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Free Online Training For Volunteer Coordinators – Imagine being tasked with recruiting and managing volunteers for a medical trial — for an untested vaccine — during the worst pandemic in recent history.
1 day early for the nonprofit, this remarkable task became their reality as they worked to test vaccines for COVID-19.
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The trial was a deliberate effort that brought together an enthusiastic group of scientists and researchers, but like most grassroots efforts, it was plagued by volunteer recruitment and management concerns about fair processes and lack of enthusiasm.
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And, given some of the risks of getting infected with a vaccine for a new, as-yet-unknown virus, those fears were all the more pressing. Even Josh Morrison, co-founder of 1 Day Sooner, thought, “Is anyone really going to do this?”
While this trial is ongoing, its initial success has already given us a sense of our ability to recruit volunteers, and with 31,000 volunteers spread across the globe, we can’t help but wonder if their volunteers What will the management plan look like?
After all, this is one of the most rewarding and challenging parts of any organization – but it’s also one of the areas most likely to be overlooked when other priorities come into play.
To help you keep volunteer management at the forefront no matter what crisis you’re facing, we’ve put together a list of six steps to creating a volunteer management plan that fits your nonprofit’s goals and needs. is best suited for
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This includes scheduling volunteers, training volunteers, and empowering and motivating volunteers to do their jobs well and advance the nonprofit’s mission.
Worried about how long it will take? There are many software tools, many of which are free or inexpensive, that can be useful for scheduling and tracking volunteers so you don’t have to do it all manually.
No one knows better than you how government-mandated lockdowns and changing information about COVID-19 have forced nonprofits around the world to offer work-from-home privileges for their employees.
Plus, 81% of volunteers do it to make a difference in the community and be social… So how do you recruit and manage volunteers in a time where everyone’s social life is happening remotely?
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While many of the tips on volunteer management planning during COVID-19 also translate to normal seasons, there are a few other steps you can take to build a strong foundation for your volunteer management program.
These six steps to creating a solid volunteer management plan can help you get started whether you’re starting from scratch or you want to start fresh.
Setting goals is one of the first steps for any successful business and nonprofit enterprise. Your goal as a volunteer manager or coordinator is to come up with realistic, measurable goals for your volunteers and organization.
Here are some common goals you’ll want to set to measure the health and success of volunteer programs:
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Another way to develop your goals for your volunteer management plan is to start by asking your team questions about what you hope to accomplish with your volunteers. Questions like these can guide your discussion:
Once you’ve set the right goals for your volunteer management plan, volunteer recruitment begins. There are many great resources and checklists that can provide a playbook for volunteer recruitment. Many of these guidelines cover aspects such as knowing how you want to use volunteers, how many volunteers you need, and what skills you need in volunteers.
Where your organization can start recruiting smarter is by thinking like marketers and approaching volunteer recruitment the way innovative employers recruit their employees.
In the same way employers spend time developing personas to understand what motivates potential employees, their preferred work environment, their lifestyles, etc., volunteer managers should spend time doing the same. Then, they can write volunteer descriptions that speak to those profiles. Here’s a sample of a good volunteer description that explains the company’s mission, lists responsibilities, explains the requirements, and clearly describes how to apply:
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The profiles should also include information about where these target volunteers get information, spend time online, and research opportunities. This is where the marketer’s mindset comes into play. If you find out which volunteers spend most of their time scrolling through social media or enjoy attending networking events, you can start recruiting them wherever they are.
Good training and education separates a well-organized nonprofit from a poor nonprofit. Simply put, in order to provide good documentation and training to volunteers, an organization must have a process and system for teaching.
To make volunteers feel welcome and prepared, create training related to “housekeeping stuff.” Things like where to track hours, how to sign in for shifts, and where to complete reports should be covered within the first few days of joining your nonprofit as a volunteer. While in-person training is common, there are now many online tools and document sharing services that make virtual training easy and effective.
As important as training, ongoing education related to your organization’s evolving leadership, goals, mission, and key events is vital to making volunteers feel engaged and included. This education can be in the form of a monthly meeting or a volunteer newsletter like the one below from Louisiana Masters Natural Greater New Orleans.
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While “friendship” may bring to mind initiatives like volunteer appreciation events and regular meetings, it really means giving people a chance to engage with you, other volunteers, and the wider company.
One way to do this is to implement a regular feedback loop between volunteers and the coordinator or manager – which can also help volunteers feel heard. These opportunities for feedback don’t have to be overly formal. Depending on your nonprofit and your volunteers, you can do a quick phone call, email, or even a quick survey.
No matter which method of engagement you choose, follow-up is key. If your volunteers are taking the time to engage with you, it’s important to understand their work and be open to making changes based on their suggestions.
And of course, doing things like building a strong volunteer community that makes it easy for volunteers to connect with each other goes a long way to keeping volunteers engaged and leads to retention and even referrals.
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The good and bad news when it comes to modern communication is that there are many channels for communication between email, phone calls, Facebook Messenger, Instagram direct messages, text messages, and more.
From the moment volunteer recruitment begins, there are many tools that allow people to spread the word about new volunteer opportunities on any social platform, schedule automated emails with volunteer updates, and Video collection made easy.
And even better – most are free! Whichever way you choose to communicate, if you are clear and consistent, volunteer management will go much more smoothly throughout the volunteer journey.
There are many good resources that outline steps for creating a solid communication plan. Here are a few key things to keep in mind when you contact your volunteers:
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While it may seem like a good volunteer management plan will speak for itself, it’s important to capture important metrics, so you can report success to your broader organization through a volunteer impact report and progress areas. give
The goals you set should determine which metrics you should track, such as volunteer manager response rates for new volunteer inquiries, volunteer satisfaction rates, and retention rates.
So good reporting ensures that your data is clean and can be easily shared. Often, this means choosing the right volunteer management platform and making sure it’s supported with the right processes and people in place. Gone are the days of keeping track of things in Excel sheets where it’s easy to duplicate or lose data with all the manual work that goes into maintaining large sheets. Now, the options for volunteer management software solutions are plentiful, even free.
Developing a volunteer management plan is a journey, and it looks different for every nonprofit, but we believe these tried-and-true steps can help any organization develop its own approach to volunteer management and Volunteers and staff enhance the experience.
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This website uses analytical tools to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 12.3 million jobs in the nonprofit sector! Nonprofits and their volunteers help meet some of our community’s most pressing needs. And it’s nonprofit professionals, like volunteer managers, who play an important role in mobilizing our community’s change makers. Volunteer management is a rewarding career with many opportunities for personal and professional fulfillment. Whether you’re looking for a new career or you’re an experienced volunteer leader, volunteer management training offers a valuable opportunity for professional development. This article covers everything you need to know about volunteer management training.
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