It’s Time for Volunteer Fresh
Volunteers trail portions of us when in the community and bring portions of our community to us every time they volunteer. They bring our mission to the community and the freshness of our communities to us.
Volunteers trail portions of us when in the community and bring portions of our community to us every time they volunteer. They bring our mission to the community and the freshness of our communities to us.
What was it that drew me to them, and them to me? Did we share similar backgrounds? Heck no. Did we share similar experiences, thoughts, tastes, preferences? Nope.
Volunteer managers must stop allowing the notion that we are nice. No. Not nice. Not pleasant, not cheery, not sweet, not friendly, not genial, and especially not obliging, cheerful, amiable or agreeable.
Doesn’t it feel like investing is closer to what volunteers do? Maybe we should start to rethink this whole time donor idea.
Most of us didn’t seek out volunteer management because we loved it, but stumbled into volunteer management and fell in love with the work.
Experiential learning teaches us to apply knowledge from doing. It forces us to experiment until we get things right.
To reframe volunteer engagement and impact, we first need listeners who become supporters who then become advocates for our vision. Our reputation needs to reflect our self-identity as leaders of volunteers.
Unlike HR folks, who contend with active staff, volunteer managers are tethered to every volunteer, whether they are actively volunteering or they’re rotating in the periphery.
We, leaders of volunteers (#LoVols) have shared experiences, shared hopes, shared challenges and a shared future. We are a family, …
The visionary approach is to offer the impact of volunteer involvement and remove the objections to it.