer management. Use it.

Printed Materials:Make sure that you have things to hand or mail people about the ways that they can help with their time and talents. The most effective of these are in the form of a FAQ- listing common questions and their answers. Remember to put specific contact information in the brochure, such as: "For more information on ways you can help us make a difference, call Peter at 555-1111, or email him at peterl@yourorg.org"

Software: There is some great volunteer management software out there, and some that is really poor-that takes more time to use than a pencil and paper would. How do you tell what would be good for you?

First, check websites of the vendor. Most reputable vendors will allow you to download and try a sample version. Look at the features. Does the software track the things you need tracked, does it have the capacity for the number of volunteers, or types of volunteers you have and the work that they do?

Remember that many volunteer software tools come packaged with fund-raising tracking features as well, so if you already have a fund raising package, check to see if it has volunteer management capabilities that meet your needs before you buy something else.

Talk to peers about what they are using. Talk to your state and national trade association, and see if they recommend certain products or, better yet, can provide you with discounts on purchase.

Finally, make very, very, very sure about the level of tech support that the vendor provides. Are there local tech experts who are certified by the manufacturer that can help? Does the manufacturer provide an online chat option for support? Ask other users of the product how they have found support.

Here is a great list of software from The Senior Tech Center. Certainly not just related to senior issue, this listing discusses the firm, the software and its features. www.seniortechcenter.org/learning_paths/data_management/tips_tools_templates/prepackaged_db_software_list.php

If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

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Below you'll see the date, location, and topics of training I'm scheduled to do in the next few weeks. For more information on a particular speaking engagement, get in touch with the contact person listed in the right hand column, or email me.

For more information on my availability throughout the next 12-18 months, available topics, sample agendas, and fees go to www.missionbased.com/training.htm

Date	City	Topic	Contact
3/07/04	Chicago	Financial Empowerment	Liz Livingston-Howard liz-howard@kellogg.northwestern.edu www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/nonprofitexeced
3/22/04, 3/24/04	London, U.K.	Passion, Mission, & Vision	Tesse Akpeki National Council of Voluntary Organisations tesse.akpeki@ncvo-vol.org.uk
4/26-27/04	Buffalo	Business Development	NISH Deborah Atkinson datkinson@nish.org
5/04/04	North Easton, MA	Mission-Based Marketing	Stonehill College Center for Nonprofit Management Courtney Dunleavy cdunleavy@stonehill.edu
5/06/04	Akron, OH	Mission-Based Marketing	Center for Nonprofit Excellence Susan Griffin griffin@cfnpe.org
5/12/04	Springfield, IL	Mission-Based Management	Alzhiemer's Association Conference Maggie Schaver mschaver@siumed.edu
5/13/04	Cincinnati	Mission-Based Marketing	Michelle Class Barnes, Dennig MClass@barnesdennig.com

Marketing and fund raising; a perfect match

Marketing to volunteers? Doesn't quite sound like a natural match, at least until you think about it. Every not-for-profit must have at least some volunteers (the board of directors) and many could not operate without the huge infusion of volunteer time and talent that they have come to depend on.

So, you need volunteers. Ergo, they are a market. So let's go through the marketing cycle and see if you can use it to improve your recruitment and retention of this important part of your organization.

Marketing Step	Application to Volunteers
1. Identify Your Markets	What kind of volunteers are you looking for? Retirees, teenagers, drivers, fund-raisers, cooks, receptionists, focus on the group that you need with skills you need to do the jobs you intend to have the volunteers perform. Hint: Have job descriptions for volunteer jobs. This helps recruitment a great deal.
2. Identify Your Markets' Wants	Volunteers just help you because........so why is it that they come in? People are giving you their time and talent for reason (often a bunch of reasons), so you need to find out what the reasons are and try to meet those wants. And, their are limitations on their desires to serve, which are also wants. These may be the hours, or the time of day or week, or the location that they can serve. Ask your volunteers why they serve, and what their limitations are. Observe them in action, see what they enjoy. Have them fill out evaluations regularly and pay attention to their comments.
3. Develop Your Product or Service	The service you are providing to the volunteer is an opportunity to serve. If you can design it with their wants in mind, and be flexible to a point, you will have a much more attractive volunteer opportunity.
4. Develop a Reasonable Price	Price? For a volunteer? Sure. You should have some requirements of any volunteer, and that equates to price in this model. For example, they may have to attend training every 12 months, or have to dress a certain way, or provide a certain number of service hours per month. Hint here: volunteer policies and procedures go a long way to helping you lay this out early.
5. Promote your Product or Service	Now that you have your ideas all down, your procedures and job descriptions set, you are ready to let people know that you welcome volunteers in certain parts of your organization.
6. Distribute your Product or Service	Have the staff provide help to the volunteers as needed. Be there to train, support, coach, correct, and praise as necessary.
7. Evaluate	Evaluate your volunteers. Have your volunteers evaluate the organization. See what works: do more of it. See what doesn't' work: change it or stop it.

If you want to see more about this in detail, take a look at more about my book Mission-Based Marketing; Second Edition

If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

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Future Topics in 2004 for the Mission-Based Management Newsletter....

April	Financial Management
May	Online Marketing
June	Transparency
July	Start-up
August	Governance
September	Political Activities
October	Increasing Involvement of Younger Staff, Board, and Volunteers
November	Outcome Measurement
December
Send me your topic suggestions at peter@missionbased.com

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