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By Jim Entwood

One of the strategies I admire most about the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program (VLMP), where I work, is the involvement of volunteers in every level of the organization. Not only are volunteers responsible for the core tasks of our mission but we try to optimize volunteer participation in administration and management.

Before I describe some of the ways volunteers help extend our capacity, I want to ask what roles do volunteers play in administering your programs? And what strategy would you use to create new volunteer positions? Please post a reply below.

At the VLMP we have 800 volunteers scattered throughout Maine keeping an eye on the health of their lakes. In order to manage those volunteers with limited resources the VLMP has split up the state into 20 regions each with a Regional Coordinator, who is also a volunteer. The Regional Coordinators are responsible for organizing volunteers, scheduling training workshops, and tracking down reports from volunteers. Recently we have had Regional Coordinators also ask for additional tasks, such as training other volunteers. We also have Data Coordinators for each region that are responsible for computer entry of the data.

Our volunteer Board of Directors, volunteer sub-committees, and others who volunteer to do parts of my job round out the picture.

As other blog posts have mentioned, the retiring baby boomers will potentially be a great pool of new and skilled volunteers. They will be looking for more self-directed volunteer opportunities and a sense of ownership in the organizations they belong to. Organizations can benefit from the experience of these volunteers and extend their capacity by engaging them in program administration and management. There may be challenges as well from redefining responsibilities for volunteers to rethinking the role of staff from directing volunteers to enabling and supporting volunteers.

Limited resources and growing number of skilled volunteers can lead to creative new approaches for engaging volunteers. I look forward to sharing our ideas here to optimize our mission effectiveness and strengthen the volunteer experience.

Jim Entwood is a Program Coordinator with the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program and a guest blogger.

After five years leading the Corporation for National and Community Service, David Eisner steps down today, expressing pride in the momentum behind the service and volunteer sector, urgency about the need to harness civic power to tackle tough problems, and optimism over America’s opportunity to engage more Americans in service.

“For five years I have traveled across the country with a mixture of awe and admiration at seeing how your work is saving lives, ensuring futures, defeating despair and restoring hope for Americans who have no other place to turn,” Eisner said in a farewell message to staff and grantees. “As a result of our work together, today national service has improved more lives, grown stronger and more secure, expanded its base of bipartisan support, and built a culture of impact and accountability in a way that offers a solid foundation for continued growth.”

Eisner shared similar thoughts yesterday in a wide-ranging farewell address to hundreds of students and civic leaders at Georgetown University. In the speech, Eisner described an “incredible moment” of need and opportunity stemming from the economic downturn that is putting more Americans at risk and the growing cross-sector momentum for citizen problem-solving. (Speech and video in national service newsroom)

“America today is facing a set of crises that also represent a true opportunity to innovate in a way that bets on American citizens to be a part of solutions in ways that are both new and that hearken back to our earliest traditions,” said Eisner. “The need is dire, our resources are scarce, our service and volunteering infrastructure is ready our youth are ready, and Americans of all ages are waiting to be asked. This is an incredible moment, and we must seize it.”

Eisner said the economic downturn means more Americans will be struggling to make ends meet at the same time nonprofits could face precipitous drops in giving. He worried the decline could have its hardest impact on America’s youth – with 13 million children already living in poverty, 3 million who go to bed hungry, 15 million who need a mentor, and one-third who drop out of school each year.

A large scale mobilization of volunteers could have an especially profound impact on the high school dropout crisis. Eisner challenged national, state, and city leaders to call on millions of Americans to invest an hour a week for a year to tutor or mentor a child and urged the incoming Administration to make such a call to service to all Americans.

Eisner pointed to research and examples he’s seen first hand of volunteer programs with dramatic impacts that include raising literacy rates, decreasing risky behaviors, and keeping kids in school and on track for success in life. “Getting more people to stand up and say “I care” may offer the single most effective intervention Americans have to tackle some of our toughest challenges, he said.

Corporation Board Chair and former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith said that the momentum behind service is also stronger than ever among elected officials. He cited proposed expansions of national service by both Presidential candidates, President-elect Obama’s comprehensive service agenda, several bipartisan national service bills recently introduced in Congress, and the increased investment by Governors and mayors in volunteering to meet local needs.

Goldsmith called on lawmakers to consider investing in the infrastructure of volunteering and service as part of the upcoming stimulus package in addition to physical infrastructure projects like bridges and highways. He emphasized that service represents a low-cost, high return way to accelerate the entrepreneurialism of the social sector to meet the surge of demand the economic downturn will create.

Both Goldsmith and Eisner said the Corporation is ready to grow and better positioned to take on an expanded role than any time in its history, with well-run programs, a strong network of state service commissions, portfolios of thousands of results-driven grantees that include some of America’s most innovative and entrepreneurial organizations, key partnerships in the nonprofit and corporate sector, a high-performing workforce, and a widespread culture of impact and accountability. “The Corporation for National and Community Service has never been stronger, more efficient, more accountable and better positioned than it is today,” Eisner said… For more information about David Eisner and the The Corporation for National and Community Service visit www.nationalservice.gov.

By Julie D. Mulkern

On the heels of last week’s historic election of Barack Obama as America’s 44th president, I thought it apt to share a bit of Obama’s plan for community service. It is an exciting time to realize that we have the potential for a wide range of volunteer efforts here in Maine and beyond. It will be interesting to watch the growth and impact of community service and the non-profit sector over the next four years. A great topic for discussion, no doubt. . .

Obama’s Plan (source: www.barackobama.com):

Enable All Americans to Serve to Meet the Nation’s Challenges

•Expand Corporation for National and Community Service: Obama and Biden will expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 slots today to 250,000 and they will focus this expansion on addressing the great challenges facing the nation. They will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on underserved schools; a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps to conduct weatherization and renewable energy projects; a Veterans Corps to assist veterans at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters; and a Homeland Security Corps to help communities plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies.
•Engage Retiring Americans in Service on a Large Scale: Older Americans have a wide range of skills and knowledge to contribute. Obama and Biden will expand and improve programs that connect individuals over the age of 55 to quality volunteer opportunities.
•Expand the Peace Corps: Obama and Biden will double the Peace Corps to 16,000 by 2011. They will work with the leaders of other countries to build an international network of overseas volunteers so that Americans work side-by-side with volunteers from other countries.
•Show the World the Best Face of America: Obama and Biden will set up an America’s Voice Initiative to send Americans who are fluent speakers of local languages to expand our public diplomacy. They also will extend opportunities for older individuals such as teachers, engineers, and doctors to serve overseas.

Integrate Service into Learning

•Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation’s Schools: Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. They will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama and Biden will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.
•Expand YouthBuild Program: Obama and Biden will expand the YouthBuild program, which gives disadvantaged young people the chance to complete their high school education, learn valuable skills and build affordable housing in their communities. They will grow the program so that 50,000 low-income young people a year a chance to learn construction job skills and complete high school.
•Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.
•Promote College Serve-Study: Obama and Biden will ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities instead of jobs in dining halls and libraries.

Invest in the Nonprofit Sector

•Social Investment Fund Network: Obama and Biden will create a Social Investment Fund Network to use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding to improve local innovation, test the impact of new ideas and expand successful programs to scale.
•Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will a create an agency within the Corporation for National and Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.
Source: www.barackobama.com

Julie D. Mulkern is the current Development Director for WinterKids and a featured blogger.

By Kris Weeks Oliveri

When someone walks through your door, are you open and ready to recruit a potential volunteer? Sometimes spontaneity can be the spark that starts a new volunteer on a road to service. Recently I was staffing the front desk here at the Maine State Museum and a gentleman came in with his membership card. He asked whom he should speak with about volunteering since he had been deliberating about it for a while. I immediately smiled and welcomed him, explaining our needs and how he could get on board. He made it easy to recruit because he had already thought about helping but other people can be enlisted if the recruiter shows an “on the spot” passion for the project or program. It isn’t necessary to be frantic or try to “hard sell” someone, just be aware of times when a few well-chosen words could make an impact.

Look for times such as standing in grocery lines to strike up a brief conversation, “I’d much rather spend my time helping at the hospital/museum/animal shelter (or wherever).” You might not get any response or you might get a negative one but there’s a chance you might catch someone’s interest. It’s a risk but if you bring in a potential volunteer for your organization or program, it’s time well spent. You would have spent the time standing in line anyway. When I am walking through the galleries I will often mention to visitors that we couldn’t accomplish what we do without the help of volunteers. This has a dual result – it gives credit to the current volunteers and also helps others think about being part of what we do. Don’t be afraid to talk up your program, you never know who might be listening – it could be your next best volunteer!

Kris Weeks Oliveri is a guest blogger and the Coordinator of Volunteers at the Maine State Museum in Augusta.

By Noble Smith

You bet it will!

And do we as Commissioners, Volunteer Managers, elected or appointed officials in State Government or community leaders have any moral, ethical and support responsibilities given the current economic situations?

Absolutely and without question!

If we do not play increasingly participatory and involved roles, the critically important volunteer work force in this country will falter. If that scenario becomes “main stream”, it will take decades to recover, long after economic stabilization makes its impact.

Two words that must dominate the volunteer’s world today are leadership and coordination. Those two commodities, combined with enhanced volunteer training and management, form the quintessential platform for maintenance and growth despite the economic downturns that are effecting all segments of our society from Main Street to Wall Street.

In between those two streets are countless hundreds of non-profits whose very existence depends upon the unselfish contributions of millions of volunteers from high school students to those in their eighth and ninth decades. Economic factors for just Main “Streeters” - higher gas and food prices, lower and more expensive health care services, mortgage and housing challenges, education costs, and just the basic necessities of life – have a decided impact on both volunteers and those organizations who so desperately need volunteers to survive.

Although we cannot provide massive economic stimulation packages, those of us who enlist, train, manage, coordinate and energize volunteers have an urgent mandate to step back, reexamine, restructure (if necessary and appropriate) to insure that each and every volunteer is fully involved and invested in his or her volunteer task.

In essence, those who control the destiny of not only their own organization, but also those individuals or entities, whether in the public or private sectors, who are charged with protecting the lives of others now have new responsibilities when volunteers play participating roles in these devastating economic months and years ahead.

It is not OK to pass the responsibilities to others; those in top leadership positions must assume command. Particularly in these uncertain times when the well being of our citizenry is more than at stake and when we count on the continued involvement of volunteers, strong participatory leadership and well-structured coordination are of paramount importance.

There is no question that cutbacks, realignments, restructuring and resetting of priorities will be constantly in play during, at least, the next year. In my judgment, it is extremely important to involve volunteer leadership in the communication circles and, in some cases, in the final decision making discussions, particularly when the participation of volunteers is concerned. Seeking the advice, guidance and council of volunteers not only strengthens an outcome, but also it provides one of the critical elements of continued volunteer allegiance and support.

As we all are aware, the professional expertise of many of the newly retired volunteer force is much more that just the strengths, attitudes and experiences that most non-profits and governmental agencies need as financial curtailments force retrenchment and an realignment of priorities.

Over the past six months, and particularly since the Wall Street debacle and the resulting negative philanthropic impact for non-profits and the significant public sector budget reductions, the role of the volunteer becomes even more omnipotent.

All of us in leadership positions, at least in the non-profit sector, need to step back, reexamine our organizations, determine what is essential, what can be cut or postponed and insure that our strategic and business plans of action are error proof. For those organizations who depend on volunteers for success and societal impact, need not to keep volunteers are arm’s length, but embraced as family.

In my nearly 50 years in the business of working with volunteers, I look back to my experiences in the seventies, the late eighties and other economic trying periods. Many of us capitalized on the down times to insure that we were sensitive to the concerns, frustrations and hardships of our volunteer force and included them in our planning and decision-making processes.

Today’s economic slide, which some economists call the “Artic chill”, leaves all other downturns in the dust. None of us have all the right answers on what will happen next, but it will not be the same as yesterday. We will be blessed , however, that for generations there will be a growing volunteer force that will need nurturing

Therefore, you bet that we need to be concerned and proactive in the treatment and servicing of our family of volunteers!

Noble Smith is a Commissioner serving on the Maine Commission for Community Service and a featured blogger.

By Rochelle Runge

When you’re a busy professional it’s so easy to get “caught up in it all” and forget to take time to stop and seek out new ideas. I hope you find some of these sites useful and that it helps refresh your outlook.

Interesting information on Voluntourism:
www.voluntourism.org
An article on the subject: http://www.guidestar.org/news/features/volunteerism2008.jsp

Did you know Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News Columnist, writes frequently about activities in the volunteer arena? Check out her column.

A great overall resource:
www.energizeinc.com

Did you get a chance to take a workshop from Martin Cowling at the Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism? Those that did thoroughly enjoyed it. Either way take a look at his website, www.pfts.com.au and the Global Volunteer Management Survey.

Rochelle Runge is a Public Relations Representative for the Maine Commission for Community Service and a guest blogger.

By Gretchen Van der Veer, PhD

Nationally in 2007, 60.5 million volunteers contributed more than $150 billion in labor to the nonprofit sector, which in turn resulted in significant cost-savings and economic benefits for local communities. However, while more nonprofits are making use of volunteers, many still struggle to strategically plan for managing and growing this resource.

According to data released by the Corporation for National and Community Service, 1 in 3 volunteers who served in 2005 did not come back to serve in 2006. That means that collectively as a sector we have a retention problem—what we at the Corporation refer to as a “leaky bucket.” There are many possible reasons for this but one I would like to explore with you today is the possibility that we are not providing enough volunteers with tasks that engage their skills. If we want to keep them, we have to give them serious and meaningful work that affects the community, and we must treat them like we would any valued colleague. Often nonprofits assign their president to manage a $1 million gift, but assign the intern or a busy receptionist to oversee volunteers whose service could be worth 5 times as much. This is a mistake. Investing in volunteer recruitment, management, and retention along with changing the overall organization’s view of how to engage volunteers can yield vital long term benefits.

In Maine, the question is how can you move more of the state’s population to join the 33% already engaged? To deepen and broaden that engagement, Maine’s nonprofit sector should consider creating human capital solutions to help advance their mission. The good news is that the Maine Commission for Community Service with funding from the Corporation for National and Community Service has begun to address the leaky bucket through a human capital strategy called “Project INVEST;” a statewide professional development program that is academically based and coordinated in partnership with York County Community College, University of Maine division of Lifelong Learning, and the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service.

The implementation of this program has already begun through the work of Volunteer Maine. They created an online self-assessment called Competencies for Managers of Volunteers. The program is focused on 19 competencies that a well-prepared and competent manager of volunteers should possess in order to effectively manage a successful volunteer program. The purpose of this module is three-fold:

• Introduce Volunteer Management Competencies;
• Complete self assessments to check skill level; and
• Create a self-directed learning plan.

Having strong volunteer management structures in place will help retain existing volunteers, but how do you engage them over the long term and involve more of Maine’s citizens?

As nonprofits strengthen and professionalize the skills of their volunteer managers and as nonprofits become more and more critical to communities, there is increasing demand for them to operate more efficiently both programmatically and administratively. Nonprofits have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the diversity of skills that exist within their jurisdiction to help solve the myriad nonprofit human capitol challenges like fundraising, marketing, volunteer recruitment, and deliver the organization’s programs and services. The leaky bucket can be stopped and increase the growth of volunteerism if we:

• Give volunteers tasks they enjoy that allow them to use their skills.
• Match volunteers with opportunities that use their personal and professional skills;
• Expand our efforts beyond our current customer base to go where the growth is; and
• Manage the volunteers well.

However, another way to better leverage the personal and professional skills of your volunteers is to examine how your organization actually operates. If a volunteer manager has been recruiting volunteers to deliver meals in their own cars, but those volunteers can no longer do it because of rising gas prices, then re-evaluate the skill sets of your drivers to see if their talents can be used in a different way within the organization. For instance, perhaps the organization could contract for meal deliveries and use the volunteers in some other aspect of the organization’s functioning like resource development or marketing, which could fill a hole. The money saved from using volunteers in that job could be used for contracting the meal delivery service.

In order to explore these types of human capitol solutions more deeply, last year the Corporation for National and Community Service produced a report called Volunteering Reinvented: Human Capital Solutions for the Nonprofit Sector. The report shows that volunteering is not just nice but necessary – it brings value to an organization especially when there is a strategically thought-through plan to utilize the skills volunteers provide. It challenges organizations, their board of directors, executive directors, and other leaders to see volunteers as solutions to some of their most pressing challenges. It shows that volunteers can support infrastructure, in addition to helping deliver programs and services.

The report also offers suggestions on potential job functions for volunteers, including:

• Board/Leadership;
• Strategic Partnerships;
• Fundraising and Development;
• Organizational Development and Training;
• Marketing and Communications;
• Financial Management and Accounting;
• Technology and Information Systems;
• Legal Counsel;
• Administrative Support; and
• Program and Service Delivery.

In order to take on these tasks and to be effective, volunteers need effective communications with staff and see the “mission return” for their volunteer time investment – how their contributions result in a positive, measureable difference in someone’s life.

The report lays out a blueprint to help nonprofits achieve the above outcomes and increase the return on investment on volunteers. The blueprint suggests that nonprofits need to take the following steps in order to be successful:

• Market Research and Community Needs Assessments
• Strategic Planning to Maximize Volunteer Impact
• Recruiting and Marketing to Prospective Volunteers
• Interviewing, Screening, and Selecting Volunteers
• Orienting and Training Volunteers
• Ongoing Supervision and Management
• Recognitions and Volunteer Development
• Measuring Outcomes and Evaluating the Process

Two of the most critical among these steps are the strategic planning process and measurement. If an organization spends time planning and laying the groundwork for their volunteer engagement program and then measures the results, they will greatly increase their return on investment – maybe it will be more valuable than that million dollar contribution.

Once nonprofits have their volunteer management infrastructure in place then they can begin to explore how to engage more volunteers in their work. One area that the Corporation has been working on is pro bono skills-based volunteering where companies donate the skills and expertise of their employees. In fact, the Corporation is challenging companies to make $1 billion in pledges of their employee’s volunteer time through the Billion + Change Campaign (www.abillionandchange.org). From this type of volunteering, nonprofits receive the expertise many of them desperately need and an additional vehicle for engaging more volunteers. This provides everyone involved with a “double bottom line” benefit:

If nonprofits and companies get this right, they have an opportunity to leave a lasting mark in their communities, but also to create a vibrant civic life that America hasn’t seen since the greatest generation. At the Corporation, we take these issues very seriously and have not only invested in research, but this past summer we announced several grants to help with volunteer management and retention of which Maine was a recipient as mentioned earlier in this article.

Research shows that communities with high rates of volunteering are healthier. They have higher levels of parental engagement in schools, stronger local economies, less crime, and lower incidence of illnesses. We must continue to work together—government, the private sector, and nonprofits – to grow and strengthen the engagement of our citizens. Maine is doing s terrific job of engaging citizens. I applaud you for always looking at how you can do more and do it more effectively!

I was hoping to be with you all for the Blaine House Conference next week but due to a freeze on government travel, my plane has been grounded. However, in my absence Anne Schink, the lead on Project INVEST, will be furthering discussing the concepts in this article with some of you. I wish you all a terrific conference and look forward to being with you at future conferences and meetings where we can continue to explore these challenges together.

Gretchen Van der Veer, PhD is the Director, Office of Leadership Development and Training at the Corporation for National and Community Service and a guest blogger.

Message from David Eisner

Dear Colleagues,

I admit it – I’m overwhelmed. The power of the last 10 days has demonstrated that the momentum we’ve felt for months around service and volunteering has only intensified and is getting stronger. Think about just a few highlights from the last two weeks: the President addresses thousands of volunteer leaders on the White House South Lawn and renews his Call to Service; both Presidential nominees pledge support for national service and volunteering in a televised candidates forum; our pro-bono initiative, A Billion + Change, exceeds $400 million in corporate pledges; Senators Kennedy and Hatch introduce the ambitious Serve America legislation with bi-partisan co-sponsorship; the ServiceNation Summit in New York brings unprecedented numbers of national leaders and celebrities together in support of service; the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation exceeds one million recipients of the President’s Volunteer Service Awards; the State of New York follows California in elevating its State Service Commission to Cabinet-level status – and at the same time AmeriCorps members and other national service programs and participants respond heroically to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

Can anyone imagine a more auspicious time for the Corporation for National and Community Service, as well as AmeriCorps, to prepare to celebrate their 15th Anniversary? That’s right – 2009 will represent the 15th birthday year for the Corporation, which began operating in 1994, based on legislation passed in 1993. At Tuesday’s meeting, the Corporation’s Board of Directors approved a resolution celebrating the milestone.

At the Board meeting, I announced my timetable for departure during the transition. I plan to leave the Corporation in November following the Presidential election. My exceptional Chief of Staff Nicky Goren will step into the role of Acting CEO, with the strong support and confidence of the Board. As an 11-year veteran with the Corporation, Nicky has the experience, judgment, and ability to ensure that we extend the gains we’ve made and bridge the organization as it prepares for a new CEO to be appointed in the next administration. I couldn’t be more happy, proud, or confident in this decision.
So, yes, I’m overwhelmed – with gratitude for the opportunity I’ve had to serve alongside you for nearly five years, with awe for the opportunities that lay immediately before the service and volunteering sector, with pride for the accomplishments we’ve had together that have contributed to this momentum, and with excitement about the changes that are coming and the possibilities they will soon enough reveal.

We have a lot to do in the coming months, and this will be a sprint to the finish. But I wanted to share some of what I’m thinking about, and it all boils down to “thank you.”

Here are links for the President’s speech, the First Lady’s speech, the President’s 9/11 video, ServiceNation, A Billion +Change, the Board Resolution on the Corporation’s 15th Anniversary, and a summary of the Serve America Act.

In service,

David Eisner
CEO, Corporation for National and Community Service

by Vicki Schmidt

After a minimum of 220 hours of training, they are still rookies. We tell them when they receive their Firefighter certification, that they now have their training wheels. While certification isn’t required to be termed a firefighter, or belong to a Department, a sign of the times is that Federal Programs as well as many insurance requirements will soon require that active members obtain a certified level of competency. Given Maine is the only New England state without a State Fire Academy, or any organized regional emergency services training facility, recruitment and retention, as well as training our firefighters and first responders is an increasing challenge.

There are approximately 15,000 firefighters and first responders that serve Maine’s 1.2 million in population. For every eighty citizens, there is one first responder, and they are as diverse as the State itself. From Magalloway to Machias, and Fort Kent to Kittery; Maine’s firefighters and responders run the gamut from volunteers, paid per call, per diem, on-call, full time, and professional responders. The common denominator is that all receive hundreds of hours of training to begin their careers, and the training never ends. Annual refreshers, natural disasters, and the need to be “all hazard” responders keep the training needs of firefighters, police officers, and emergency services personnel at an all time high.

I’d like to ask you to remember this, the next time you hear an ambulance, police care, or fire truck pass your home late at night. As you snuggle down, give thanks that it’s not you that is the one in 80 that at that moment is in dire need of assistance. And say a little prayer to whatever your guiding spirit may be, that the responder’s en-route have the equipment, training, and guidance, to provide the needed service.

Vicki Schmidt is a guest Blogger, a presenter at the 2008 Blaine House Conference, as well as a State Fire Instructor and a volunteer firefighter and training officer for the Buckfield Fire Department.

By Anne Schink

For the past several years Larry Ullian and I have been working to develop Competencies for Managers of Volunteers. We have also developed an online version you will find using the link: www.volunteermaine.org/volcomps.

Many managers of volunteers report that they ‘fell into the job’, or it was added to their other duties, and that they received little or no formal training in volunteer management. Maybe these will help you get caught up or find a resource you can use.

Maine does not have many options for professional development, so these Competencies may help managers of volunteers to plan their own professional development.

Our goal is that the Competencies will help managers of volunteers conduct an honest self-assessment of their skill level, identify gaps in their training, and provide them with definitions to help them articulate the work they are doing.

Anne Schink is the Project INVEST Coordinator for the Maine Commission for Community Service and a featured blogger.