Volunteer Management in a New Era from 17th IAVE World Conference

Stan C. Fisher
Chrysalis and IAVE, Canada 

Presentations made at Workshop 1 at the 17th IAVE Conference on

 What does volunteer management reflect?

 • Community organizer

Volunteer management as a “community organizer” implies capacity building. It is suggested that these four elements are essential to the sectors’ own organizational pursuits before embarking outwards:

How can you go forward without a strong position of your own?

Do you feel confident about these four elements in your organizations?

• Strategic alliances - extend beyond similar agencies collaborating on a project. Where does our thinking leads us in being creative? When was the last time you established an alliance with your local newspaper, a movie theatre, a bakery and furniture store all working together in an alliance toward a common goal?

• Public engagement - the voluntary sector delivers a range of services relating to every aspect of our lives and rivals many industrial sectors in terms of utilizing human and financial resources. How are we positioning this reality to ensure longer-term sustainability of the sector?
How are we “engaging the public” in understanding and appreciating the depth of the sectors potentials?
How are you engaging feedbacks from the community to shape your policies and set your management agenda?

• Advocate for volunteers - Do we really know what it means to “advocate” for the voluntary sector? What does it appear that we are whining and begging, when really we should be coming from a position of strength? Have we strategized the communication elements around managing this advocacy role? Have we established clear positions on our approach to advocacy, and how do we manage potential backlash or indifference to our efforts?

• Creating new ways and strategies - of volunteer management requires imagination, demands creativity, and sets targets.Do you or does your organization utilize the creativity, the energy, the enthusiasm of its members, friends and associates? If not, why not? How can we harness and/or awaken new ways to achieve our objectives?

• Change - societal and personal. If we are going to affect “change”, in our society, it must first focus on people issues. Our sector requires the promotion of ongoing and systematic research into human resources within the voluntary sector, including recruitment, training and retention. It must educate the public and donors as to how the voluntary sector works and its contribution to building a stronger community. It must also develop leadership within the sector at all levels, from the front line to the policy maker. Are we ready to address change? Are we actioning change? Are we actioning strategies for change? Are we managing change, or is change managing us?

We cannot do things in same old ways! We will take some time in this session to uncover some unique ideas or approaches to volunteer management in this new era.

The most significant assets provided by competent volunteer management are:

- Mobilization of citizens to solve a problem(s) or meet a need
- Engaging talents and skills in the work of an organization
- Utilizing resources in an efficient and effective manner

How can we create quick checklists to assess the return on our energies in trying to build on these assets?Management of volunteers allows them to grow/develop and find satisfaction in their work in the community. How are you getting feedback from your volunteers? Are you employing any type of satisfaction survey, or having personal interviews to assess your efforts?
This workshop will explore some “how to develop”, “how to engage”, “how to assess”, and “how to evaluate” your efforts in this subject regard. Oh yes! Be ready to have some fun in our time together. See you in Seoul.

 "Volunteer Management in a New Era" Managing Volunteer Resources is becoming a factor in Economic planning around the world. Volunteers bring resources to our communities. Thus, our challenge is to know how best to manage these resources. Policy makers and Funders often do not view volunteer resource development as an essential area in which to invest. The people responsible for managing volunteer resources within organizations report that their function is poorly understood and marginalized. What’s required today is a new vocabulary that emphasizes: civic involvement / innovation / and / results! This new focus will impact us well into the future.