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By Penny Kern

I’m still cleaning out drawers. After almost twenty years in the volunteer manager business, I don’t think this chore is going to end any time soon.

Anyway, I found a packet from a workshop I did in 1992. It was on leadership and on the very first page there was a quote from John Foster Dulles, Secty of State under Eisenhower. He said, ” The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.”

That makes me stop and think! Do you continue to have the same problems, complaints or concerns year after year? Maybe it’s time to take a deeper look at yourself and how you do things.

Have any suggestions for how someone can get off this treadmill?

Let us know!

Penny Kern is a retired manager of volunteers and is a featured blogger.

By Emily Brackett

If your organization relies heavily on volunteers, make sure there is a system for easily maintaining your brand standards. Your brand is an extremely valuable asset, and you want to ensure that your volunteers value, maintain and promote your brand identity correctly.

If you’re lucky enough to attract volunteers, you should feel confident that your mission and organization means something to the volunteers. So, you already have a group of “brand evangelists” ready to work for you. But without the right tools, it is difficult for your volunteers to help you without also creating problems of brand dilution.

One of the risks with using volunteers is that there are generally lots of people, many of whom are undertrained. So you need to make it easy on yourself and your volunteers to adhere to branding standards.

Letter writing
If you have volunteers sending letters or emails, provide templates for them. Templates should be created in Word (or the software of your choice) and should have the identity items already in place. That will ensure the correct organization name, colors, and layout is maintained. Additionally, you may want to provide some writing examples so that a consistent and professional tone of voice is maintained. You need to be consistent so the recipient feels confident they are coming from a trusted source. Especially, no one wants to give money if they think there is something unreliable or maybe even downright forged about an appeal letter. While you should encourage volunteers to add a personal note to recipients they know, make sure there is a uniform look to the paper, the graphics, typography and the text, and then leave an area for personalization.

Identify your volunteers
If you have volunteers out in the field at a special event, make them easy to find. T-shirts are the easiest way to quickly identify volunteers and spread the brand identity at your event. But hats, visors, arm bands or lanyards are other possibilities. Make them easily recognizable to build brand identity and attractive enough for volunteers to wear afterward to further promote the event.

Give volunteers key information
It’s easy for your patrons to get frustrated if your volunteers are not helpful. A great idea is to create a “cheat sheet” that is on the back of a lanyard-hanging name tag. The whole card can be branded with your look and feel, and the “cheat sheet” can have FAQ type of information for the volunteer. For example, it should state the mission of the organization, how someone can get involved, who the key organizers are, the web site address, etc. Although your volunteers may be committed enough to spend some time with you, they may not have the whole picture of how your organization works.

Create great signage
I’m always amazed how little signage there are at events such as charity walks, fun runs and fundraisers. Great signage brands an event and helps the volunteers. Signage can build a robust brand identity for your event and organization. You probably already have a logo and key graphics in place, but seeing how this rolls out to signage adds visual appeal and is helpful. Pointing people directly to registration, starting lines, refreshments, and bathrooms allows you to focus on other details that need your attention.

It’s worthwhile to create systems for your volunteers so that design and branding standards can be maintained. Your brand is partly about identity (logo, colors, graphics) and partly about the reputation and personality your organization maintains. Because volunteers often are jumping into a situation with little or no training, providing easy-to-use templates, communicating key information and using your brand standards to build useful things like signs and shirts will help them put your organization’s best foot forward.

Emily Brackett is president of Visible Logic, Inc., a boutique graphic design firm that works across all media, and a guest blogger.

by Jen Lobley, M.ED, CVA

Having been with UMaine Cooperative Extension for almost 10 years working in the area of 4-H Youth Development, I now find myself with a new challenge. I have recently been named Statewide Extension Educator for Volunteer Development.

Cooperative Extension provides research-based information from the Land-Grant University through a variety of educational programs to local people. Cooperative Extension volunteers play a unique role among volunteer agency programs in that they can extend the reach of Cooperative Extension into every Maine community and help provide a link between the Land Grant University and the people seeking out information. Did you know that 7,987 Extension volunteers devoted more than 151,428 hours to their communities last year? These volunteers are working in a variety of areas including: youth development, horticulture, coastal and freshwater water quality monitoring, environmental work, nutrition education, senior companion programs, sustainable coastal community programs, and parenting education.

I am excited about the challenges this new position will bring as I begin to work to create a volunteer delivery system which will increase our organizational capacity to engage more volunteers. This in turn will help provide long-term program sustainability and expand Extension’s economic, social, and environmental impact on the state of Maine. In the process of getting this work underway, I have set three goals for myself:

1. Make training and resources available for Extension staff members that enable them to gain skills and confidence in building volunteer capacity. Helping staff understand the foundational components of a volunteer system and then helping them create volunteer programs that are reflective of current trends in volunteerism will make up a large part of my work. Trends such as episodic volunteerism, virtual volunteerism and catering to the Boomer generation are all areas to be aware of and consider as we design volunteer opportunities.

2. Utilize research to build effective training opportunities and educational programs in which volunteers will be educated and empowered to assume or accept service or leadership roles. I believe volunteers are the heart of Cooperative Extension. They have played a critical role in the 95 year history of Extension here in Maine and will continue to actively do so in the future. However, the volunteer of today is different than the volunteer of yesterday and this will impact how we work with them.

3. In the near future, Extension will be viewed by other organizations around Maine as a place to find research-based volunteer development trainings, opportunities, and resources that they can access and adjust to fit their individual needs. I envision Extension collaborating with the Maine Commission for Community Service and other groups to help build new partnerships and tap new community resources to expand volunteerism. Just think of the endless opportunities!

So that’s a lot to accomplish, huh? You might be wondering where on earth would she start? The real work will begin internally within Extension. Although I have a general sense of the various programs we offer, I will need to spend time learning about current volunteer engagement within our various program areas and spend time on needs assessment. I am also forming an advisory group. By having an advisory committee to provide input into determining priorities,long-range goals, policy and procedure, I believe a better volunteer system will emerge than if I were to try implementing something alone.

I know demands on our staff in terms of time are tight. As I develop training opportunities I will need to keep this in mind. I will work to develop and provide easily digestible “chunks” of information including monthly Volunteer Management Minute trainings (narrated video clips lasting five minutes or less with a few PowerPoint slides), a series of volunteer management tips that will be emailed out on a regular basis, and create an internal web page for staff members that will host a variety of or resources. (I must note that I am very fortunate to have a VISTA volunteer helping me get these projects started!)

I am proud to work for an organization that supports having a position that is focused completely on volunteer development. Our administration truly understands the value of volunteers. I will make every effort to communicate the importance of volunteers both within and outside the organization- not just to our volunteers, but to paid staff, executive committees, funders, local officials and administration. This truly is an exciting time to be working in the volunteer development profession and I look forward to the work ahead!

Jen Lobley is the Extension Educator for Volunteer Development at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and is a guest blogger.

By Anne Schink, CVA

I recently taught a class for managers of volunteers and it was interesting to see who actually showed up for the class. We had an executive director (the only paid staff) of a local land trust, an office manager of a nonprofit that was almost entirely run by an all-volunteer board, a department director of a housing complex, an event planner from a local business development organization, a brand new staff member of an animal rescue organization, and three staff members of a large youth-serving organization. I point this out only as a reminder that who we define as a manager of volunteers varies widely from organization to organization. On the up side is the fact that organizations of all types and sizes recognize the importance of volunteers in achieving the organization’s mission.

Clearly no one job description would cover this disparate group of participants. Yet many of their concerns were the same. While they all expressed the desire to increase the effectiveness of their volunteer programs, their expectations about what these people would do and what kind of people they were trying to attract was all over the map. Most of them had a mental picture in their heads about who was ‘typical’ for their organization. It took some stretching for them to see that they might have to re-think their vision if they were going to attract tomorrow’s volunteers.

In a recent Webinar I attended, the presenter said that tomorrow’s volunteers wanted the four F’s in their volunteer assignments—Flexible, Fast, Friendly, Focused. That goes for Board members, volunteers functioning as external consultants, behind the scenes administrative support, or direct service positions. No one, in any generation, is signing on for life these days. Flexible means that the position is shaped to match the volunteer’s schedule, not the other way around. Fast means a quick response to their initial inquiry and a quick turnaround in placing them. If you don’t catch them the first time they try to reach you, they will go elsewhere. Friendly means that you need to welcome them, make them feel part of your organization, and give them a meaningful role working with others. Focused means deadlines, time limits, and real measurable outcomes.

This may fly in the face of more traditional ways of creating a volunteer program, but it is a reminder that this is an ever-changing landscape. Having clearly defined job descriptions is the foundation of a sound volunteer program, but the experienced, adaptive manager of volunteers will make the changes required to build a creative program that meets a wide variety of interests and personalities.

Anne Schink, CVA is a Consultant in Volunteer Management and a featured blogger.

By Noble Smith

You think that you know all the earthly sins in the world, particularly those surrounding the Art of Asking, well what are the three most flagrant ones in all of philanthropy?

You are right if you immediately uttered -
“I forgot to ask the prospect for financial support“,
“I didn’t ask for a specific project, amount or need“, and
“At the last moment, I had another event to attend and did not visit the prospect personally - just sent a little hand-written note.”

In nine out of every ten solicitations that are not successful, these three items are, at least, one of the main reasons for failure and no bacon!

Many, many solicitors do do their homework, rehearse their visitation, but when confrontation is at the doorstep, the orderly and essential process enters the mental round basket.

Every seasoned and successful fund raiser knows that 90% of any fruitful solicitation is planning with only 10% being the actual face to face opportunity to encourage and motivate a “lively suspect”. Tactics, strategies, relationships and associations, partnering - these words, and many like them, are all an integral part of that planning process - leave any of them out and you become more than a charter member of “The Half-Asked Society”.

You have never heard of “The Half-Asked Society” (THAS) - a very unwelcomed introduction to you. THAS is the demon, the curmudgeon of fund raisers, the jester who warned you not to make the same mistake twice and, THAS, unfortunately, is one commodity that will assist you in applying for Chapter 11. It is the resting home for staff, Board members and volunteers who do only 10% planning and 90% fund-raising, who let panic reign over common sense and organization, and who are consistently late for their prospect appointments.

If you are not planning, you are not fund raising!

Planning is the quintessential element for elevation to that promised land of successful fund raising, whether it is for annual support, capital needs or for planned and estate giving. Everyone needs to be involved not just the CEO, CFO, and the other institutional Os - an essential degree of involvement for staff, Board members and most importantly, volunteers.

All serious potential prospects (I call them suspects) must be thoroughly convinced that the non-profit has completed its homework, has structured itself in a business-like manner and knows how to get the most out of each buck. Without that level of confidence, the organization is just building expanded membership in “The Half-Asked Society.”

So as you begin to master the art of asking and to avoid membership in THAS, thorough planning is quintessential AND matching the right suspect with the right solicitor for the right funding objective and for the right amount of support is mandatory.

Next Blog - a detailed outline of what works in the successful art of asking!

Noble Smith is a former Commissioner, President of Noble Smith Associates (Development and Marketing Consultants), and a featured blogger.

By Jeremy Keith Hammond

The prefix ‘open’ has become applied to many new terms, particularly in online conversations. It describes an approach to design, development, organization and distribution. Open-approaches are most often considered free, though not just in price, but in liberty. Think of free speech instead of free beer. ‘Open’ has become particularly popular, not just for its effectiveness of producing results, but also because of its human-oriented, ideological fundamentals. Openness combines extreme levels of practicality and idealism as they have never been before.

Early ‘open’ appearances include open-source technologies or software such as the Linux operating systems for computers which are produced and advanced by legions of volunteer developers all over the world interested in the technology and its quality instead of by profit driven corporations. People work on it freely, distribute it freely, and change it freely, etc. all for the benefit of the general public. The same principle has been applied to the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the world’s leading browser after Internet Explorer. Programmers from every continent collaborate on this one program to produce a stable, high quality piece of software that purely benefits its users. One could view this as the democratization of technology and many consider it to be a positive step forward. The ‘open’ concept has expanded to include works of art and music, as well as college course materials such as MIT’s popular open-courseware.

This idea has started to roll over into other areas of society and many are eager to explore the potential of ‘open.’ In the world of software, we have concrete definitions of what’s free and open but as the concept is used more widely, things get a little hazier. We can narrow things down to a few principles.

Let’s look at the principles of ‘open’ that have been laid out so far and explore how they could be used in the field of volunteerism.

Principle 1: Transparency
Transparency: meaning that you can see inside it, study it or understand it. For example, open source software or an open government. In the former example, there is no secret coding hidden for proprietary sake. Also, knowledge about its contributors is readily available to those concerned and the level of contribution is used to determine value and reward. There are no secret recipes. This has a viral effect in the transmission and evolution of the software. What’s particularly important is the trust that is built. By being able to look inside the software you can easily be reassured about the nonexistence of anything malicious.

Transparency already yields similar results in volunteerism. Most nonprofit orgs are required to file IRS form 990, a public document, which sheds light on the revenue and spending practices of each nonprofit. This practice, among others, has built a huge amount of trust between nonprofits and the public. All you need to do is say the word, nonprofit and instantly the listener has made a positive judgement about the nature of the endeavor or organization. It’s also important to volunteers. The average volunteer is faced with multiple organizations and projects competing for his or her time. Trust is going to be a major factor in determining which cause they aid. A more transparent organization is going to garner more trust.

Additionally, a transparent organization is easier to improve. With more people able to view it and analyze it, it opens itself up to more constructive criticism. Ideally, those people will be volunteers in a position to make that analysis and implement positive changes.

Principle 2: Participatory
This particularly refers to more substantive contribution. We’re social beings with self-esteems that benefit from knowing we make positive differences in our world. Wikipedia is wonderful evidence of that. The wealth of knowledge contributed to this online resource is absolutely immense and it’s all conducted by thousands of people around the world entirely for free. People are excited to take ownership of something publicly beneficial. I personally have contributed articles to Wikipedia and feel very proud about it.

Offering an outlet for that desire in your organization is critical. Allowing volunteers more authority - as their contributions increase in quality - is an excellent reward system that will improve your organization, advancing its cause and greatly increase retention.

Another way an organization can follow this principle is by creating an environment open to as many volunteers and their abilities as possible. Everyone can contribute to your cause in some way - learn how to be open to new forms of contribution. Also consider the demographic. Allow beneficiaries of your organization to participate in the governance of its activities. After-all they may know better than anyone else how to be served.

Principle 3: Flexible, Malleable, Editable…
This suggests that your organization ought to be accepting of change, particularly change derived from all of its contributors and not just a small authority. Consider the case of the battle of the browsers. Despite having a stranglehold on the market (due more to its corporate connections with computer retailers than the value of its browser), Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is a lot slower in meeting the demands of consumers than its open source counterpart, Mozilla Firefox. While Internet Explorer provides updated browsers every so often, Mozilla is constantly and immediately updated by extensions produced by programmers which can easily, and sometimes automatically, be installed. These updates are user driven instead of market driven. The advantage is a better product or service.

The volunteer environment is constantly changing. The needs and motivations of volunteers shift due to numerous circumstances often times on an internal, community, national or international level. It will behoove your organization to meet those changes as soon as possible to ensure the sustainable recruitment and retention of volunteers.

For instance, we’ve seen increases in contributions from younger generations. A smart organization would harness that youthful energy to bring fresh ideas to the table. Being open to the ideas of those youth, in essence enabling them to participate and dictate those very changes may even maximize the effect.

Other open strategies and qualities to think about that are applicable to volunteerism include:

1.Providing spaces for people (volunteers) as they are and as they want to become
2.Embracing the richness and wisdom in differences or plurality
3.Acting with a light spirit, sense of fun, creativity and a perspective of opportunity
4.Applying practical and productive techniques and approaches from non-traditional domains
5. Distributing increasing control, earnings, and assets into the communities they serve

Following these principles results in a fresh, flexible, sustainable, and ethical volunteer program which benefits not only the organization, but its volunteers and constituents as well.

Jeremy Keith Hammond is on the Buoya! Steering Committee and is a guest blogger.

By Pete Phair

I am currently in the midst of a state-wide campaign to draw new volunteers into the WinterKids fold for our upcoming season. In a nutshell, we are putting some structure into the volunteer process and in many ways, I am starting from scratch. I have found this to be a remarkably good thing.

WinterKids has always utilized volunteers and we have some absolutely wonderful people who devote countless hours in support of the WinterKids mission, but up until recently, most of the protocols around volunteer recruitment, training and retention have occurred randomly, by happenstance or out of sheer desperation. And although there is probably still an element of all of that in our volunteer operations, we are slowly developing systems that remove some of the randomness, lend some definition to the happenstances and lessen the number of times I have to use the phrase, “I know this is last minute, but we are really desperate…”

With the creation of specific job descriptions, policies & procedures and a Volunteer Handbook, we now have a logical progression of intake actions that help guide all new volunteers through the process of orienting to WinterKids. A revised application allows us to proactively select volunteers for jobs that are suited to their skills rather than filling a slot with a warm body. Our database has been modified to track where our volunteers have been, what they did and how long they did it and with a brand new, board-approved, three year Strategic Plan, we are able to project our volunteer needs over the next three years and position ourselves accordingly.

We will soon launch a new web site that will simplify some of the programmatic processes our constituents require but just as importantly, it will streamline donations and volunteer pages so that those visiting our website will be able to easily navigate to where they want to go.

We have identified communities that will receive our focused attention and this has helped me to narrow the scope of where to look for individuals who are aligned with our mission, who may have winter kids of their own or simply feel a kinship with what WinterKids does. And now, when we booth at school events, health/wellness fairs and other public venues, it is a simple matter to indoctrinate potential volunteers with the material that has been developed for that purpose.

In other words, developing a support structure for our volunteer systems has resulted in many positive side effects- not the least of which is a constantly growing list of new and highly energized volunteers!

Pete Phair is a guest blogger and the Outreach Coordinator at WinterKids

By Anne Schink

Have you heard the moans of protest? They are probably coming from the volunteers, their supervisors, and their organizations when they are reminded of the importance of keeping accurate records of volunteer time and the time required to manage and supervise those volunteers. In fact, I have a friend who refused to participate in a formal volunteer program because he “couldn’t be bothered with all that paperwork.” He spoke with annoyance about the fact that the program had “been on his back” about tracking his hours. Hmmm, you say, that all sounds vaguely familiar.

It helps if you can create a simple and relatively painless method for volunteers to track their hours and to record them in a way that gives you the data you need to celebrate their contributions. The Board of your organization needs regular reports of these contributions to remind them of the central contribution they give to the mission of the organization.

But I am here to say that accurate record keeping is essential for grant-funded programs whose very survival depends on documenting the contributions made by volunteers. And for any other programs who use this data in their fundraising efforts. Concrete information about those substantial donations of time and expertise also help to cement the program within the organization, once the Board and leadership understand the vital contribution that volunteers make to the agency.

So the next time you groan at the prospect of tracking the hours that volunteers contribute, remember that this is an absolutely essential piece of information in evaluating the value of any project where volunteers give their time and expertise.

Anne Schink is a guest blogger and a consultant in volunteer management, training, and facilitation.

By Martin J Cowling

In a few weeks time, the Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism will convene under the theme: Compassion-Action-Change.

As I prepare my presentations for the conference, I have been reflecting on these three words and particularly the word: Compassion. What is its meaning? What does it mean for our not for profits? For our communities? Our nations?

In Nick Hornby’s 2001 novel “How to Be Good”, he tells of a character who decides to be “good” to the utmost extent. His goodness becomes sickening and suffocating. This is not the sort of compassion we are looking for.

What is the compassion we are looking for?

Compassion is not a term we often hear in business or government. Even in the not for profit sector, it is not always welcome. The word seems to cut across much of how we are told that we “should” behave in these fields. We are told that we are supposed to be “tough, unyielding, undeterred, competitive and focused.” As a result, compassion, for many sounds like a soft or as passive word.

Compassion is the human emotion prompted by the pain of others. The feeling often gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another’s suffering and therefore ultimately to altruism. The basis of compassion is therefore: “Do to others what you would have them do to you.”

This is a value therefore that is fundamental to our societies. Far from being a passive word, compassion implies strength, courage and determination to act. It is definitely neither a sickening or suffocating term.

There are many many volunteers across the globe who show compassion through their own lives.

I was recently visiting a couple who have taken in children into their home. Children abandoned by parents who are unable to care for them. This couple opened up their home and their lives to children who need love, care, good modeling and an education.

In the severe fires that swept Australia in early 2009, volunteers took in and protected Koalas that had been burnt by the fires. In New Orleans volunteers took in the cats and dogs that were stranded in that city.

Compassion drives “Doctors Without Borders” volunteers in Africa operate on people impacted by natural disasters and war, often under the most terrible of conditions. These examples are compassion in action.

When people come to us to volunteer, motivated by the compassion they feel to a person/people/cause or issue, how do we deal with this?

Do they find an organization motivated by compassion? Or do they experience something which undermines that compassion. When people hear about your board meetings, attend your internal meetings or read your internal emails, memos and notices, do they see an organization that’s very soul is one of compassion?

Do they find organizations that help people live out this compassion that they feel? I was working with a charitable organization where one volunteer said to me “I wish we treated each other as well so we treat the clients”. That’s an indictment on that not for profit and its culture.

Do incoming volunteers find organizations that reward compassion? In most volunteer based organizations we reward the volunteers for the number of hours, they complete or how many years they have served. Do we ever reward volunteers on how they live out the values of our organization? Is the “Volunteer of the Year” chosen because they turned up a lot or because their life exemplifies the values wee are seeking?

Our volunteer involving organizations were generally started by people with compassion. How do we maintain that compassion in the future legions of people who follow? Three simple ways?
1. Lets talk about our values including the compassion of the founders
2. Let us deliver our services with those values
3. Let us reward these values

I would be interested in your feedback on how you do this and how we can support each other to do this.

Martin J Cowling is the CEO of People First -Total Solutions and the Keynote Speaker at the 2009 Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism.

By Heather Banester Bassett

Remember being told, throughout your high school years - “Get Involved”, “The more well rounded you are the more likely you’ll be accepted into college.” Well, this remains to be true even throughout your working years. When applying to colleges, high school students are trying to set themselves apart from “the other college applicants.” In the working world, especially today, people are finding that they are to set themselves apart from “the other job applicants.” So, what does it mean to “Get Involved” in the working world? Just like in high school, volunteerism is one way to “Get Involved.”

Maine has experienced an increase in unemployment over the past year and with this comes an increase in people competing for the same jobs. Employers have seen a dramatic increase in applicants. The competition amongst job applicants is fierce in most cases. This increase in the unemployed and increase in competition over limited jobs then leads into an increase in the period of time in which a person remains in a job search. This period in which people remain in a job search results in gaps in employment history.

I reached out to my Maine Human Resources Network and asked employers to share some thoughts on volunteerism and the role it plays with job applicants. Here is what I heard.

Although most employers understand that the current economy has caused a majority of the unemployment and a longer unemployment period for some, it does impress employers to see that people remain “Involved” during their period of unemployment. Beverly Frizzell-MacCallum, Human Resources Officer at Androscoggin Bank replied “I would view it as a positive if someone were to use that down time as a chance to get involved with volunteer work. What a great way to show that you made the proverbial lemonade!” Krista Thurlow, Branch Manager at Bonney Staffing Center in Biddeford, Maine also shared insight on filling gaps in one’s employment history on their resume, “…I am always more impressed by someone who can tell me they have been volunteering, rather than ’sitting home, or not quite sure’ what they have been doing the past 10 months (they have been out of work.)” As for setting yourself apart from the other applicants, Lisa Janelle, Vice President of Human Resources at Sebasticook Valley Hospital mentioned “…a person who volunteers over time at something they feel passionately about just speaks volumes about that individual’s character.”

Besides the extra boost volunteerism can add to your resume, the act of “Getting Involved” can help you gain relevant experience. Krista Thurlow credits her volunteerism work with a Policy Council at a nonprofit for her transition into an office environment. “From my perspective, volunteering absolutely CAN help a resume! Especially when there is a person looking to transition their skills and/or gain experience in a new field…I had experience working retail/food service, but had gone to college for business.” Because of her personal career transition success with volunteerism, Krista promotes volunteering to job seekers she councils.

Volunteerism can give you that extra kick to get you out networking. “Getting Involved” can increase your exposure to business leaders, community leaders and job opportunities that you may not have heard about otherwise. Beverly Frizzell-MacCallum mentioned “…one of the best things about volunteering is the contacts that you can make in the community. Many business people are involved in non-profits and it is a great way to make connections and learn of opportunities.” She also suggests utilizing your volunteerism contacts for references.

Managers and volunteer project leaders can play a key role in assisting job seeking volunteers. As a manager or leader of a volunteer projects, capturing a volunteer’s interest to gain additional experience is a sure sign that you will have a dedicated volunteer. Capitalize on these opportunities and engage your volunteers. It may open the door to more support in areas that you would not have thought about before. Be sure to document the experience the volunteer gained and after a job well done, be sure to offer a letter of recommendation. This reciprocal support between volunteer manager and job seeking volunteer can have a lasting impact and possibly a long-term volunteer and advocate. Your newly employed volunteer may also pave the way to new networks at their new place of employment. Isn’t that what networking is all about? Job Seeking Volunteerism – a win-win recruitment tool for volunteer projects.

What is the best way to list volunteerism on your resume? Now it’s time, as the job seeker, to set yourself apart from the other job seekers out there and show that you are a well rounded individual. There are many schools of thought when it comes to resume templates. Regardless of the template, do not list your volunteer experience with your regular paid employment history. You don’t want to mislead the reader into thinking it was a regular job. If the experience is relevant to the job you are applying for, add the experience you gained in the qualifications section if you have this as a separate listing. Add a section under your normal job history called “Relevant Experience” - list Volunteer, (title if any), Organization, City, Sate, Time Period and List out the relevant experience gained. If the volunteerism is not directly related to the position you are applying for, simply list your volunteer projects under Associations and Activities - list Volunteer, (title if any), Organization, City, Sate, Time Period. Highlight your volunteerism in your cover letter, especially if the experience is relevant and also if the volunteerism took place in between jobs.

Volunteerism - a great way to boost your resume, close employment gaps, build your network, stay connected, show that your an involved and well rounded individual, and all the while, doing a wonderful thing for someone or something else.

Heather Banester Bassett is the Marketing/PR Director for MyJobWave.com, Employment Times and HRTimes Magazine. She has been an active volunteer for career and human resource related organizations like Maine Career Development Association, Central Maine Human Resources Association, Best Places to Work In Maine and is a guest blogger. For more career related tips and articles visit www.MyJobWave.com.