Volunteers

The Massachusetts Service Alliance offers a Volunteer Management Tip Sheet Series that includes the following materials:

Volunteer Management Process: 4 Effective Strategies, written by software company VolunteerHub, outlines tactics to "deploy a strategic volunteer management process [...] to increase volunteer engagement, improve retention rates, and free up their volunteer coordinators time to focus on other aspects of the organization." The four strategies are:

Although it is unfortunate, sometimes volunteers are not a good match, or are even potentially disruptive, for our nonprofit. In such cases, there are several considerations and tasks to align before taking the next step to dismiss a volunteer.

Disability is a social construct defining what is "normal" and what is not. For organizations already building an understanding of race, gender, and other social constructs and their consequences, this webinar offers a framework to help leaders consider disability in equity planning and identify ways their nonprofit can better include people with disabilities on its staff and board, and among its target population.

The Essential Guide to Managing Volunteers at Your Nonprofit gives a detailed overview of the main elements needed for any volunteer management program--the skills of a good volunteer coordinator, recruitment, interview questions, training, supervision and management, and showing appreciation. (VolunteerPro)

Volunteers are often the lifeblood of an organization and we can never thank them enough for their work. However, a lesser acknowledged issue for volunteer managers is what to do in the unfortunate (but thankfully uncommon) cases where a volunteer is causing problems for carrying out your programs or not performing duties as expected. Below are several resources for weighing your options to remediate the situation or determine if it is time to cut ties.

Is your nonprofit prepared for a natural disaster? Daniel Altenau of North Carolina Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster and Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Raleigh shares key steps nonprofits can take to protect themselves from the next disaster and craft plans to assist survivors following the event. Working through questions to help identify actions during blue sky planning, pre-event preparedness, and post-event response, this webinar will help participants:

Use this template to gauge the performance of each of your board members. Take note of strengths and weaknesses to maximize the efforts of the board as a whole and make the most of talents evident through this evaluation.

Nonprofit Board Orientation Checklist - This checklist is a general outline to guide the orientation of new board members. Your organization should modify it as you see fit to ensure that all new board members are provided with the information necessary to fulfill their responsibilities. (BoardSource, 2016)

If you have found a board member to be disruptive, unproductive, or otherwise harmful to your organization, but are unsure of what course to take, consider tips from this list of resources to help either improve or to remove board members. (Free Management Library)