by Jayne Cravens
via coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)

How Volunteers Can Support the Person In Charge of Volunteer Engagement

The person in charge of volunteer engagement at a nonprofit, NGO, charity, school or other civil society organization or mission-based program - usually called the volunteer manager or leader of volunteers - primarily recruits and manages volunteers that are supporting other staff: the program staff, for instance, may need mentors for clients or people to clean up a public space or to foster animals. The fundraising staff may need volunteers to staff a donor event. The marketing manager may need volunteers to accurately caption the nonprofit's videos on YouTube.

But the person in charge of volunteer engagement should also be thinking about how volunteers can help with volunteer engagement - with the recruitment, onboarding, training, support and recognition of volunteers.

That can not only help the person in charge of volunteer engagement have more time for creating strategies, addressing critical needs and engaging in professional development, as well as leveraging far more talent and experiences than any one person can have, it also is leading by example: if you want more staff to create roles and tasks for volunteers, and to be effectively supporting them, you need to be leading by example!

Roles for Volunteers to Support Volunteer Engagement

Here are volunteer management tasks that volunteers can help with - there are no doubt FAR more:

Forms development: for instance, creating an input forum on Google Drive where applications from new volunteers will come to a particular email address, for instance.
Review new volunteer applications, ask for additional information if needed and forwarding completed applications to the manager of volunteers.
Send rejection emails for volunteers that do not meet requirements based on information submitted, or not submitted, on the volunteer application. For instance, "Thank you for your volunteer application. At this time, we do not have any openings for volunteers on the weekends."
Initial interviews with new volunteer applicants and passing on their feedback to the manager of volunteers.
Scheduling volunteers for new volunteer orientations.
Helping new volunteers use required tech tools (scheduling software, progress reports, feedback on tasks, online community use, etc.).
Writing and/or editing for newsletters, blogs, web sites or any other communications materials.
Management and/or facilitation of the online community for volunteers.
Analyzing activities of the online community for volunteers, to look for trends, challenges, accomplishments, etc.
Research needed, such as finding samples of volunteer policies from organizations that have clients under 18.
Survey design to gather information from volunteers about their experiences, challenges, accomplishments, etc.
Conducting a survey to gather information from volunteers about their experiences, challenges, accomplishments, etc.- volunteers may be more inclined to talk more freely to a volunteer recruited specifically for this task, rather than the manager of volunteers.
Analyzing data from a survey of volunteers.
Analyzing data from volunteer applications or volunteer records, to see what zip codes are under-represented among volunteers, areas where there should be greater diversity, trends and other statistics.
Fiscal Management/Bookkeeping/Accounting associated with management of a volunteering program.
Designing art work/graphics needed by the manager of volunteers.
Photography, or gathering and organizing photos by or of volunteers.
Uploading volunteer roles to volunteer recruitment sites like VolunteerMatch and other volunteer recruitment outlets.
Photography at volunteering activities.
Editing videos of volunteers or from volunteers.
Event planning.
Scheduling of volunteers.
Social media management to communicate about volunteers.
Web page preparation.
reparing a room for a meeting with volunteers (assembling handout material, preparing name tags).
Greeting orientation attendees (new volunteers).
Developing whatever paper or computerized system you need to track volunteer involvement.
Entering information from volunteer timesheets or electronic reports.
Producing periodic reports summarizing activities and impact

And note that many of these activities can be done online, by volunteers working from their home or work places remote to your organization.

Remember that creating roles & tasks for volunteers means that each role needs to be IN WRITING and that you need to make sure the foundations of volunteer engagement are in place, or your volunteer engagement will suffer, even fail.

See this index of volunteer engagement-related resources on this web site for more resources to effectively engage and support volunteers.

And also have a look at:

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook:
Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement.

A comprehensive guide to using online tools for supporting & engaging ALL volunteers, & for creating online roles & online tasks for volunteers.

The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up Virtual Volunteering At Any Organization.

Here's how to order
(includes table of contents and reviews).

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