The importance of top management support for volunteer involvement
Produced with the support of WH Smith
Introduction
Recognising volunteers - and helping them make their fullest contribution - is about more than simply saying thank-you. It’s about laying the strongest possible foundations for their involvement.
And that means throwing the weight of the entire organisation behind the volunteer programme, getting support from the top: chief executive, board of trustees or the equivalent.
And that is one of the challenges of being a volunteer manager! Many volunteer managers try and fail to persuade their top management to think to any great extent about their organisation’s programme of volunteer involvement. Maybe you have the same problem, or maybe you just want to persuade your chief executive to get the whole organisation to back your Volunteers Week activity. If so, this booklet will give you some ideas on how to get your top management thinking about the value of volunteers, and about how the organisation can clearly demonstrate its support for them.
The material in this booklet was adapted from the book, From the Top Down: The Executive Role in Volunteer Program Success, revised edition, by Susan J Ellis, Philadelphia: Energize, Inc, 1996. For more information also visit the Energize website: www.energizeinc.com
The responsibility of top management
The strategy, atmosphere and tone of an organisation are set by those in charge. Top management should therefore look closely at the way volunteers are treated at that level. What overt and covert messages are being sent about volunteers and their contribution? Is the subject of volunteers ever discussed at board meetings?
-
The first step to successful volunteer involvement is vision. Volunteers can expand the horizons of your organisation and your staff. Encourage volunteers to be creative and innovative partners in service delivery, and then expect the best. If your concept of what volunteers can contribute is limited, you will inevitably design a volunteer programme that sets low standards of achievement. But if you are open to the potential of what might develop, you will find ways to encourage volunteers' success.
-
The second step is commitment. You must have the conviction that volunteers are important - that they are the 'non-salaried personnel' of the organisation. Volunteers don't just add spice to your organisational mix - they are one of the main ingredients. Top executives can establish and enforce this premise throughout the organisation.
Why do we want volunteers?
It is important to have a clear understanding of why volunteers are valuable to your work. Articulating the reasons for involving volunteers is an executive-level responsibility - and it forms the foundation on which your organisation will build its volunteer programme.
Volunteers should not be thought of as a second choice, tolerated as temporary workers until more money can be raised and 'real' staff recruited. They offer more than that. The following ideas will help show your chief executive some of the unique benefits that volunteers bring to an organisation - benefits that are so special to volunteers that paying a salary would negate or change them completely.
-
Volunteers have perceived credibility with clients, donors, government officials, and others for the very reason that they do not receive a salary from the organisation and are therefore seen as having no financial vested interest in what they are advocating.
-
It often makes a difference to the recipient of a service that the provider is there purely because he or she wants to be.
-
Volunteers are insider/outsiders, bringing a community perspective and a wide range of backgrounds consciously different from the employees. Because they give a few hours at time, volunteers have a broader point of view than the paid staff, who may be too close to the work to 'see the wood for the trees'.
-
Volunteers extend your sphere of influence and access to additional people, businesses and organisations in the community. Even the volunteer who helps you once a year becomes another person with knowledge about your work.
-
Volunteers bring the 'luxury of focus' to their work. While paid staff members must spread their time and efforts equitably among all clients and projects, volunteers can be recruited to concentrate on selected individuals and issues.
-
Volunteers can be asked to work odd hours, in varying locations, and to fill special needs for which staff time cannot be justified yet which are important to individual clients.
-
Volunteers often feel freer to criticise and speak their minds than employees do.
-
Volunteers can experiment with new ideas and service approaches that are not yet ready to be funded - or that no one wants to fund for a wide variety of reasons. Historically, in fact, volunteers have always been the pioneers in creating new services, often against the tide of opposition from more traditional institutions.
There is one additional major reason for involving volunteers that does, in fact, involve money. But it must be worded correctly. Volunteers do not 'save' money; they allow you to spend every pound you have - and then do more. Volunteers extend the budget - even allowing, obviously, for the funds that you will need to invest in training, expenses and so on.
Other benefits of volunteers
Since we live in the real, limited-resources world, what are the other, more tangible, benefits that volunteer involvement brings to an organisation? Volunteers offer:
-
Extra hands and minds, and so the potential to do more than could be done simply with limited salaried staff. This might mean an increased amount of service, expanded hours of operation, or different/new types of services.
-
Diversity. Volunteers may be different from the salaried staff in terms of age, race, social background, income, educational level, etc. This translates into many more points of view and perhaps even a form of counterbalance to the danger of the staff becoming myopic or inbred.
-
Skills that complement the ones employees already possess. Ideally, volunteers are recruited exactly because the salaried staff cannot have every skill or talent necessary to do all aspects of the job.
-
Community ownership of solutions to mutual problems. Especially if your organisation addresses issues affecting the quality of life, when people participate as volunteers they empower themselves to improve their own neighbourhood (which is your mission, after all).
-
Research suggests that satisfied volunteers frequently become donors of money and goods as well. They also support special events and fundraisers by attending themselves and bringing along family and friends.
Planning for volunteer involvement
If your organisation's volunteer programme is to be successful, it will need thinking about at top management level. It is important to avoid wasting the time of volunteers - which is exactly what happens if there has been insufficient planning to define and prepare the work to be done. It is a form of volunteer recognition to establish standards for who can become a volunteer, how assignments are made, and whether accomplishments will be evaluated. The point is not to bureaucratise volunteering. The best volunteer programme management serves to enable volunteer achievement, not limit it.
To help plan properly for volunteer involvement in your organisation, your chief executive should spend some time considering the following questions:
Who volunteers with us now? Is this the demographic profile we want and need as we move forward? Do we want volunteers to represent the clients/audience we serve? Are we seeking specialists or generalists? People with clout in the community? Do we recruit for diversity of gender, age, race, or other characteristics? Unless you decide whom you want to attract, you won't design work and plan a recruitment campaign to find these types of volunteers.
If so much is changing in the world around us, how can volunteering stay the same? How frequently do we reassess the tasks we ask volunteers to do? Might we be hanging on to traditions that hurt our ability to recruit a great diversity of people? What might our image be among young people? Recent immigrants? The unemployed? Do we recognise that the word 'volunteer' is not necessarily attractive to all people, and that phrases such as 'community service', 'service-learning' and 'lay ministry' are all part of the same picture? What's our opinion of 'mandated volunteering' such as service that is court-ordered or required by a university? Do we view volunteer involvement as 'community resource mobilisation'?
How can we make sure we are finding the best ways to put volunteer skills to work? Will volunteers be assigned to top-level work as well as supplemental tasks? What are our goals and objectives for involving volunteers? 'Having' volunteers is not an end unto itself. What is the purpose of volunteer tasks? What outcomes do we want volunteers to achieve? How will we evaluate success?
Are we ready to hire a full-time director of volunteers or will we appoint someone already on staff to handle this responsibility part-time? What exactly does 'part-time' mean? Where will the leader of the volunteer programme fit on our organisational chart (in the chain of command)? Volunteers need to feel that this leader is directly connected to the organisation's administration or else they will suspect (correctly!) that they have no effective voice.
Volunteers are not free help. Develop an appropriate budget (or raise money) for necessary expenses, ranging from printing and postage to transportation reimbursement and insurance. One way an organisation demonstrates its commitment to volunteers is to acknowledge that these expenses are real and plan for them in the overall organisational budget. Beyond money, consider resources such as space, access to the Internet, training and staff time for supervision.
Never assume that people know how to work effectively with volunteers - or that they are happy to do so. Most employees do not learn about volunteer management in their professional education, nor is personal experience as a volunteer enough training in supervising other volunteers. Develop a plan to prepare everyone to work together. Allow negative feelings to surface and deal with concerns such as setting - and enforcing - standards for volunteer performance.
All the management principles that work effectively with employees apply equally to volunteers. But don-t aim to treat volunteers in the same way you treat paid staff. It is better management practice to treat employees as though they were volunteers! Think about it: we allow volunteers choices and flexibility in their tasks and schedules, and then we thank them. Do we do this enough for employees? Organisations that have created a welcoming tone for volunteers find that their employees and visitors like the atmosphere better, too.
Good management practices will limit problems, but the unexpected will happen. Do we insist on screening applicants before they become volunteers? Are we willing to 'fire' a volunteer if necessary? Are we committed enough to the value of volunteer involvement that we will not over-react if one individual makes a mistake? Have we clarified our legal liabilities regarding volunteers and written policies and procedures to protect the organisation, clients and volunteers?
Schedule regular status reviews to assess whether and how the volunteer programme is changing over time. Are the original goals and objectives for the volunteer programme still relevant? Is it necessary to add more paid co-ordinating staff? How large do we want the volunteer programme to become?
Do we discuss the ways volunteers might help in new projects, while these are still on the drawing board? Do we expect the director of volunteers to be a part of our strategic planning team, helping to identify needs as well as solutions? Are volunteers mentioned at all in our long-range plans?
Since we feel volunteers are community representatives, do we ever ask them anything? What would happen if a volunteer had a great new idea? How would it find its way to those in charge? What if a volunteer has a criticism - or hears a client or member of the public voice something negative? Would we have a way of learning about it? How often do we ask volunteers for their opinions on proposed projects or activities - or ask them to come up with creative strategies on their own?
Are volunteers mentioned in our annual reports? In any of our publications? What about on our web site? Do we publicise volunteer achievements on a regular basis, or does the public (and even our staff) only hear about volunteers when we are trying to recruit them or once a year when we say a flowery thank-you?
If someone unexpectedly offered you £10,000, you'd be thrilled. What if someone with proven expertise offers you an intensive period of volunteer service? Would the excitement be the same? Look for the subtle ways that an organisation values money over time and talent. Examine how staff hired to raise funds are treated (and paid) in comparison to those hired to work with volunteers. Most important, make sure financial development and volunteer development are integrated so that they mesh instead of compete.
Management can do more than just praise volunteers with words. Ask for and respond to reports on volunteer activities. Periodically meet with representative volunteers and ask for feedback. Develop volunteer tasks that directly help with executive-level work. Reward employees who are especially effective with volunteers assigned to them.
A last thought
Economic and social changes continue to create uncertainty about the future of many non-profit organisations and government services. Volunteering has been pushed into the limelight, often for the wrong reasons. The question is not whether volunteers can fill budget gaps, but whether organisations are truly prepared to involve volunteers in teamwork with paid staff.
Organisational leaders face the challenge of tapping community resources to the maximum. As with any other area of management, the time spent thinking about and planning for volunteers has a direct impact on the value of the services that volunteers contribute. Chief executives should make sure their organisation is thoughtful and not thoughtless about volunteers! Their responsibility is to set the tone for volunteer involvement in their organisation: to articulate their vision and demonstrate their commitment in tangible ways.
The material in this booklet was adapted from the book, From the Top Down: The Executive Role in Volunteer Program Success, revised edition, by Susan J Ellis, Philadelphia: Energize, Inc, 1996.
For more information also visit the Energize website: www.energizeinc.com
