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 Workshop Descriptions: Volunteer Program Management Where’s The Line?
Exploring Boundaries
The demarcation between what behaviour is and is not acceptable is not always clear - to volunteers or to their managers! Additionally, boundaries around positions are often fuzzy.
Risky Business
Who Should Attend? Just Around the Corner
Changing Expectations of Volunteers and Volunteerism Who Will Volunteer? Program Transformations With change also comes opportunity. The new wave of volunteers is already bringing an entirely new toolbox of skills, talents, experience, and influence to community involvement. For those organizations sufficiently visionary and creative to engage them, the potential is nearly boundless. But radical shifts in how we think about volunteers - at the organizational level - and how we support them will be necessary if their potential is to be realized. This is an eye-opening, sometimes shocking, sometimes scary look at the future of volunteering, and by extension, the future of nonprofit operations. The underlying message is one of great optimism for those organizations that make the necessary adjustments. Join us as we explore just what those shifts look like. Who Should Attend? Boom Or Bust?
Engaging volunteers gets more complex and more difficult with each passing year. Changes in society and demographics alter our services, our workforce, and the roles that volunteers are and are not willing to undertake on our behalf. There is a growing buzz at the moment about the possible influx of baby boomers into volunteering as boomers begin to enter their retirement years. It appears that many organizations are expecting this demographic transition to generate a good supply of new volunteers. But is that expectation founded in reality? In this workshop we explore the most up-to-date research on the baby boomer cohort’s involvement in volunteering. We take detailed look at predictions about their near-future civic participation and present what may be eye-opening information on what we might reasonably expect. Catch a glimpse of the practical implications of the newest and just-emerging trends that are literally transforming volunteering as we know it. For example:
Nonprofit organizations are facing new volunteer program limitations and opportunities and the only certainty is that running a volunteer program the way it’s always been run will limit your organization’s success in the future. Status quo is not an option. Awareness of these changes coupled with an organizational willingness to implement serious adjustments can make unparalleled new human resources available. This eye-opening scan of the big picture will help you connect the inevitability of change with the unparalleled potential that awaits that handful of organizations that have the foresight and the courage to transform themselves now. Repository of Wealth: Successful Integration of High Skills Volunteers
The New Wave Doers of little jobs or solvers of organizational problems? Those options represent two ends of the volunteer involvement spectrum open to nonprofit organizations. Where is your organization on the continuum? Is there help out there you’re not taking advantage of? Nonprofit organizations are currently ignoring the greatest potential repository of talent this sector has ever seen. In this rare good news-session, Linda Graff, the risk management maven of doom opens the doors on a whole new way of engaging volunteers. The potential is nearly boundless. But of course there’s a catch. High skills volunteers (HSVs) are picky, demanding, and sometimes downright difficult. Join this internationally renowned volunteer program management specialist as we explore some of the cutting edge thinking on the management and infrastructure modifications needed to effectively engage the new waves of HSVs waiting to do business with your organization. Workshop Content
Who Should Attend? Going Backwards To Go Forwards: From Managing To Enabling Volunteer Involvement
Just when we thought we were getting the hang of effective volunteer engagement, it looks like we are facing a workforce poised to reject most the of the management systems it’s taken us 20 years to establish! There is a whole new “crop” of volunteers on the horizon:
Volunteers are not just seeking new kinds of positions although they certainly are doing that. They are also beginning to demand that we work with them in new ways. These new volunteers are increasingly demanding, picky, and “mouthy”. They want to work on their own terms at positions that use their precious free time in productive and meaningful ways. Many will want to know why you’re asking them to do the work you’ve set out for them. Some will want to tell you how to run your program. The thing is, they may actually have some great ideas! The question is, are you open to their input and prepared to hear their suggestions? In an environment where volunteers work in positions of trust, and administration, not inappropriately, requires policies, rules, and assurances of safe and quality programming, how will we deal with the transition to an increasingly short-term and episodic volunteer workforce. What are reasonable expectations of these new volunteer groups? What changes will organizations need to make to engage them effectively? This workshop sets out multiple dimensions of the new volunteer corps and helps participants to explore the challenges and paradoxes most organizations have yet to consider. Get set – they’re just around the corner. When Volunteers Cost More Than They Return
Volunteers are performing increasingly complex and sometimes essential work. Together with recent increases in legal, ethical, and public accountability, these trends push organizations to implement evermore substantive infrastructure to ensure safe and productive involvement. The convergence of these trends with the growing tendency of volunteers to work for shorter periods and the increasing distaste of many volunteers for structure and bureaucracy, raises brand-new questions about what we ask volunteers to take on. We are now beginning to see examples where the cost of involving volunteers simply outweighs the return. What adjustments might we need to make in the near future? How do we begin to think about where volunteer involvement can be most effective? Are there some positions that really ought to be retired? This two/three hour session provides an excellent opportunity for experienced managers of volunteers to consider some of the larger patterns shaping volunteerism and the volunteer labour force and how organizations might adapt to maximize emerging potential in new generations of volunteers. Join us for a challenging and stimulating conversation, and take away tools to assess the "profitability" of volunteer positions in your organization. Planning For Volunteer Involvement
Volunteerism is cost-effective, but it is not free. Systems and infrastructure need to be in place to support effective voluntary effort. In this workshop we explore what organizations need to do before they launch the recruitment campaign. We look at issues such as budget planning, job design, staff training to work with volunteers, volunteer management functions, winning board and senior executive support, and policy development. Join us as we review all of the things that must be done immediately after somebody says: "Let’s get a volunteer to do it!" It’s A Privilege To Volunteer Here! Volunteer Job Design For Success
"It's getting harder and harder to find good volunteers!" That's a sentiment widely held throughout the nonprofit sector, yet experience indicates that, in fact, we are still involving huge numbers of ever-more-skilled volunteers. We experience most difficulty when the job itself is not attractive to the kinds of volunteers most often available. This workshop looks at the principles of sound volunteer job design. We will explore some key principles of volunteer motivation, and borrow from marketing to make jobs attractive to today’s volunteers. Learn how to make it a privilege to volunteer in your organization. Volunteer-Paid Staff Relations
If volunteers don't feel welcomed in your organization, they won't keep coming back . . . and there's nothing that will make volunteers feel unwelcome faster than strained relationships with paid staff. In times of economic restraint it is very tempting to replace paid staff with unpaid staff. If the funding just is not there, why not extend services by bring on more volunteers? Sources of tension between paid and unpaid staff can arise in any volunteer program. Join us as we look at how to create a climate in which both paid and unpaid personnel feel comfortable, valued, and productive. Here are some of the key topics we cover:
This is a very practical, "how-to" seminar designed to help you generate more productive and satisfying partnerships between paid staff and volunteers. Values, Ethics And Accountability
Values are deeply held beliefs about good and bad, right and wrong. They shape our decision-making and influence our behaviour. What values might underpin the field of volunteer program management? What is the connection between values and ethics, and what does "the ethical practice of volunteer management look like?" Will ethics help us sort out some of the tougher decisions we are faced with? There is plenty of talk about "accountability" but what does it really mean, and how can a volunteer program "be accountable"? In this workshop we have a chance to think and explore these kinds of questions together. We learn about the concepts and how they might apply in the day to day coordination of volunteer involvement. Advanced Issues In Volunteer Program Management
In this completely
"customizable" one- or two-day event, the sponsoring agency
can create a unique session that covers the most critical issues
facing Managers of Volunteers as we move into the twenty-first century.
What are the challenges? In this session you can pick and choose
issues and topics from among all of Linda's other sessions to create
an in depth, one- or two-day workshop customized to the specific
interests and issues of your target audience. Policy Development
Volunteer programs require more structure and more formalized attention than ever before as we engage volunteers in important, responsible, and complex duties. Policies are the primary mechanism through which organizations set boundaries, define what is and what is not acceptable, and keep volunteers from straying into unsafe territory. The development of policies and procedures will also make your volunteer program more effective and more productive. In this workshop we will learn:
Whether you are new to volunteer management or an expert in the field, you will find this workshop revealing, practical, and directly applicable to your program. Join Linda Graff, author of the best-selling By Definition, as she reveals how policy development can reduce your organization's exposure to liability, and be interesting as well! What’s It Worth? Uncovering The Value Of Volunteering
Organizations
are pressured to cut costs and justify "bottom lines"
and this fiscal scrutiny is beginning to be directed toward volunteer
programs and services. Managers of volunteers are trying to attach
a dollar figure to volunteer contributions. In principle, there
is nothing wrong with this trend toward fiscal responsibility. Why
should volunteer programs be beyond accountability? ... So what
is volunteering worth? What does it contribute in all of its complexity?
What is this "value added" that we have talked about in
volunteering? Is a cost-benefit analysis the right approach?
Treat yourself to the opportunity to collectively explore some leading-edge thinking on the exciting, tangled, and sometimes elusive value that volunteering creates for clients, organizations, volunteers themselves, and society as a whole. You will not leave this session with a neat little formula to apply back home, but you will almost certainly have a much deeper knowledge and appreciation of what volunteering really accomplishes.
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LINDA GRAFF AND ASSOCIATES INC., 2005-2007. All rights reserved. |