Upcoming Workshops

For a list of upcoming workshops click here.

New Musings

Click here to read a new musing from Linda entitled "The Case For Investing In Volunteer Program Management".

You can also read Linda's past musings.

Who Cares? Launch!

Linda L. Graff, author, trainer, and voluntary sector specialist, and Paul B. Reed, Carleton University Professor and Senior Social Scientist, Statistics Canada, have started a national conversation about the future of our communities – the Who Cares? project. Drawing from the most comprehensive data ever assembled on this issue, Graff & Reed have produced a series of engaging audio conversations to enlighten and inspire Canadians with a way-of-life wake-up call based on compelling but troubling research findings.  Local elected politicians, chambers of commerce, and other leaders in business, industry and the nonprofit sector are being urged to take action immediately.

Visit the www.CanadaWhoCares.ca web site for more information or click here to download a free copy of these thoughtful, provocative, and challenging conversations.

Canada Who Cares? Transcripts Now Available!

With the generous assistance of Volunteer Edmonton, we are pleased to be able to offer all six Graff-Reed Conversations from the Canada Who Cares? project in PDF format.  Follow this link to the Canada Who Cares? web site and look at the bottom left of any page to find all conversations available in either MP3 or PDF format.

Audio Gallery

Check out our new gallery of audio resources!   We’ll be posting a series of exciting audio files on critical issues in volunteerism.  The first in the series is now available - a CBC Radio interview of Linda recorded in January, 2007 in which she warns of a potential crisis in volunteer involvement looming just on the horizon ... and what we might do about it.   Listen to the CBC Radio interview.

Looming Crisis? 
New Statistics On Volunteering and Giving!

Paul Reed, Senior Social Scientist at Statistics Canada along with his colleague Kevin Selbee have just released a revised version of an overview of nearly two decades of Canadian statistical research on trends in volunteering, charitable giving, and participating.  This is one of the most important analyses of volunteering ever to be done in this country and it reveals some startling new findings.  The good news is that volunteering isn't necessarily in decline.  The potentially not so good news is that the ethos underlying contributory behaviour may be softening and the bulge of baby boom volunteers are entering the life cycle stage when all historical evidence indicates that volunteers begin to withdraw from their volunteer involvement.  If Canadian baby boomers follow the well entrenched pattern, we may be facing a crisis in the very near future ... and nobody is paying attention.

This is a must read for every manager of volunteers, every nonprofit administrator, every fund development officer, and every community and service planner in the country. Click here for the full report!

IJOVA Now Online!

Click here for a new article: IJOVA Arises From AVA Ashes.

New "Books-on-CD"... 4 titles now available!

Each includes a quality PDF version of the book as well as a short bonus video introduction featuring Linda Graff herself. The electronic format of the books allows you to quickly search and print any topic of your choice making all forms and checklists immediately available for your use.
Click here to go to the bookstore and order your CDs today!

Click here for information on Linda's latest book on best practices in volunteer program management.

 

Be sure to check out Linda's two new workshops:
Click here for a description of Linda's new workshop on the declining profit margin in volunteer involvement, "When Volunteers Cost More Than They Return".
Click here to view a description of the new session on "Establishing Position & Relationship Boundaries for Volunteers"

Click here to download an electronic copy of "Volunteer For The Health Of It". This monograph which explores the relationship between volunteering and wellness for the volunteer was written by Linda Graff in 1991 for Volunteer Ontario. When Volunteer Ontario ceased operations, their publications were transferred to Volunteer Canada, and Volunteer For The Health Of It subsequently went out of print. By agreement between Volunteer Canada and Linda Graff And Associates Inc., we are now pleased to make this electronic version available.

Check out Linda’s Upcoming Workshops - there may be one scheduled close to you.

A New Top Pick.

Click here to view a recently updated reading list on the topic of volunteering and wellness, and the benefits of volunteering to volunteers themselves.

IJOVA Arises From AVA Ashes

The Journal of Volunteer Administration (JOVA), the premier peer-reviewed journal on volunteer management in North America, and previously published by the now defunct Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA), was rescued from the rubble of AVA’s demise and is now reincarnated as IJOVA - the International Journal of Volunteer Administration.  The IJOVA continues to be a peer-reviewed, professional publication, and is now headquartered at The Department of 4-H Youth Development and Family and Consumer Science at North Carolina State University with Dr. R. Dale Safrit at its helm as Editor-In-Chief.

The first four issues of IJOVA (July, 2006 - June, 2007) are being offered free (downloadable from www.IJOVA.org) as the result of a Volunteer IMPACT Fund grant and will become available by subscription in July, 2007.  Go to the IJOVA web site and check out the first volumes currently on offer, or click here to download information on the feature topics of upcoming issues and submission deadlines.

The field of volunteer program management has always suffered from a poor image and a lack of acknowledgement of its complexities and demands.  A professional journal that profiles the expanding body of research, literature and expertise in the field is one of the best responses the profession can mount to counter lingering visions of volunteer management as a job anyone can do in their spare time.  And I would urge all managers of volunteers to strongly consider submitting articles, commentaries, and program findings to the journal.  There are novel techniques continually being piloted and remarkable achievements being realized in volunteer programs all over North America, but we have a dismal record of sharing what we discover.  Do you have :

• a pet peeve about a concept or issue in volunteerism or volunteer program management?
• a strong opinion on an aspect of volunteering or its place in your organization/community/country?
• a new approach to working with volunteers that has generated great results or shows good promise of doing so in the future?
• an “ah ha” observation that could be useful to other managers of volunteers in organizations like yours?

Any of these might be the substance of a submission to IJOVA.  If you care about your own work and the future of volunteer management, consider making a contribution to our collective thinking, our practice, and/or our knowledge by submitting to the IJOVA.  If you have a great idea but lack the confidence to work it up into something that might be accepted, contact IJOVA.  I’m sure they’d be happy to put you in touch with a mentor who would help you on your way to a submission.  Help yourself and help us all to build a credible and (finally) suitably acknowledged profession.

Current Top Pick

We study a wide range of literature and research to keep current in our specialty areas. To give you the opportunity to check out some of the best, we'd like to point you to our current top pick in volunteer program management resources:

Keeping Volunteers: A Guide To Retention by Steve McCurley and Rick Lynch. Olympia , WA : Fat Cat Publications. 2005. Available as elect ron ic PDF only. 106 pages.

This new e-book from long-time authors, trainers and consultants, Steve McCurley and Rick Lynch is a gem that will, sadly, be overlooked by many managers of volunteers who fail to see the essential wisdom of putting a bit more effort into keeping existing volunteers instead of loads of resources into finding, screening, orienting, training, and placing new ones. Volunteer program management is a front-end loaded process, and with episodic volunteering becoming the norm, the return on that big initial investment is declining. Smart managers will put those pieces together and recognize just how important volunteer retention efforts are becoming.

The new McCurley-Lynch book on volunteer retention is holistic. It takes the broad view of the topic, connecting retention success to organizational culture rather than hooking it on a few discrete activities bolstered by bobbles of volunteer recognition. In fact, there is even a hint that episodic volunteering may be as much a product of the inability of organizations to retain volunteers as it is a reflection of shifting demographics in the volunteer labour pool ... and that's a revolutionary thought. Consider the research McCurley and Lynch cite:

A recent study in the United States undertaken by the United Parcel Service Foundation (1998) discovered that after "conflicts with more pressing demands" (65%), poor volunteer management was the most frequent reason cited to explain why people stop volunteering:

. Charity was not well managed: 26%
. Charity did not use volunteers' time well: 23%
. Charity did not use volunteers' talents well: 18%
. Volunteers' tasks were not clearly defined: 16%
. Volunteers were not thanked: 9% (page 4)

The link between recognition and retention is the least important, hopefully putting to rest the too-long-lived notion that plaques and pins are how to keep volunteers around. It's how volunteer efforts are managed that is key to volunteer retention. The authors then set out the organizational and program management functions that help volunteers to feel connected, respected, empowered, and valued. Turning volunteers into believers in the cause rather than workers doing little jobs turns out to be critical to their willingness to continue to give more of their most precious resource - time.

The text is peppered with lots of supporting research, reflecting Steve McCurley's constant trolling of the literature and the net for whatever is new. But that complements well Rick Lynch's contributions on the principles of effective position design and relationship-building with volunteers as fully integrated members of the mission-driven team.

This new book is available only in elect ron ic format as a downloadable PDF file from either www.energizeinc.com or www.csv.org.uk

Keeping Volunteers is both easy and cost-effective to obtain. We'd strongly recommend this one as an essential item on the book shelf of every manager of volunteers. Even if you've been in the business for a while you will find some important new thinking in this resource. It's definitely worth finding the time to review.

Previous Top Picks

Volunteer Management: An Essential Guide (2nd edition) by Joy Noble, Louise Rogers, and Andy Fryar. Adelaide , Australia : Volunteering SA Inc. 2003. 179 pages. Paper, spiral bound.

It is the wide context in which volunteer program management is presented that makes this new publication so special. It takes us beyond the normal boundaries of the field, pushing its readers to understand the place of volunteerism and the volunteer movement in a wider social context. This is a refreshingly succinct volume that nicely blends contextual background with to-the-point how to's and helpful appendices full of sample forms, guidelines, and handy hints. Don't miss this thinking person's guide to volunteer program management.

Hard copies available from the Volunteering SA [ South Australia ] web site at: http://www.volunteeringsa.org.au/store or an elect ron ic version from the Energize Inc. bookstore at: www.energizeinc.com

NEW CANADIAN RESEARCH. Check out the new research on volunteering in Canada now downloadable from: www.nonprofitscan.ca Follow the links through "research report" to "International Year Of Volunteers publications".

Boomnet: Capturing the Baby Boomer Volunteers. A 2001 Research Project into Baby Boomers and Volunteering.

Linda Graff says, if you haven’t read this piece, go immediately to your computer and download it from the Internet right away. Judy Esmond, the principal consultant on this Western Australian Government initiative, has compiled the best overview of what the 21st Century manager of volunteers needs to both know and do to run an effective volunteer program. If you do what Esmond says in this monograph you cannot fail. It’s simply fabulous. Brilliant! Find it at: www.dpc.wa.gov.au/documents/boom.pdf

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