Tag Archives: management

What some nonprofits ask for in job candidates is ridiculous.

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a simplistic drawing of a wizard

Within one week, I saw three different job announcements at three different mid-size or large nonprofits that, altogether, were what I did part-time at a small nonprofit for the last three years. And much of the activities in each of these roles are, altogether, what I have done at nonprofits for the last thirty years.

What each job listed for qualifications was so specific that the organizations are going to end up excluding MANY qualified people – and, probably, the best person for the job. Despite my extensive professional background, despite being expertly qualified for some positions, I don’t even bother applying because so many people don’t see a journalism degree as something desirable now.

When your small or medium-sized nonprofit is looking for someone to be a videographer or photographer, who you are going to pay a salary FAR below the market rate, what you need from job candidates is work portfolios, not a degree in videography or photography. Same for a web designer or a graphic designer or a communications manager and many other positions. And for education, what you may need most is graduation from a recent certificate program, not a full-fledged BA. You need people who can do the job, and since you cannot afford to pay people with the training and experience you are demanding, you need to adjust your expectations.

There’s a better way to attract and screen candidates for roles where the person will produce communications pieces – and will do the job you need done:

(1) Ask applicants to note in their résumés or applications where (in what professional and volunteer positions) they used the tools or produced the projects or demonstrated the skills you are asking for. If your job involves setting up press conferences, or designing web sites, or managing web sites, or designing brochures, or distributing brochures, etc., ask applicants to note in their résumés or applications where they have experience doing that.

(2) Note that you will be asking later for online portfolios from the top 10 candidates, what you will want in those portfolios, and approximately how many weeks you will contact the top 10 candidates to ask for those portfolios. Note how many people you will choose to interview from those top 10 candidates and approximately when those interviews will take place. If someone doesn’t already have the material for a portfolio, they aren’t going to apply – and if they do, they now know they need to make sure their portfolio is full of fantastic examples of their work.

And if you are going to demand that the person use certain specific software – Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, Final Cut Pro, etc. – then you had better say what YOU are going to provide the selected candidate. What kind of laptop or desk top are you going to provide? Running what software? What kind of camera are you going to provide? Do you have a quiet room for creatives to create and edit? Are you committed to web accessibility and will give your web designer the tools needed to make that happen?

Be flexible in asking for a degree. I know amazing photographers with English degrees. I know very talented videographers with music degrees. I know kick-ass web designers with philosophy degrees.

And, finally: what you see as an entry-level job may be, particularly for seasoned professional in their 50s or 60s, a way to work for a few more years, work at a pace that is better suited to their life now than the senior and executive positions they held in the past, and apply a vast amount of skills and experience that your organization may be in much more need of than you might think. If you are thinking, “Oh, but what about health problems they might have?”, then also consider that it’s likely that candidates in their 50s or 60s aren’t starting families in the next few years, aren’t going to quit to pursue other, better job opportunities, and aren’t going to move across country to get married. And they are no more likely to have home-care obligations than a 30 something.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

How to get a variety of staff to create roles for volunteers.

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graphic representing volunteers at work

It’s controversial to say, but here it is: I believe that creating volunteering roles is NOT the primary responsibility of the manager of volunteers and that most volunteers should not be working just the manager of volunteers.

And working from this premise, it’s impossible for the manager of volunteers to create most of the roles for volunteers; it takes program staff and even administration staff, a mix of employees and leadership volunteers, to be the primary generators of volunteer roles.

Consider a community theater that produces live performances: a manager of volunteers at such a nonprofit wouldn’t recruit volunteers to help build sets without first talking to the person in charge of set building and that person defining what volunteers will do. Such a manager at a nonprofit animal shelter wouldn’t recruit volunteers to show up to walk dogs without first talking to the shelter manager and working out what training needs to happen, as well as a schedule.

And if these other staff members, whether employees or volunteers, don’t want to involve volunteers, the work of the manager of volunteers is, quite frankly, doomed to failure.

Now, here’s the kicker: how do you encourage, or even require, staff to involve volunteers in their work?

In more than 25 years of working with volunteers and researching volunteerism, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. I finally decided to write it all down – and now I have updated the resource on my web site about how to create volunteering roles to include advice on what it takes to get staff to involve volunteers in their work. Have a look and, if you have more advice, offer it in the comments on this blog or email me directly.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

URGENT: if your USA-based program involves volunteers, you need to create a budget NOW & fight for it when budget cuts are discussed

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image of a panel discussion

Along with the massive slashing of US government budgets, the demand for nonprofit services is going to be even greater than before – and nonprofits, per losing so much government funding (and corporate funding – layoffs abound) are going to have less and less resources.

A lot of boards at nonprofits are going to naively think, “Oh, let’s just get more volunteers – while also cutting the budget of the volunteer program, including firing the volunteer manager.”

If you work with volunteers at your nonprofit, regardless of if your title is manager of volunteers or not, there are three things you need to do RIGHT NOW, urgently, if you want to keep involving volunteers at your nonprofit and be ready to face the severe budget cuts coming.

1) you need to prepare a budget, RIGHT NOW, on what it costs to engage volunteers at your organization. That budget should include:

  • the percentage of staff time, at dollar value, to engage with and support volunteers
  • all expenses related to recruitment (that will include a portion of your web site hosting)
  • all expenses related to training and supervision (any software you pay to use for this)
  • all expenses related to appreciation/recognition (items you give to volunteers, rentals of space for volunteer events, etc.)
  • costs associated with volunteer management software
  • costs associated with background checks
  • advertising costs
  • travel costs
  • office supplies
  • insurance
  • volunteer center membership
  • professional development of those working with volunteers (training, certification, publications, conferences, membership fees, etc.)

2) You also need to create a chart that shows, as simply as possible, what it takes to onboard a new volunteer and to support your new volunteers. It needs to show exactly who does what at each step.

If you don’t do this, and communicate it to senior staff and the board, the budget cuts they make will be arbitrary, and volunteer engagement will plummet (so will individual donations, FYI).

3) And the third thing you must do: you must show the impact of your volunteer program. The number of volunteers you involved and the number of hours they gave IS NOT IMPACT. Testimonials from clients and staff about the impact volunteers made with them is impact. Testimonials from volunteers about how they did not understand fully what your nonprofit was doing before or the issue they were addressing, but now they do, because of their volunteering, is impact. Volunteers themselves can help you gather this data.

Also see:

Your Nonprofit CAN Resist. Here’s how.

Told ya. & I’m still telling you.

Could your nonprofit be the target of an ICE raid? Are you prepared?

What’s the future of international humanitarian development & foreign relations careers?

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Something IS working when your staff is willing to tell you that something isn’t working.

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From someone else:

image of a panel discussion

Accountability must work in all directions. Holding subordinates accountable is easy; holding your leaders and your peers accountable is harder, but critical. They should know that you expect them to have the highest standards, and they should hear about it (politely) when they don’t. When you are in charge of a good team, they set the expectations for you at least as much as you set the expectations for them. I recently fulfilled a long-time wish when I entirely skipped the first PT formation to go out for breakfast, something I’d never done before in my whole career. I was more than a little sad that no one called to check on me. Later, I learned my absence was noticed, but no one felt they had the authority to call me out on it, so I had some discussions with the relevant people. It was a good breakfast, but a better teaching point, I hope. Holding your leaders accountable, perhaps by asking the hard questions in the meetings, tells them what your expectations and needs are and helps keep them on the straight and narrow. When as a leader you don’t get any feedback, it’s very easy to wander far afield. Everyone… needs someone to hold them accountable.

From Reflections on the Conclusion of a Military Career, by Ben Steele. Full remarks at the Angry Staff Officer blog.

I prepared and scheduled this blog more than a month ago. Since then, I have experienced first hand the consequences of holding a supervisor accountable. There’s nothing easy about it. But for all the reasons stated above, I did it. And will continue to do so.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Be kind after you read the first draft.

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After a few decades of professional work, I’m getting less circumspect about my experiences. There are things I was afraid to say, or to admit to, 20 years ago, but now feel need to be shared, to help others pursuing a similar career path and to remind some folks in power of some things they should be reminded of. I’m in a good position to share them, per my decades of work and diversity of experiences. This blog is one of many coming from that feeling that it’s time to say it – whatever it is.

Many years ago, I trained as a journalist. I even worked as a professional journalist for a few years. But before graduating from university, I realized I didn’t want to be a journalist. Before I left university, I started working in public relations for a nonprofit, and then I was in charge of publicity for the entire season of my university’s children theater series. We broke attendance records. I loved it. So I’ve done communications work ever since for nonprofits and cause-based programs, except for a few breaks to manage programs and projects for nonprofits or the United Nations.

I love applying what I learned as a journalist to the work I do with nonprofits – I think it’s why I’m successful at getting media coverage. And I love writing with the purpose of promoting, even explaining, a program or project. For nonprofits, I find such writing easier than a lot of other people, because I believe so much in the fundamental importance of the third sector and the public sector to everyone’s quality of life. That innate motivation makes it easy for me to be motivated to write for most any nonprofit or government mission. I feel great inspiration in why most nonprofits and government programs exists, whether it’s a winterization program or a new musical or a new approach to community meeting facilitation, and I think it shows in what communications products – press release, web pages, social media posts, speeches, video scripts and more – that I make for them.

But writing for causes I immediately find worthy is not without some big challenges. And the biggest for me is the reaction from co-workers or funders reading a draft of something for the first time. The expressed shock of some of them, even suppressed outrage, that things are incorrect or aren’t perfectly clear can be exhausting.

Of course, the first draft is imperfect. Of course, you will need to edit what I’ve written. I knew that going in. Didn’t you?

Very often, the person that asks me to write a press release or slide show presentation or video script has nothing written at all, not even an outline. I have to draw my material for the first draft from talking to them, from researching online, and if I’m lucky, from printed or online material I’ve been able to track down, like a grant proposal. I do my best with what I can find, and when I provide that first draft, I’m not thinking, “Here it is, all perfect and ready to share!” I’m usually thinking, “Here it is, ready for your edits, because I know how much easier it is to edit than to write from scratch!” I expect edits!

One of my least favorite phrases is this: “I don’t know where you got this from”, referring to some graphic or quote I’ve included in my draft. Please note that I’m not AI (artificial intelligence) and I don’t make things up; whatever it is, I found that graphic or quote somewhere, from a different communications project I wasn’t involved with, from a headquarters, from another nonprofit – somewhere credible and reliable. Or, perhaps you explained something, in terms I cannot use, and so I had to interpret them – and it turns out your explanation wasn’t as good as you thought it was.

One of the best ways to know how good of an explainer you are is to explain something to a person, and then ask that person to explain it back to you. And that’s what you are doing when you ask me to write something you need to communicate with others.

In addition, so much of effective communication isn’t just saying something in one particular way, and expecting the reader or listener to understand. Rather, it’s about saying things in multiple ways, and the reader, or listener, gets the meaning from those different ways you have said it and that they have heard it – more than once.

When you get that first draft, don’t panic that it’s not perfect. Instead, think about how much easier it’s going to be to edit this than to try to write it entirely from scratch.

It’s fine to say, “I don’t like this” about a sentence or graphic, but be able to say more about why. Are the words too big? Do you feel like it could be interpreted to be saying something you don’t want said and, if so, what is that something?

It’s fine to say, “I haven’t heard this way of saying it before. Did this come from somewhere else?” I always have the source material for just such an occasion, like when a client thought I had made an inappropriate leap in logic in how I described one of the programs she managed, and I was able to provide the web pages of her affiliate’s headquarters, as well as other affiliates, that used the same descriptions.

Is the way you have been describing something really better than the alternative now being offered? You may be far closer to the subject matter than the person that wrote this press release draft, and that person may be thinking about the audience, people who don’t know as much as you do about the subject, or who may even be hostile about it.

Did the writer have to follow a particular template provided by a funder? Can the writer make the changes you want and still follow the template the funder wants followed?

Did the writer actually do what you wanted and you are now realizing it’s not what you wanted? That’s okay! It seemed like a great idea to adapt that poem or song lyric a certain way, but now that you see what that would look like, it’s okay to say, “I’ve changed my mind.”

Remember that the writer just did the heavy lifting and you now get the far easier role of editing and altering. Thank them for that heavy lifting!

Also see:

What theatre taught me about management & internal communications.

Abilities you need to work in humanitarian development successfully

How to support your online community manager in times of trolling.

Support Your Local Online Discussion Manager!

The delicate, peculiar task of promoting a charity’s gala.

Be careful using Canva – nonprofit graphics are starting to all look the same!

Getting great photos for your nonprofit’s marketing needs takes planning.

When some nonprofit employees & volunteers don’t really understand what the nonprofit is trying to address & why.

We’ve got to get better at addressing misconceptions about volunteerism.

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graphic representing volunteers at work

I live in the Portland, Oregon area, and a few years ago, the area experienced record-setting heat. In response, various city and county governments set up cooling centers: spaces in libraries, churches and convention centers where people without air conditioning and people who are unsheltered could come, with their pets, to get relief from the dangerous heat. One county government tweeted out several requests for volunteers, including one that said volunteers were needed “desperately.” I decided to amplify the message by posting it to various online communities I’m a part of, including posting it on the subreddit for Portland, Oregon. I highlighted some points in particular from the web site where people were to express interest in volunteering:

Must be 18+, have compassion for all guests. Social service experience helpful.

Please keep in mind that emergency response operations may be very hectic keeping you quite busy for extended periods. You may also experience very slow uneventful periods of time. Such is the nature of emergency and disaster response. Please take time before your deployment to prepare for this working environment.

These are 9-hour shifts. These locations are open 24 HOURS.

I did alter the message to say cooling center volunteers were needed URGENTLY, rather than desperately, because I think desperation is never a good place to recruit volunteers from.

The message was upvoted more than any message I’ve ever posted to Reddit. But there was also significant backlash. The criticisms fell into three areas:

  • Why aren’t these positions paid? Why are these volunteer roles instead?
  • Why are the shifts 9 hours instead of 4?
  • Why didn’t the city plan better & start recruiting sooner?

It’s a shame those first two questions in particular weren’t answered by the recruiting agency in their messaging. As regular readers of my blog know, to not say why positions are volunteer rather than paid is always a big no-no. And saying “we don’t have the money to pay, so these are volunteer!” would not be the answer I am looking for (and probably not most of potential volunteers either).

As for the third comment, I don’t know that the city didn’t start recruiting sooner; I didn’t look on HandsOn Portland, VolunteerMatch and AllforGood, for instance, to see if they had started recruiting there. I don’t know that they didn’t have notices on their own web site sooner than what I saw on social media. So I hesitate to criticize them for how they have recruited in terms of when and where.

I did take issue with one comment that was made, and pushed back at it:

Way too much money and benefits expenses being expended on volunteer “coordinators”

I noted in my response that managers or coordinators of volunteers are some of the lowest paid people at any nonprofit or other agency, and rarely is their only role managing volunteers. I also said:

Volunteers aren’t free: someone has to recruit them, read the applications, interview them, screen them (often, background checks, reference checks and extensive interviews are required), supervise them (both to ensure their safety and client safety, and to make sure they’re doing what they are supposed to), support them (train them, answer questions on demand, etc), record their hours and their accomplishments, address problems, and report regularly to senior staff about what the volunteers are doing. It’s a tough job, made harder by people who think volunteers are free, think volunteer management is “Hey, we need volunteers, come on down!” and the work all magically happens, and balk at coordinators who ask for better training for themselves, software to manage volunteers, etc.

Nonprofits have GOT to do a better job of addressing misconceptions about volunteers and volunteer engagement. This is just yet another example of why.

Also see:

If you have benefited from any of my blogs or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

A dare for nonprofit executive directors

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graphic representing volunteers at work

Do you head a nonprofit or non-government organizations (NGO)? I have a challenge for you. It’s a simple challenge, but a revealing one, and I’m daring you to do it:

Make this list, entirely on your own, with no consultation with others, of each person at your organization that you believe is supposed to be primarily responsible for:

  • responding to someone that emails or calls and says they want to volunteer.
  • meeting with / interviewing someone for the first time that wants to volunteer, getting all the necessary paperwork from the new applicant, etc.
  • orienting/training someone that will volunteer and what that orienting or training consists of (watching a certain video? going over the employee policy manual? getting a tour of facilities?)
  • inputting all of the volunteers’ information into a central database.
  • letting volunteers know about organization events or activities they would be welcomed to join or that they may be asked about from the public they work with.
  • following up with volunteers to see how their experience is going.
  • trouble-shooting on behalf of volunteers.
  • firing a volunteer.
  • recognizing and rewarding volunteers.
  • tracking volunteer contributions and reporting such to the organization.
  • interviewing volunteers that leave, to see why and to address issues.

Now that you have your list, then, at your next staff meeting, ask your staff these same questions. And learn two things:

  • If you are right.
  • If the staff that have these responsibilities knew they had these responsibilities.

Don’t be surprised if, in fact, you are wrong about who is responsible for what, nor surprised that there are staff with these responsibilities that didn’t know it. Reflect on these discrepancies and think about how you are going to support staff that didn’t know it was their responsibility to manage a piece of working with volunteers.

And then, finally, ask for a progress report on each of these tasks. And don’t be surprised to hear, again and again, “We’re behind on that. We’ve had other priorities. Sorry.” Because unless you have a dedicated manager of volunteers, someone whose sole responsibility is to support and engage volunteers, it’s very likely all those other people who are supposed to have at least a piece of volunteer engagement as a part of their roles – the marketing director, the fundraising manager, the thrift store manager, etc. – aren’t doing it regularly. And with that, you’ll finally understand why your organization doesn’t have all the volunteers it needs and why volunteers don’t stay.

And maybe then you’ll stop saying, “Well, people just don’t want to volunteer anymore!”

Also see:

What is meant by “safety policies” for volunteering programs?

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two primitive-looking images, like petroglyphs, one holding an umbrella over them both

Any organization that involves volunteers needs to have safety policies and procedures to protect both volunteers and those that they serve, and if the volunteers interact with vulnerable people or could be in one-to-one situations with ANYONE, there needs to be even more extensive safety policies and procedures.

What do safety policies look like?

Screening steps for volunteers could be the volunteer applicants:

  • providing real names (not just nicknames or screen names), residential addresses (not just a PO Box), phone number, etc.
  • providing the name of the volunteer’s current employer and previous two employers, or the name of where they are currently enrolled in school and how many hours they are taking.
  • answering the questions “why do you want to volunteer?” and “What do you hope to experience as a volunteer” and “tell me about a time you interacted with a person in crisis.”
  • providing professional and academic reference checks (employers, teachers)
  • providing personal reference checks (friends, family)
  • undergoing a criminal background check
  • undergoing a credit check
  • being in a probation period and extra observation at first
  • going through required training

Supervision for volunteers could be:

  • Volunteers required to use an email the organization has set up and know that ALL emails are archived and could be reviewed at any time.
  • Volunteers required to work in pairs or paired with a staff person.
  • Staff that created the volunteering role meeting with the volunteer once a month or once a quarter AND meeting with other volunteers and clients about that volunteer’s performance.

Policies for volunteers could be:

  • Never being alone, one-on-one, with another volunteer, a paid staff person or a client.
  • Never using any electronic communications avenues other than a specific email or online platform (no texting among volunteers, for instance).
  • A prohibition on a volunteer giving personal contact info to any client.
  • A mandatory reporting by the volunteer if a client gives that volunteer personal contact info or tries to contact that volunteer outside of agreed-to communications avenues (WhatsApp, TikTok, etc.)
  • Mandatory reporting to management of suspicions of inappropriate behavior relating to sex by volunteers and clients.

etc.

Again, these are just EXAMPLES. And what safety requirements a volunteer beach cleanup group is going to have is NOT going to be the same as what a mentoring program for young people will have.

But whatever you have at your organization, whatever you require, should be detailed on your organization’s web site – NO EXCEPTIONS. And if they are not, it has to be assumed you don’t have them. And if you are recruiting volunteers to work with vulnerable groups or one-on-one with anyone, your post is going to be deleted here unless you have info on your web site on the steps you employ to keep volunteers and those they were safe.

Safety in Service Delivery/Client Support by Online Volunteers.

Your right to turn away volunteers who won’t adhere to safety measures (& your right to refuse to volunteer at an unsafe program)

My wakeup call regarding risks in volunteering programs – a blog that may change your mind about how to think about risks in volunteer engagement programs

Letting Fear Prevent Volunteer Involvement is Too Risky” (a guest blog by me for Energize, Inc. and Susan Ellis)

Have you enabled a Larry Nassar?

Keeping volunteers safe – & keeping everyone safe with volunteers (includes a list of my favorite resources regarding safety in programs that involve volunteers and/or children; I consider many of these resources mandatory reading for managers of volunteers

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

In-person / on-site work & meetings automatically better than online? NOPE!

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image of a panel discussion

Quit saying that to be productive, staff – employees, consultants and volunteers – need to be onsite. 

Quit saying that, to be productive, we need to return to onsite meetings. 

Quit saying that, to build trust and to be more personal, we need to be talking face-to-face in the same room. 

Stop it with that nonsense. 

Why do you think face-to-face meetings are more productive or are better ways to build trust in a team? I have had enough time wasted in onsite meetings to last a LIFETIME. I have sat in more onsite, face-to-face meetings than I can count where nothing was accomplished.

I’m not saying never to have onsite meetings. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t ever work together in the same time and place.

But this assumption that onsite meetings are somehow automatically better, more productive, have more personality, allow people to get to know each other better, is just BOLLOCKS. 

If your team doesn’t trust each other, if your team feels it can’t rely on certain members, if your team isn’t communicating well with each other, none of that is going to be automatically solved by changing from online to onsite meetings. 

None of what makes for an effective meeting automatically happens just because you are meeting onsite. NONE of it. Quit implying that it does. 

Effective meetings, whether onsite or online:

  • have clear agendas that are communicated before the start. 
  • have an agenda that is results-oriented/mission-focused.
  • start at the time they say they will and they end at the time they say they will. 
  • are effectively facilitated so that attendees stick to the agenda and scheduled decisions are made. 
  • allow everyone to speak within the time frame given.

The meeting facilitator needs to have recognition from members to be the person to remind attendees if the discussion period for an agenda item is finished now and it’s time for a decision, or when to table a decision for the next meeting. The facilitator needs to be empowered to remind people who didn’t read the meeting materials beforehand that, in the future, they need to do that. 

Case in point: I served on a board for three years. Our meetings became vastly more productive when we moved ONLINE because of the pandemic. I even got to know some of the board members more in our online meetings – the side chats on Zoom allowed truly EVERYONE to express their opinion, even their humor.

Meeting face-to-face, in the same place and time, does not magically create better communications and does not automatically create a sense of team. If your online meetings aren’t working out the way you want, the problem is probably not that you are all online.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

Want to learn more how to effectively work with people online? The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The lessons here are focused on engaging volunteers, but all are easily adapted for working with paid staff. If you want to learn how to leverage online tools to communicate with and support volunteers, whether those volunteers are mostly online (virtual volunteering) or they provide service mostly onsite at your organization, and to dig deep into the factors for success in supporting online volunteers and keeping virtual volunteering a worthwhile endeavor for everyone involved, you will not find a more detailed guide anywhere than The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s based on many years of experience, from a variety of organizations. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

If you have benefited from any of my blogs or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

For Your Volunteers, Is Help Just a Phone Call or Text Away?

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Volunteers need support. Just like most humans, they cannot memorize an operations manual, they are going to be asked questions they don’t know the answer to, and no matter how benign you may think the roles and tasks for volunteers at your organization are, volunteers WILL sometimes face a situation where they need to talk to someone, immediately, for guidance. And if they don’t have that, they will feel frustrated, angry, even scared, and definitely unsupported.

Do volunteers at your organization know exactly who to call or text when they face a situation they don’t know how to handle, or when they are asked a question by a client that they don’t know the answer to, or when they are dealing with an angry client, or when they are feeling unsafe? And will that call or text get answered immediately?

Are volunteers encouraged to seek help in the aforementioned situations? How, beyond telling them in the volunteer orientation they should do so?

I believe very strongly that immediate support for volunteers should always be just a phone call or text message away.

Someone at your organization must be available to volunteers for consultation and direction throughout their service. That should go without saying. But I also believe that, for volunteers working with clients or the public in ANY capacity, immediate support for those volunteers should be just a phone call or text away.

For your volunteers, if they face any of the aforementioned scenarios: do they call or text the manager of volunteers? An employee that is the manager of the program they are participating in? A lead volunteer? A WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal or Slack group where they will get a response quickly?

And do you evaluate what you have told volunteers, to see if they are using it and getting the answers they need, and getting those answers quickly?

It is impossible to anticipate all problems. It is also not appropriate to have to have an immediate answer to every question – maybe things can wait for an email reply or for a regularly scheduled staff meeting to discuss them. But volunteers should know who they can call or text with a question they feel needs an immediate answer, or for a request for guidance in a situation they deem urgent.

It’s also a good idea to detail for volunteers exactly what you mean by urgent, as well as what an emergency situation is where they should call 911 first. Talk about possible scenarios together – don’t just issue a written memo.

And volunteers, if you are realizing you need more guidance, ask for it! Feel free to share this blog with those you work with at a nonprofit or government program and say, “I think we need this. Here are some things I’ve faced and I wish I’d had someone to call or text for guidance…”

Remember: the support of volunteers is THE key to retaining volunteers.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.