The Volunteer Management Handbook

Leadership Strategies for Success

Tracy D. Connors, Tracy D. Connors

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781118127421
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Nonprofit Organizations & Charities
• Index: Business

Completely revised and expanded, the ultimate guide to starting—and keeping—an active and effective volunteer program

Drawing on the experience and expertise of recognized authorities on nonprofit organizations, The Volunteer Management Handbook, Second Edition is the only guide you need for establishing and maintaining an active and effective volunteer program. Written by nonprofit leader Tracy Connors, this handy reference offers practical guidance on such essential issues as motivating people to volunteer their time and services, recruitment, and more. Up-to-date and practical, this is the essential guide to managing your nonprofit's most important resource: its volunteers.

• Now covers volunteer demographics, volunteer program leaders and managers, policy making and implementation, planning and staff analysis, recruiting, interviewing and screening volunteers, orienting and training volunteers, and much more
• Up-to-date, practical guidance for the major areas of volunteer leadership and management
• Explores volunteers and the law: liabilities, immunities, and responsibilities

Designed to help nonprofit organizations survive and thrive, The Volunteer Management Handbook, Second Edition is an indispensable reference that is unsurpassed in both the breadth and depth of its coverage.

Part I
Volunteer Resource Program Assessment, Analysis, and Planning

Chapter 1
Volunteer Models and Management

R. Dale Safrit, EdD

North Carolina State University

Ryan Schmiesing, PhD

Ohio Community Service Council

This chapter introduces and defines the concept of volunteer management. Historical models of volunteer management are described, culminating in an in-depth description of the only model of contemporary volunteer management based on empirical data collected from actual volunteer managers, the PEP Model of Volunteer Administration: (Personal) Preparation, (Volunteer) Engagement, and (Program) Perpetuation.¹

Volunteers and Their Essential Management

The social phenomenon of volunteerism has had enormous positive effects on individuals, their families and communities, and entire cultures for well over two centuries in the United States and for at least half a century in western Europe and other areas around the globe (Ellis & Noyes, 1990; Govaart, van Daal, Münz, & Keesom, 2001; Jedlicka, 1990). Even in times of national economic slowdowns, individuals continue to readily give their time, energies, and talents to other individuals and groups (other than family members) with no expectation for financial remuneration (Gose, 2009). And while informal volunteerism continues to thrive at the individual and grassroots organizational levels, steady numbers of individuals also continue to volunteer within formal programs and organizations. The United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics (2008) concluded that during the 12 months between September of 2007 and 2008, almost 62 million people volunteered for formal organizations in the United States; this roughly corresponds to almost 27% of the population aged 16 and over. Most volunteers were involved with either one or two organizations—68.9% and 19.8%, respectively.

In today's complex society and era of rapid social and technological change, it is essential that formal programs and organizations engaging volunteers do so within a logical, holistic, systematic process that maximizes a volunteer's impacts on the program's/organization's clientele being served while minimizing inconveniences and demands on the volunteer as an individual. While it is important to consider and respect each volunteer as a unique individual, large numbers of volunteers focusing on a single clientele or working within a single program require a higher level of organizational coordination in order for the organization to meet its mission and fulfill its commitments to the volunteers served. Thus, it is essential that all formal volunteer-based programs and organizations develop a consistent and logical approach (or model) to engaging and sustaining (or managing) volunteer involvement. (In actuality, we would argue that even informal volunteer initiatives would also benefit from a logical and consistent approach to engaging and sustaining volunteers, but that is a discussion for another time and place.) This chapter explores the concept of volunteer management, both historically and today, and its essentials components.

Concept of Management

Any discussion of volunteer management must begin with a discussion of the foundation concept of management itself. According to Kreitner (1998), “Management is the process of working with and through others to achieve organizational objectives in a changing environment. Central to this process is the effective and efficient use of limited resources” (p. 5). Kreitner further identifies eight fundamental management functions that also readily apply to volunteer programs and organizations:

1. Planning “is the formulation of future courses of action” (Kreitner, 1998, p. 14). Paid staff in volunteer organizations must plan for the services and/or programs offered to clientele. And, of course, they must also plan how to identify, engage, and sustain the volunteers involved in delivering the services and/or programs. Serafino (2010, p. 104) concluded that “[p]lanning is a complex activity [in volunteer organizations], perhaps made more complex by the involvement of volunteers.”
2. Decision making involves managers “choosing among alternative courses of action” (Kreitner, 1998, p. 15). In volunteer-based programs, decisions must be made regarding which clientele to serve, how to best serve them, and which volunteers to accept into the organization. Yallen (2010) specifically discusses the need for volunteer administrators to be competent in making ethical decisions.
3. Organizing involves “structural considerations such as the chain of command, division of labor, and assignment of responsibility” (Kreitner 1998, p. 15). Managers in volunteer organizations must decide which paid staff member will be responsible for managing the organization's volunteers, to whom that individual will report, and if that will be a full-time responsibility or if the individual will also have additional professional responsibilities (e.g., fundraising, marketing, etc.) Peach and Murrell (1995) discussed a systems approach to organizing in volunteer organizations and concluded that “replicating current cutting-edge organizing models will lead to. . . evolving even more innovative organizational models unique to the volunteer worker culture” (p. 232).
4. Staffing “consists of recruiting, training, and developing people who can contribute to the organization” (Kreitner, 1998, p. 15). In volunteer organizations, staffing applies to securing and managing both paid staff and volunteers. Krywood (2010) provides an excellent discussion on staffing within volunteer organizations.
5. Communicating involves “managers. . . communicating to their employees the technical knowledge, instructions, rules, and information required to get the job done” (Kreitner, 1998, p. 15). Volunteers are a critical second targeted group for communications in a volunteer organization. Macduff (1995) discussed the critical role of communications in volunteer organizations and concluded that “[v]olunteers and [paid] staff need policies, procedures, and structures that permit and encourage them to communicate” (p. 210).
6. Motivating involves encouraging “individuals to pursue collective objectives by satisfying needs and meeting expectations with meaningful work and valued rewards” (Kreitner, 1998, p. 15). The topic of volunteer motivation has been well studied and commented on for decades. An entire issue of the International Journal of Volunteer Administration is dedicated to the topic of volunteer motivation (e.g., Finkelstein, 2007; Littlepage, Perry, Brudney, & Goff, 2007; Starnes, 2007; Yoshioka, Brown, & Ashcraft, 2007).
7. Leading involves managers “serving as role models and adapting their management style to the demands of the situation” (Kreitner, 1998, p. 15). Managers of volunteers are very often directly engaged along with volunteers in delivering services or programs to clientele, thus serving as role models. Varella (2010) concluded that leaders in organizations engaging volunteers “must fully appreciate how their own leadership abilities help foster the motivation of volunteers” (p. 434).
8. Controlling involves “managers [comparing] desired results with actual results and [taking] necessary corrective action” (Kreitner, 1998, p. 15). The concept of “control” is sometimes considered a negative concept wherein one individual attempts to maintain power (or “control”) over another individual or group of individuals. In reality, controlling is readily practiced in volunteer programs and could better be considered under the more widely used term of “supervision.” Volunteer managers sometimes must decide that an individual's involvement as a volunteer is no longer in the best interest of the clientele served, the volunteer, and/or the overall organization and subsequently must take corrective action (Herman, 2010); this is only one example of control in a volunteer organization. Practices involving fiscal management (Kerr, 2010) and quality improvement (Alaimo, 2010) are other examples of controlling in volunteer organizations.

Concepts of Volunteer and Volunteerism

The second foundational concept in volunteer management that must be defined along with the concept of management itself is, of course, the concept of volunteer (or volunteerism). The literature is replete with myriad individual approaches to and definitions of both of these social phenomena, some of which are controversial (Brudney, 1999). As early as 1967, Naylor identified volunteers serving as a committee or board member as administrative volunteers and those that provided direct service to others as operational volunteers. Park (1983) suggested that “the heart of volunteerism is the countless individual acts of commitment encompassing an endless variety of. . . tasks” (p. 118), while Smith (1989) considered a volunteer as anyone who reaches out beyond the confines of their paid employment and their normal responsibilities to contribute time and service to a not-for-profit cause in the belief that their activity is beneficial to others as well as satisfying to themselves. Safrit, King, and Burscu (1994) defined volunteerism operationally as “giving time, energies, or talents to any individual or group for which [the individual] is not paid” (p. 7).

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