Volunteering Reinvented: Strategic Planning for Human Capitol in the Nonprofit Sector
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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.