Joe McCannon is the founder and CEO of the Billions Institute, which supports organisations in the social sector worldwide to take local successes to a global scale, and trains thousands of others to lead transformative movements.
He says that mismanaging volunteers is one of the most common sources of failure for large-scale efforts at social change. And in turn, that a well-structured volunteer experience “can build sustained, collective action and generate enormous creativity”.
Bronwyn Sheehan is the founder and CEO of the Pyjama Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that transforms the lives of children in foster care through education. Since the Foundation’s inception in 2004, they’ve trained 4,000 volunteers with the values-driven leadership Bronwyn has worked to embed in the organisation and its staff.
For her work, Bronwyn was awarded Qld Australian of the Year in 2009, and was a national finalist in the 2008 Telstra Business Women’s Awards. In the lead-up to her presentation at the 2016 Not-For-Profit People Conference, we spoke to Bronwyn about her journey, and how she’s managed to establish an organisation with such a committed volunteer workforce, from the ground up.
Kerry Shields is the National Volunteer Manager at Starlight Children’s Foundation, a not-for-profit that seeks to improve the lives of children and teens who are seriously ill or in hospital. Kerry’s team is responsible for attracting, recruiting, engaging and retaining more than 3,000 volunteers, whose contribution of more than 55,000 hours equated to over $1.6 million in value to the organisation in 2015.
Ahead of her presentation at the 2016 Not-For-Profit People Conference, we spoke to Kerry about the value of approaching volunteer recruitment in the same way as paid staff.
Giving tough feedback to your team members is an inevitable part of managing staff or volunteers in any NFP, but can be incredibly challenging for a manager. But according to Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman of US-based leadership development consultancy Zenger/Folkman, these conversations are often harder than they need to be.
Some conflict is a good thing in most teams – and that’s as true for teams of volunteers as it is for paid staff.
But what happens if conflict with – or between – your organisation’s volunteers gets to a level where it’s hurting your organisation or the people involved?
Did you know that for every dollar your organisation invests into volunteering, the flow-on benefit to the community is valued at more than $4? That’s according to peak body Volunteering Tasmania, which last month launched a free online calculation tool to help organisations accurately assess the economic impact of their volunteer programs.
Four standout ideas we picked up at the conference from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the Happiness Institute, the Kitchen Garden Foundation and World Vision that you can apply to your organisation.
Holding on to good volunteers can be challenging at the best of times – but if you’re involved with managing volunteers in your organisation, you know how valuable it can be if you get it right.
In part 2 of this post we explore the final two essential elements of volunteer retention – evaluation and motivation.
After nearly 20 years, the peak body for volunteering in Australia is reviewing it’s definition of volunteering, and is calling on organisations to share their ideas and help to inform the decision. Volunteering Australia (VA) today launched a review of it’s current definition of volunteering, which will include a series of public information sessions and […]
Are you a new volunteer manager who would like some extra support? Or do you have years of volunteer management wisdom you are bursting to share? Great news: Volunteering Victoria has launched a brand new Mentoring Program for volunteer managers, and applications are now open. Mentoring is a great way to receive one-on-one support from […]