I’ve blogged about what I learned or relearned in 2011 that I want to take into 2012.

Now, here’s a wish list for volunteerism-related research that I hope organizations like the Independent Sector, any ARNOVA members, The Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR), and others will delve into in 2012:

• what are the top three factors are that keep nonprofits, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations from involving more volunteers
• what are the top three factors are that these organizations feel affect their retaining of volunteers
• if these organizations honestly believe their volunteer force needs to represent a diversity of ages, cultures and backgrounds; and if so, why, and if not, why not
• what training all staff at an organization need in order to involve more volunteers and better support volunteers (not just the person in charge of recruiting and managing volunteers)
• how these organizations know if their volunteer engagement is successful or not, how they define that “success”, how they know if there is a problem, etc.
• how often these organizations revisit and revise their employee, volunteer and client policies with an eye, specifically, to safety of each of those groups
• if such organizations have an online discussion group or intranet for their volunteers (would love to know how many have such versus how many don’t), and if they do, how they view the group’s effectiveness as a way to communicate with volunteers

I would love to know, through a survey of volunteers:

• how many read and send email most every day
• how many use Twitter
• how many use Facebook
• how many would feel comfortable using Facebook, Twitter or any social media as a part of their volunteering, versus those that would NOT want to do so (I’m hearing from many volunteers who are saying they do NOT want to mix the two)

I’ve already offered what I would love for someone to research re: microvolunteering, that I think would actually be of value to the charity sector.

If anyone does actually do this kind of research – as opposed to the oh-so-tired what motivates volunteers research that I AM SO TIRED OF – I will be happy to promote your work every way I can, because this research is needed. Greatly needed. We thirst for this data… I would dance for this data…

And for individual nonprofits, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations involving volunteers: why not create a free survey on SurveyMonkey and find out for yourself what volunteers are thinking about your organization, what Internet tools they use, what tools they might like to use with your organization, etc.? And share what you find? Your volunteers will see it as volunteer recognition.