1. Volunteer Management
Presented by Jonathan Poisner
For the State Environment
Leadership Program
October 2011

2. A BOUT J ONATHAN P OISNER
S TRATEGIC C ONSULTING
Services:
 Strategic and Campaign Planning
 Facilitation
 Coalition Development
 Fundraising
 Communications
 Organizational Development
 Executive Transitions
 Executive Coaching

3. M Y EXPERIENCE WITH
VOLUNTEERS
 Before I became an Executive Director, I was a
grassroots organizer for the Sierra Club.
 When I became Executive Director at the Oregon
League of Conservation Voters in 1997, we had
maybe 50 volunteers, counting the board and
others.
 By 2008, we had more than 1000 volunteers do
some activity for OLCV in the calendar year.
 This took a sustained commitment to a volunteer
program and we learned some things along the
way that I’ll be sharing in this webinar.

4. W HAT WE ’ RE GOING
TO COVER
 Why Volunteers
 Recruiting Volunteers
 Managing Volunteers

5. W HY DO YOU WANT
VOLUNTEERS ?
 Important to know why since can
influence what type of program you set
up.
 Two important questions:
 What do you most want out of your
volunteers?
 What level of volunteer do you need?

6. W HAT DO YOU M OST WANT
OUT OF YOUR V OLUNTEERS
 My top potential reasons:
 To do the work staff just can’t get around
to doing (either back-end or
programmatic)
 62.8 million adults volunteering almost 8.1 billion
hours in local and national organizations in
2010, Source: VolunteeringinAmerica.gov.
 To be authentic voices
 As sources of local knowledge
 As sources of specialized expertise

7. W HAT LEVEL VOLUNTEER DO
YOU NEED ?
 Level 1: Participants
 Level 2: Activity Leaders
 Level 3: Organizational Leaders

8. R ECRUITING VOLUNTEERS
 Trends in
volunteerism
 Why people
volunteer
 Where to find
potential volunteers
 Techniques for
recruitment

9. T RENDS IN V OLUNTEERISM
 Participant volunteerism is up
 Organizational volunteerism is down
 Internships are up
 Bookmark interns as a special class of volunteers
and talk about it at the end of the webinar
Source: volunteeringinamerica.gov

10. W HY PEOPLE VOLUNTEER
 Concern about the issue
 Ideological or
 More directly personal
 Social connection
 Learn a skill/network (technical or
leadership)
 Personal connection to a staff member/other
volunteer

11. W HERE DO YOU FIND
POTENTIAL VOLUNTEERS ?
 People you meet and know
 List of supporters and donors
 Volunteer lists from allied or partner organizations
or political campaigns
 Tabling or clip boarding at local community
events or college campuses
 Online volunteer/community announcement web
sites and email lists.
 Via partnerships (e.g. with a church social justice
committee).

12. R ECRUITING PARTICIPANTS
 Personal asks are the #1 key.
 Supplement personal asks with online asks that
stress social benefits combined with urgency.
 The online is often priming the personal ask
 Or getting people at the right moment.
 Be specific. Potential volunteers respond better to
being asked to do a specific task at a specific time
for a specific purpose than a general “can you
volunteer.”
 Role play – have a script and practice it, but sound
authentic.

13. R ECRUITING PARTICIPANTS
continued
 Thank them right away – express gratitude.
 Ensure they understand what they need to. They should
be able to answer the questions: What am I going to be
doing? Where will I be doing it? When do I need to be
there? How long will I be doing it for?
 Turn participants into recruiters – always ask them if
they have two other friends who they can bring along.
 Do reminders. Day before at least an email. Better yet
are reminder calls – which can also be a volunteer task.
 Plan for a flake factor – of up to half for large-scale
volunteer activities, even with reminders.

14. R ECRUITING ACTIVITY LEADERS
 Personal asks from participants who show
promise, preferably in-person
 Personal asks of those with specialized skills to
be activity leaders.
 What happens in a leadership volunteer
recruitment meeting
 Form a personal relationship.
 Find out the why
 Set clear expectations

15. R ECRUITING
ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERS
 Definitely in-person meetings
 Even more detail on the expectations
 More of a mutual decision than pure
recruitment
 Don’t limit this to just board members
– think about whether there are other
long-term organizational roles for
which a leader can be recruited.

16. M ANAGING VOLUNTEERS
 Why do volunteers stay
 Best practices for managing volunteers
 Designing your volunteer program
 Systems that make volunteer
management easier

17. W HY DO VOLUNTEERS STAY ?
Statistics show around 1/3 of all
volunteers stop volunteering for a
specific group in the following year.
Top two reasons people continue:
 They like you.
 They are getting what they most want
out of the volunteering.

18. B EST PRACTICES FOR
VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT
 Recognition/Thanks
 Training
 Match to correct organizational activity
 Culture that welcomes new volunteers
 Allocate resources to support them
 Solicit their input sincerely
 Create opportunities for social
networking

19. D ESIGNING YOUR P ROGRAM
 Don’t underestimate the staff time necessary
 Create a volunteer recruitment/management
plan. Don’t do this ad hoc.
 Be conscious about moving people up to
higher levels. Have opportunities at all three
levels.
 Be creative in meeting organizational needs
with activity leaders if you can’t find enough
organizational volunteers.

20. Invest in Necessary Systems
 Databases matter
 Track potential volunteers and
volunteer interests
 Track volunteer activity
 Lists of past participants MUCH more
valuable than list of those potentially
interested
 Link to online sign-up is a big plus.

21. S PECIAL TOPIC :
INTERNSHIPS
 Increasingly accepted by young
professionals
 Recruit through college career
placement, through college
departments, and through job search
websites.
 Commit time for personnel
management of interns.

22. TO CONTACT ME :
 www.poisner.com – for email newsletter signup
 Twitter.com/jpoisner
 Via phone: 503-490-1234
 Via email: jonathan@poisner.com