153 – Building Nonprofit Capacity at Hire Heroes with Michele Wiesner

March 13, 2025

Episode #153: Building Nonprofit Capacity at Hire Heroes with Michele Wiesner 

In this episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast, Tobi welcomes Michele Wiesner, Director of Capacity Building at Hire Heroes USA onto the show! Michele discusses her extensive experience in volunteer engagement and career development, particularly her role in developing a robust volunteer program at Hire Heroes.   

The pair cover a range of topics, including the importance of volunteerism, strategies for recruitment and retention, and insights on how nonprofits can scale their impact through capacity building. Michele also shares valuable leadership tips and advice for nonprofit professionals seeking to strengthen their organizations. Listen in to learn how to create a sustainable and impactful volunteer program and get inspired by Michele’s journey and practical wisdom. 

Building Nonprofit Capacity – Episode Highlights

• [01:25] – Michelle’s Journey with Hire Heroes 
• [05:56] – The Importance of Volunteerism 
• [07:34] – Career Growth and Capacity Building 
• [15:57] – Volunteer Engagement Strategies 
• [19:11] – Flexibility in Volunteering 
• [28:03] – Mindsets for Nonprofit Professionals 
• [31:19] – Volunteer Program Outcomes 
• [31:27] – Impact of Volunteerism on Other Departments 
• [32:41] – Expanding Organizational Capacity with Volunteers 
• [35:01] – Challenges and Cultural Shifts in Volunteer Programs 
• [38:10] – Building Nonprofit Capacity 
• [42:04] – Favorite Capacity Building Projects 
• [45:35] – Leadership Advice for Nonprofit Professionals 
• [49:01] – Top Leadership Tips for Volunteer Managers 

Helpful Links

• VolunteerPro Impact Lab 
• 2025 Volunteer Management Progress Report – The Recruitment Edition  
• Time + Talent Podcast Episode #305: How Remote Volunteering Gave this Organization an Edge 
• Volunteer Nation Podcast Episode #141: 8 Ways to Build Capacity with Volunteer Teams  
• Volunteer Nation Podcast Episode #147: Volunteer Recruitment Trends from Our New Report  
• Learn more about Hire Heroes USA 
• Learn more about the Georgia Association for Volunteer Administration 
• Connect with Michele 

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

Rate, Review, & Follow Us on Apple Podcasts

If you love the content Tobi shares on the Volunteer Nation podcast, consider rating and reviewing the show! This helps us reach more people – and help more good causes just like yours – successfully engage enthusiastic, dedicated volunteers with less stress and more joy.

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars. Then, select “Write a Review” and let us know what you loved most about this episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, follow the podcast so you don’t miss a thing. Follow now!

Subscribe to ProNews: Our Weekly Resource Roundup

If you’d like to stay up to date on all new podcasts, blogs, freebies, and deals posted on our Tobi Johnson & Associates and VolunteerPro websites, subscribe to our weekly ProNews newsletter.

Every Wednesday, we’ll send you a digest of our freshest content, plus a bonus! Once you confirm your subscription, you’ll get our [Free eBook] The New Volunteer Manager: The First 90 Days.

Episode #153 Transcript: Building Nonprofit Capacity at Hire Heroes with Michele Wiesner 

Tobi: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. I am so thrilled today. Because I have my friend Michele Wiesner on, and Michele and I have known each other for a long time. She has been a Volunteer Pro Impact member, I should say, used to be our Volunteer Pro membership community forever. 

I don’t even remember how long, Michele. She has, I was telling her before we jumped on, she is an inspiration because she’s really developed her career and is an advanced practitioner at this point. And so, I think everyone who’s listening will want to hear her story as well as what she’s doing at Hire Heroes to build capacity. 

Nonprofit capacity building can mean a lot of different things. So, we’ll get down to brass tacks and talk about what that means at Hire Heroes. But before we even get going, I want to introduce Michele and then we’ll get into her story. Does that sound good, Michele? That sounds great. It’s great to be here. 

Awesome. So, Michele Wiesner is Director of Capacity Building at Hire Heroes. She is responsible for the growth, direction, and results of service delivery support programs, including the Volunteer Program, Alumni Program, and Referral. And Training partners program. These support programs serve to increase organizational reach, influence, effectiveness, and efficiency through partnerships and supporters. 

So we’ll want to hear about that. The organization has 1500 active volunteers and 180. training and referral partners united by the goal of helping veterans and military spouses find meaningful employment, which is a great mission. Michele joined Hire Heroes USA full time in 2012 as the organization’s first volunteer coordinator responsible for the creation of the volunteer program. 

She is a program builder. She was promoted to manager in 2013 and then to director of the volunteer program in late 2015. But in 2019, she took on the responsibility of serving as the director of capacity building to strengthen the Hire Heroes’ mission through productive partnerships. She earned a Master of Public Administration from the University of Georgia, and she holds a CVA. 

She serves as the president. of the Georgia Association for Volunteer Administration and she lives basically just down the road from me. Not really, but I’m in East Tennessee. She’s in sort of what, Michele, I think you’re east of Atlanta. Is that right?  

Michele: Yeah, that’s correct. I’m east of Atlanta, Georgia. So, for any SEC fans out there, yep, that’s where I’m at.  

Tobi: Awesome. Not quite just down the road, but kind of. We can get to each other in a day’s drive. If we wanted. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And you might, if you’re a Time and Talent podcast listener, you might remember episode 305. I’ll link to it in the show notes, but how remote volunteering gave this organization an edge. 

Jennifer Bennett and I re-interviewed Michele a few years ago about the remote because Hire Heroes is, is remote volunteering. Welcome to the podcast, Michele. It’s great to have you here. No, thanks so much. It’s great to be here. So, to get started, tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do. Let’s start with how you got into volunteer engagement in the first place.  

Michele: Sure. Yeah, that’s a great starting point. So, I graduated from my master’s program. I did a public UGA, and was looking to get into nonprofits, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t super sure what area of nonprofit management I wanted to work in. 

Hire Heroes USA was hiring for its first ever volunteer coordinator and I had interned with the organization the summer before so I was familiar not only with the mission and how important it was but also the people and had some, some networking advantages there and took the job because it was the first volunteer coordinator role they had ever had. 

The starting point was a PDF file of interested volunteer parties. and that’s basically it. So the, I know, I know the charge had come in, be a volunteer coordinator and figure out how to build a volunteer program. It was an amazing challenge now, especially with the benefit of hindsight. I think about how fortunate I was. 

to be in that position, to be able to say yes, to get accepted, because it was such a wonderful starting place for, for my career. And it turns out that I really, really love working not only with the military veteran and military spouse communities, but also with volunteers. So, it was just meant to be. 

Tobi: Basically, a PDF of some interested volunteers to 1, 500 volunteers nationwide. Wow. 

Michele: It’s a big change. A lot of time has passed. The organization looks quite a bit different. My team looks very different. I’m no longer a single person department doing it all on my own. So yes, we, we’ve been able to have incredible growth over the 13 years and I feel really fortunate to have made a career here because I know not a lot of people are able to stay with a single organization for a long period of time and, and also see career growth. 

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. A lot has changed since you started. It’s over a decade. Why do you think volunteerism is particularly important in today’s world?  

Michele: I think volunteerism is so important because it allows us as individuals to live out our values. We all have our own set of beliefs and missions, causes, that are important to us, and volunteering is where the rubber meets the road, and where we can really put our time and action behind those causes that, that we care about. And it gives us a sense of impact and control, which some of us need more, more than others some days. And I also strongly believe, I have a personal belief that being part of a mission that’s bigger than yourself is, is really important, even if it’s not your career, having, uh, Some type of service, some type of public good that you’re trying to, to be a part of is, is really fulfilling and, and necessary. 

I think it serves multiple functions, for sure.  

Tobi: Yeah, I mean, it’s part of being part of a community. It’s a civic, almost a civic duty, I think. If we want to complain about stuff, we ought to, like, put our shoulder to the wheel a little bit. Wherever we feel like we can make a difference. And I agree when people feel maybe that they don’t have control over all the things that are going on in the world, which we never do, that is a complete, we never have control over all the things, that it’s nice to be able to make a difference somewhere. And all the little, tiny differences together can come up, can roll into a giant difference. Let’s talk about, Because I think we were talking before we got on about your career trajectory and growth within an organization. 

And I know a lot of leaders of volunteers and even executives that might be listening may not. see a vision for a career trajectory. And so, talk to us about how your journey with Hire Heroes, from managing volunteers to building capacity, how did that sort of naturally, I’m sure it was a pretty natural evolution, and then tell us about the programs you oversee now. But first, let’s start with how did that career trajectory kind of evolved?  

Michele: Sure. So, I started with the organization in 2012, first volunteer coordinator, and I did that for about two years before we were able to demonstrate enough impact and growth that the organization decided to invest further in volunteer program management and could add a couple of volunteer coordinators under me. 

At that point I was a manager supervising a couple of staff members, which already is, is, I was very fortunate. And, and I think the organization is. It’s better off because they invested earlier in volunteerism and volunteer engagement professionals. So that team steadily grew over time as we continued to evolve as an organization, as the volunteer program continued to demonstrate impact, as the demand for volunteers continued to increase over time. 

Eventually, I moved into a director role, and it took us a few years, honestly, to backfill that manager position. So, for a while, I was a director supervising that same team of volunteer coordinators. And like I say, it took a couple of years to fill the manager role. I share that to say that it was a natural evolution, but it’s easy now to look back and say, oh yes, it was super smooth, but there were definitely. 

One step forward, two step back type of type of moments in my career for sure. Once I had a manager and was operating, I would say, at a director level, it really changed what I was able to focus on, what, and the support that the team had. Having a supervisor who wasn’t trying to divide their time between all the things. 

So that was a fabulous investment. that the organization made. And then about 2019, we were in this position as an organization where we had the volunteer program, longstanding, established impact. We had the alumni program that was Established for a couple of years, but it didn’t have a departmental home, and then we were beginning to launch the referral and training partners program. 

So that was planned to launch later that year in 2019. So, we had this kind of conundrum as an organization of we have these programs. And they all have something kind of in common, but we’re not sure where they fit. They don’t have a natural home in our existing structure. It was an internal conversation, obviously an executive level decision to turn my role from solely director of volunteer program to capacity building. 

And the. commonality that we really saw between all these programs was the nature of the stakeholder groups, whether it was individual or partner organizations, they are expanding and enhancing our mission in different ways. And so that’s how we how we ended up calling it capacity building. And I’ve been in that role since the summer of 2019. 

The three programs that I mentioned before, you kind of did a great intro to the programs, but our volunteer program, um, does a lot of one-on-one mentoring. We’ve got about 1, 500 volunteers across the entire country, and most of what they do is have individual conversations with our veteran and military spouse job seekers. 

So, giving them advice on the job search, doing informational interviews with them, practicing job search skills like interviewing and salary negotiation. We also have volunteers who are helping in other ways, doing project work or professional development with staff, but the. vast majority of volunteer time is dedicated towards that one-on-one mentoring. 

Our referral and training partners program are our program dedicated towards partnering with other organizations outside of our mission that expand and enhance what we’re able to do for our clients, so our veterans and military spouses. A referral partner is one that offers some kind of additional service, so say housing support or transportation support. 

That obviously impacts a job search, but it’s not within our purview, within our mission scope to be providing those services directly. So we want to partner with organizations, reputable organizations, ones that we’ve vetted to say that when we meet that need, as we’re working with clients, we can send them to reputable organizations to say, here, this is, this is an organization we trust to fulfill this need that you have. 

Training partners are offering some kind of credentialing or job training program. Obviously relevant to our mission to help a client become more marketable or to advance the skills and training that they need to get the meaningful employment that they’re searching. So last year we ended up making about 8, 000 connections to partners across the country. 

And then finally, we have our alumni program, which is designed to continue engaging the veterans and military spouses who have successfully moved through our program and achieved meaningful employment. It’s kind of a twofold mission. On the one hand, we want to continue offering them some level of programming and services that speaks to career development. 

We very much as an organization believe that it’s not just about a job. It’s not just about financial security, although that Absolutely, something that you need from employment. We believe that a career is lifelong. And so, we want to provide some level of service that speaks to that and encourages clients to come back if they find that they do need services as their career continues. 

The other side of that mission is trying to re-engage alumni back into our mission in some way. So, becoming volunteers. donors, just advocates and supporters for our mission. Word of mouth is incredibly important to what we do. So, as our alumni are encountering other military veterans and spouses who need career support, we want them to think about us and refer those individuals to, to us. 

Tobi: Wow. There’s a couple of key takeaways that are so wise around Hire Heroes that I’m hearing. The first one is investment to scale. And one of the biggest, you know, our volunteer management progress report survey just came out. There was the recruitment edition time became a top challenge for folks and organizations are not making that investment to scale. 

You’re up to 1500 volunteers. You didn’t start with 1500 volunteers, right? But you scaled by adding layers of folks to support and engage and. work with volunteers. And it makes sense. It’s almost a story on your part of letting go along the way and your organization investing so that you can let go and not try to do it all. 

I think people are really trying, you know, when folks say I’m wearing too many hats. Yeah, you’re wearing too many hats, right? I wear many hats. Well, that’s not a badge of honor. It’s reducing your ability to scale when you don’t have enough time for doing the working on your program versus in your program. 

The other key learning really, I think, is capacity building isn’t always building from inside. I worked in employment and training as well. That was my first cause area, impact area, when I started in nonprofits at a graduate school, and it was employment and training. And knowing where your mission leaves off, and we still want to provide wraparound services for the folks we’re helping. 

We see the need, but our organization doesn’t need to say, we need to build capacity internally to provide these additional services, we need to find partners out in the community. And having done a lot of partnership development myself, I totally know what this is about. That you don’t have to, capacity building doesn’t mean that you’re building inside. 

Sometimes it means you’re, you’re strengthening and finding partners who are really good at this thing that your clients need. So those are two things that I think are so wise about what Hire Heroes does and how you’ve evolved. Let’s talk about volunteer engagement a little, because I’m sure you’ve learned a few things throughout the years. 

This is a big question. So, I would just pick your top lines for this one because I’m sure this could take a whole interview because you have so much wisdom around this. But what strategies for recruitment and retention are always like the top information people, they’re just like, how do I do this better? 

What is some top line? Things that have evolved around recruiting and retaining volunteers that, that you find are something you do differently now that you might have, might have done that you didn’t do or did differently before.  

Michele: We’re fortunate to, through our existing marketing strategies and brand presence, we have a pretty steady flow of volunteers who want to do the one-on-one mentoring that I mentioned before. I think part of that is thinking about the opportunity always from the perspective of the volunteer that we’re trying to recruit. So, making sure that the user experience is something that is, we’re thinking about during the onboarding, the orientation and training, the opportunities that are presented to them, the commitment that we’re asking for, the check ins that we do. So making sure that the volunteer is in top of mind as you’re designing your, your program and refining it over time, because as you said, your, your program is going to evolve, your needs are going to change, but always making sure you’re being mindful of what the volunteer can do and to know that things do change, right? 

The, the volunteer who is giving time in 1950 or 1990 is different from the volunteer who’s giving time in 2025. So really considering what opportunities, how we’re structuring them, how we’re making them feasible for working professionals, for example, or parents who have a lot of demands on their time as it is. 

How can we make those opportunities as impactful and not only for the organization, but then for the, the volunteer who’s giving of their time. Those are some, some things that. We may have thought about in the beginning, but it’s just such a core piece of what we do now. Every time we think about launching a new part of training or a new opportunity, it’s about the volunteer experience. 

Tobi: That’s awesome.  So, volunteers are doing their service online, right? Remotely. Remotely. So that already offers a level of flexibility for folks. I mean, during, I remember during the pandemic, you’re like, yeah, no problem. 

Michele: We were in a unique position for sure. It was, we, we had a different problem is what I would say. It was a good problem to have, but yes, we were, we were suddenly inundated with more people who wanted to volunteer because they were only looking for virtual volunteer opportunities. And that was almost an overnight change. 

Tobi: Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. Let’s talk about volunteer time. A lot of volunteers will say they don’t have time to commit or that it’s not the right connection. I mean, you have brand presence and folks know what the primary volunteer role is, but as an entirely online remote volunteer organization, what advice would you give other nonprofits about it? 

Maybe changing and being flexible to their model in terms of a model aligning with today’s fast paced World and busy people you’ve obviously learned some things through this what are some key takeaways you would offer to folks?  

Michele: I would really encourage volunteer engagement professionals to think about the role themselves, the opportunities that we’re offering volunteers and to really examine and question whether they need to be designed the way that they are. 

And if there’s, they can be subdivided a little bit. Can we ask for less of a commitment? Do we necessarily need a commitment at all? Is there a different way for us? to share volunteer opportunities so that it’s a little bit more approachable and feasible for, for volunteers to check and say yes to those opportunities when they arise. 

So really being critical about what. Um, I don’t know what our existing situation is, and does it absolutely have to look the way it looks today? The other thing I would really encourage is, if you have people who have fallen off, maybe they didn’t make it through training, or maybe they came to one or two volunteer opportunities and then they, they ghosted you, reach out to them. 

Don’t be afraid to just get on the phone and ask a very curiosity-oriented question. Not one that’s accusational, obviously, but coming from a place of, hey, we want to make sure and learn and you had this experience and we’re just curious about what could have been different. What would have maybe changed your experience? 

And lots of times people are quick to be self-deprecating and say, oh, well, it was me and I didn’t have enough time. And I, and that’s helpful to some extent. But really encouraging them to share, well, do you have any ideas about if we had had this training online or if we had it, if we had made it available during a weekday evening instead of on a Saturday for four hours, would that have changed your ability to move through it? 

Would that have changed your ability to say yes? So not being afraid to have those conversations, even if those folks are never going to be part of your program, they can still contribute and help you move forward.  

Tobi: Yeah, it’s a great way to do a little audience research, hmm? Yeah. How do you offer flexibility to your volunteers? Obviously online, so folks don’t need to commute to places. That’s, that’s one way of saving time, helping people save time. What else do you, do you do?  

Michele: Yeah, that’s a big draw. I think that’s a lot of reasons why we get people in the door. Another major thing that we do is most of our onboarding process, our orientation and training, is self-paced and online. 

So, volunteers can take as long as they want to complete it. It’s not too lengthy, so it can take you two hours, but if you really want to spread those two hours out, you can. And it gives our staff, frees us up, right, to not constantly be doing orientation and training sessions. And the other, the final thing that we do that offers a large amount of flexibility is we don’t ask for any kind of commitment for that one-on-one mentoring opportunity that I mentioned before. 

All of the opportunities we have, we basically approach the volunteer, we do match, right? So, there has to be a certain amount of screening for the opportunity before it gets presented. to a volunteer mentor and when we ask them, hey, we’ve got a veteran or a military spouse who’s ready to have this conversation. 

We always give the volunteer the ability to say no. And there’s no expectation about, well, you must hit six hours every month or you must come back. You have to say yes, a certain number of times. And I think just creating the space so that the volunteer doesn’t feel this pressure is very welcoming and makes them feel like they can be authentic, and they can take time off when they need to take time off. 

They can ask for more when they want to ask for more. So those are, those are some things that we’re able to do in the way that we designed our program. But I think there are probably some takeaways for, for other volunteer programs out there as well. 

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, having a conversation. I will ask, sometimes I’ll ask people, so why don’t you volunteer? And they’ll say, I quote, I don’t want to sign my life away, unquote. So, the pressure that people feel, I think people want to help. I also think that people get started and they kind of catch the bug and they realize how fun it is and how good it feels to help people. Then it’s like, and if they feel like they belong to a community of people, then, then it’s not that hard to keep coming back. 

I volunteer online as well and every Saturday morning during the growing season, I’ve talked about this on the pod before, but we do a Gardening Tips Live on Facebook and us for an hour on Saturday mornings we’ll chat and share slides and do talks and talk about composting and this or that. This next couple week I’m going to do seed starting, well next weekend I think seed starting, but we’ll also just riff on whatever’s going on in the garden during that time. 

It’s easy for me as a busy business owner who, there’s no way I could leave my home office in the daytime and go volunteer for half a day every week. It’s just not possible. But I can get up early on Saturday morning and then sometimes if I want to do a little research or something, I can just do it on a, on, like last night I was reading some stuff about, we’re going to talk about right plant, right place tomorrow. 

Start doing some landscape, reading about landscaping last night, so I can fit it into my life and still, and I’ve been a volunteer, honestly, I’m, next year will be my 10th year with Master Gardeners. People will stick around. We think, oh, if we offer flexibility, I think our mindset is if we offer flexibility, then they’re not going to take it seriously and they’re not going to stick around. Oh, contraire.  

Michele: Yeah, I would not, I, I wouldn’t be worried about that if there are people listening who have that concern. My experience has been the exact opposite, that offering the flexibility entices people to say yes when it’s right for them, which just creates a better experience for everyone. In our case, it’s the veteran and military spouse and the volunteer and staff. 

Everybody’s happy. And it also, I think just acknowledges. even subconsciously that, hey, we understand that you’ve got a lot going on. So, when you’re giving time to us, it’s, it’s kind of honoring the, the time in a way to say, we do want to create this space for flexibility because you may not have. eight hours to give to a volunteer shift. 

And I think there, there may also be some public education kind of opportunities too. Cause to your point, I think some people are stuck in old ideas of what volunteering is, and they don’t know that you can just volunteer for on a Saturday morning for an hour and feel really good about it and have fun. 

So that’s our job as volunteer engagement professionals is to continue spreading the word, asking our volunteers to spread the word as well, that volunteering may not look exactly what you think it looks like.  

Tobi: Yeah, I think that’s a great point that that folks don’t understand. I’ll do keyword research. For just looking at what people are searching for on Google and you as professionals, we’re so head down in what we do and we know it so intimately, but what is a volunteer job is a hugely searched term on Google, so people don’t even know what it is. Are volunteers paid? Question mark. I mean, it’s the things that you don’t you think are so obvious. 

So, we do have to really, I’m not saying dumb it down, but really share the basics and continue to educate the community on what volunteerism is. I think you make a great point that people assume it’s a certain thing. And therefore, I don’t want to sign my life away. Well, there’s lots of ways to give. 

You talked earlier, and I’m going to kind of bounce back for a minute to your career progression and evolution. We’re kind of talking about and inspiring people to evolve their volunteer models and opportunities and flexibility, etc. And you have been a great example. Your organization is scaling volunteer impact phenomenally and building team around. 

What do you think are There’s challenges, and you said it was kind of two steps back, one step forward. What are the mindsets and advice that you would give nonprofit professionals when they’re trying to do this from within? Because often I think they, they feel very alone. Like, I’m in department of one right now. 

I’m doing it all, I don’t feel like I’m getting support or I’m not moving forward. Now, you obviously had a leadership that was super wise and understood what the investment looks like. Not everybody gets that, at least at the beginning, but I feel like influence, pull up a chair at the table, but what. What kind of mindsets and sort of leadership strategies do you recommend?  

Michele: I naturally have a growth mindset, so I am constantly excited at the idea of examining things and looking for ways to progress and improve. I have learned over time that that can present challenges when you’re working on teams who don’t always have the same mindset and it can be intimidating, right? 

I’ve learned as a people leader specifically that it can be demoralizing to have a leader who is constantly saying, Oh, that’s great. Okay, what’s next if you don’t take the time for recognition and to celebrate the, the small, even small wins that you have as a, as a program or as a team. So, I think having a growth mindset, if that’s something that comes very naturally to you, it’s a great advantage because your leaders aren’t asking you to improve. You are naturally looking for ways to get better and to self-examine, being self-aware. It’s easier for them to give you critiques because you’re already in that place of, I want feedback. 

If you’re not a person who has, who has more of a fixed mindset than a growth mindset, that’s okay too. You have different strength areas. but being mindful that what does your leadership have time for? And if they’re, if they’re giving you a half hour check in. Every couple of weeks, what are you bringing to the table to make sure that that time is well spent and that they’re able to give you the targeted feedback that you need to move your program forward? 

The other thing that I would really encourage all the volunteer engagement professionals out there to do is make sure that you are measuring and reporting and communicating impact. And impact is not just the outputs, it is outcomes. And so, you need to be able to communicate that. And I think that’s one of the reasons that I have seen success is because early on we were asking hard questions about, okay, how much have we grown and what does that mean in the context of the organization and how are we impacting other teams, even if they’re not the ones working directly with volunteers. 

Those are again, kind of that self-evaluation is, is important and being able to back up what you’re saying with. with data is always helpful for almost any audience out there.  

Tobi: Yeah, I think it is the language of leadership, really. Gives them so much to, that they can share with others. And I think you’ve got a good point around outputs versus outcomes. 

Outputs are for folks that are kind of wondering what the difference. Outputs are like how many volunteer hours, how many volunteers, retention rate, that kind of thing. More around volunteers. Outcomes. How many people got a job? What was their average wage? How long did they keep that job? Those kinds of things. 

When you’re thinking about impact on other programs, I’m curious about that. Is there a way to quantify that? It’s an interesting thing to think. Or how did you kind of talk about, speak about that, like your impact of volunteerism on other departments?  

Michele: Or so using the example of the one-on-one mentoring, we, so we have a team of. essentially job coaches, the transition specialists who work one on one with our military veterans and military spouses seeking employment. So they are the person who gets to know that client’s situation, their story, their challenges, their aspirations. Like they’re really the person walking hand in hand with them to make sure that the veteran or military spouse can eventually find the, the employment that they need for their family, for their career, et cetera. 

They’re one person. They can’t possibly be an expert in every single industry that’s out there. And working with tens of thousands of individuals every single year. I guarantee you, if there’s an industry out there, we have seen it. Everything from, I want to be a personal chef, I want to be a voiceover actor, like I have seen those requests come through. 

Being able to expand the capacity of the organization by incorporating volunteers who are bringing their own set of professional expertise to the table and then able to answer the questions of our clients. I want to be a voiceover actor, okay, great. Why don’t we hook you up with somebody who’s done that before and can talk about what the process is like, how do you network, what are the groups you need to be a part of, et cetera. 

It’s kind of a twofold savings for that transition specialist. They not only don’t have to be the expert in that very niche area of industry. But they’re also, whatever time is being spent in having that conversation that the volunteer is having, that time is then saved where they can, the transition specialist, can then spend it on another client or another area of, of their work. 

In terms of quantifying it. I don’t know. I’m sure we could tabulate the volunteer hours that are spent on mentoring and do some kind of calculation in that way, but it’s more knowing that the time volunteers are spending with clients are not only enriching the experience that the client is having, but also the capacity of the teams that are working directly with the clients as well. 

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. That makes complete sense. It really is about a team effort. And Mm hmm. And let, there’s more letting go. Like, I don’t, I, I, I know having worked in volunteer programs where it, a volunteer could do the work, a staff person could do the work, and the staff person becomes so identified with the work that they don’t want to let it go, and don’t want to delegate to volunteers. 

And it’s like, you only have so many hours. Think of how many more clients you could serve, right, with your special skill set, and then let volunteers do their job. It’s about sharing the load together. And you’re right. I mean, acknowledging that volunteers might have an expertise set that you don’t, right? 

And acknowledging and celebrating that, and on real practical terms, right? In your case, it’s like, wow, what an awesome thing to talk to somebody who’s been in a job that I want, right?  

Michele: Yes, I obviously think it’s very cool. I’m biased, but I think it’s a fantastic service that we offer to our veterans and military spouses. 

And I, just to say, I mean, it sounds Maybe not easy, but it sounds very simple to say I came in and started a volunteer program. I had to change a culture, and our team had to, to change the way that they thought. And that, I don’t know the right word for it, but the, the feeling of this is my client and feeling almost protective over that relationship. 

And I don’t necessarily want to let that go. That’s absolutely something that we had to overcome in the beginning. And we’ve, we’ve got to. pretty big team of transition specialists. It’s still present for, for some folks out there. And we try to take the attitude of we’re, we’re providing what we think is a high-quality service. 

Certainly, if there are issues with a volunteer, you don’t like the advice or the recommendations that were given, we are always happy to entertain that. We want to work through challenges and not ignore them, but it’s, if you don’t want to use a service, then, you know, we can’t, we can’t force you. So. Love. 

Tobi: Yeah. Huh. Well, let’s take a quick break from my conversation with Michele Wisner about volunteer engagement and nonprofit capacity building. We’ll be right back. And when we come back, we’re going to talk more about building nonprofit capacity. So don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back.  

Volunteer Pro Impact Lab 

Are you looking to upgrade and modernize your volunteer program, or maybe you’re building one from scratch and you’re just not sure where to start. If so, we’ve got the perfect resource for you. The volunteer pro impact lab. Having built several direct service programs from the ground up, I know that it doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a clear process that takes careful attention with a focus on impact. In the end, you need a system in place that’s clear, standardized, efficient, and that gets results. 

In addition, and maybe this is the most important, you need a volunteer program design that directly contributes to your organization’s most critical goals. That’s where the VolunteerPro Impact Lab comes in. When it comes to effective volunteer engagement, our bespoke volunteer strategy success path model, which is the heart of our resources and strategic advising will help you transform your volunteer strategy from fundamental to a fully mature what’s working now approach and all in less time with our online assessment, you’ll quickly gain clarity on precisely where to focus your efforts and will provide recommendations for the exact steps needed for sustainable growth, regardless of how large or small your organization is or what your cause, impact area or focus is. 

Our program development and implementation support model will help you build a strong foundation so volunteerism can thrive. at your good cause. If you’re interested in learning more, go to volpro.net/join and we’ll share how to get started and what’s involved. 

Tobi: Okay, we’re back with our conversation about building nonprofit capacity and nonprofit engagement of volunteers with Michele Wisner from Hire Heroes. So, Michele, let’s switch gears and talk about building nonprofit capacity. We’ve talked about it on the show before. We did a Volunteer Nation podcast, episode 141: eight ways to build capacity with volunteer teams. So I talked about building nonprofit capacity before, but it really is different organization to organization. It’s sort of like outreach. The term outreach can mean almost anything. So, I was like, well, what do you mean by outreach? But let’s talk about what. 

Building nonprofit capacity means to you and why it’s so essential to hire heroes. We talked a little bit about building externally, but let’s get into this. What does it mean to you and how do you go about it?  

Michele: So, for me, capacity building really refers to the ability to add some capability, whether it’s time, skills, people power, all of the above, adding that to a program, a service, an organization, a mission. And I mentioned earlier that when we were coming up with the term capacity building, that was back in 2019, and we were in this situation where we had these programs that had this commonality of stakeholder groups that were expanding what we could do, that were enhancing the, the breadth of expertise within our organization. 

They were expanding the services that we could offer to clients. They were increasing our ability to just have time. to work because we had additional people power, and we just didn’t have a great name for it. So, capacity building is, is what we landed on. And I remember at the time, there wasn’t a whole lot out there. 

I remember seeing a job description for the UN and I was thinking like, oh, that’s not exactly the capacity building that we’re talking about, but it still sounds pretty good. The other thing that we were really mindful of was having something that had the potential for future growth. As an organization, we’re, we’re definitely oriented towards continuing to serve and wanting to do that in a sustainable way. 

Of course, we want to continue. adding capabilities to the organization, services, programs, number of people served, that kind of thing. And we wanted a title for the department that would not only capture the existing programs that we had, but also future potential opportunity as well.  

Tobi: Yeah, I love that. And I think not very many, not often do. folks think about, okay, volunteer services belong in capacity building and partnership development and expansion and scaling. We often think, well, maybe it’s in the development department. Maybe it’s in HR. Maybe it’s standalone. Maybe it’s a lot of folks report directly to the executive director, but I love this idea of housing volunteer services within a capacity building department, because it really is about community stakeholders, and there’s a lot of overlap, right? 

So, you could have a volunteer working with you who said, you know what, I know an organization in my community that could help, or I work for a company that might be interested in hiring, right? So, there’s a lot of commonalities, and you’re really talking about engaging the community across sectors. 

So it could be other charities, it could be government, it could be military, it could be, so you’re really thinking of community engagement in a way that includes volunteerism, but it also includes all these other So, I actually think it’s a really smart, wise, and really interesting way to set yourself up for sustainable success, so kudos. 

Thank you. Let’s talk about your favorite capacity building project, and what did you do? What were the results? Why was it your favorite? As, and I know it’s going to be good because you’re a growth minded person. No pressure, no, I’m kidding.  

Michele: You know, one of the things that I kind of love about the field of capacity building is that it is, like I mentioned, it’s growing a lot. 

And you mentioned it means something different to every organization. You can find a lot of different like definitions out there. One of the things that I The aspects of capacity building that I really appreciate is this focus on investing in staff and training and professional development. So, one of the things that I’ve been involved in over the last several years is an annual event that we put on for our staff. 

You mentioned before, we are totally online, so we’ve got about 150 full time employees working across the U. S. And we bring everyone together in person once a year for an event that we call annual training. And it’s an event where we do team building and professional development and learning. We get to hear from our executives. 

And for the last several years I’ve had a strong role in leading that and making sure the programming was aligned with the needs of our staff and everything. It’s a fabulous event, period. I think most of our staff members really enjoy it. But it’s It’s a really wonderful thing to be involved with from the planning perspective as well because you get to, it’s a way to serve our staff, which I, I’m all about service and, and being able to serve the people that you work, work with every day is, is a really wonderful position to be in. 

And I love asking people, we bring in speakers to talk about a variety of topics and. I love asking people because so many times, and you’ll be familiar with this, and this is a common response from volunteers, that they will thank you for, for asking you to, them to come in and, and give time. And it’s every time that, I mean, it’s been 13 years now and I’m still completely, it makes my heart so warm hearing people thank me for giving them the opportunity to serve because it’s, it’s such a, it tells me that they’re getting something out of it as well, right? 

That they’re giving us their time and their expertise. expertise, but they’re getting something out of the experience too, and that’s just really rewarding. So, there’s many reasons why I love being involved with that, and it’s one of the things that not a ton of organizations do. I haven’t heard of a lot of organizations that choose to make that kind of investment in their staff, and certainly it’s different if you’re online or if you see everybody in the office every week. But it’s something that I think is a real culture driver in our organization. For sure.  

Tobi: So, you’re inviting, let me make sure I understand this. So, you’re inviting your volunteers to come in and train staff. Yes.  

Michele: On topics. Yeah. And it’s not just volunteers. It can be partners. It can be, like I said, our executives will give us like a state of the organization kind of brief. And sometimes we bring in. folks that we just personally know we don’t necessarily have a strong organizational tie to them. So, it really depends on what programming we’re trying to advocate for. 

And then we have internal speakers as well. So, there’s plenty of times where our internal staff are training us as well. It’s a mix. We do a lot. It’s a weeklong, three days of content. So, it’s, it’s quite a lot packed into those three days.  

Tobi: Yeah, that’s awesome, though. I love, I love having volunteers come and share their expertise. What leadership advice would you give nonprofit professionals who are trying to get involved with building nonprofit capacity? Maybe they’re not, they don’t feel like they’re doing it right now. They’re leading volunteers or, or they’re busy with other parts of their jobs. What’s one piece of advice you’d give folks that are strength, want to strengthen their longer-term impact through capacity building? 

Michele: I think the, the biggest piece of advice that I would have been the expert of your business. And, uh, touched on this before, talking about data and outcomes and reporting, but I think it’s been a theme throughout this conversation that you will always, as the volunteer engagement professional, you will always have to be educating people within, within your organization. 

You will have to be educating volunteers. You will have to be educating partners and potential volunteers. And I have had a variety of leaders in my career, all of whom were some levels of supportive, but their level of awareness. about the field and the importance of it and what we do really ranged. It was, it’s been a spectrum and so it always falls on you as a volunteer engagement professional to be that expert and to be proactively looking for opportunities to get a little piece of education in there when you’re having a conversation and when you do have those touch points with your, with your leadership. 

I think Being the expert of what you’re doing and then having that professional ongoing education shows it demonstrates the impact of what volunteers can do for the and are doing for your organization. And that becomes compelling to, to your leadership and hopefully they’re already in a position of appreciating the work that you do and the work that volunteers are doing. 

Tobi: Yeah. Absolutely. I also think just always being on the lookout for gaps. Capacity building is about strengthening and making, creating a more resilient organization. And, and sometimes from our, sometimes it’s the volunteers who make us aware of gaps, right? Because they’re, they’re doing the work and, and often the frontline work that we’re not involved in. 

They know more intimately than paid staff might. Because paid staff aren’t doing those roles. And so sometimes their eyes, their expert eyes can tell us things about gaps. And sometimes I think executives, because they’re not, we have a variety of different perspectives in an organization and sometimes it’s interesting to bring, hey, we see this gap and we think there’s a way that maybe volunteers or the community could help fill it. 

Or partners could help fill it. You have a natural growth mindset. So, it makes perfect sense. You’re probably scanning all the time. You don’t even know it that like, oh yeah, this is something. And, and then taking time, we do our vision week, our strategic planning boot camp every year, and that’s just a great time to think about, okay, what are the gaps that we want to address in the coming year? 

So, making it intentional and setting a plan to make it happen rather than trying to do it all the time and just adding more to your plate. I think making it purposeful also. You’ve been a volunteer pro impact lab. I do have the information here. Since 2017, Michele, you are an OG in the community. 

Michele: I know. I didn’t realize it had been that long, but what do they say? Time flies when you’re having fun, right?  

Tobi: That’s right. So, based on what you’ve learned and how you’ve evolved as a leader and a professional, what are your top three leadership tips for volunteer managers and how can leaders of volunteers grow their influence and impact? 

What I’ve noticed in our community is that of course, we’re teaching all the basic and advanced strategies for engaging volunteers, but what I see often is people’s confidence level grow. And then I see folks like you who are, hey, guess what? I got a new FTE in my department. 

Oh, guess what? I got invited to a meeting I never got invited to before. Or guess what? Now I have a new job title or I’ve gotten a raise. And that all comes down to leadership, really. Certainly impact. That is part of that, but it really comes down to leadership. So, I’m just wondering through 2017 to now, what are your top kind of key takeaways? 

And I feel like our, you know, volunteer and pro members learn from one another as well. So, what, what are your top three, let’s, let’s do top, top three leadership takeaways. We talk, you’ve talked about it a lot through this but maybe share for building influence and empowerment. In your organization and you’ve, you’ve already talked about making sure you have impact metrics, and you can speak the language of, of executives, but what else? 

Michele: So, being an authentic leader and always leading with empathy builds trust among whoever you’re talking to. And of course, you need to be professional in certain settings and you can be more casual with certain audiences, but. When I have a conversation with you one on one, or if I’m talking to you and my boss is in the room, you should hear and see the same things. 

So, make sure you’re showing up authentically in whatever situation you, you happen to be in. The second thing would be looking for ways to do more and go the extra mile. And please, for those of you listening, Hold the eye roll for just a second because I know when you’re wearing the many hats, you’re going more you want me to do more? 

What are you talking about? But Tobi you were just referencing scanning the environment and doing that kind of constant needs analysis needs assessment The other piece of that is then okay now I’m going to solve the problem or now I’m going to attempt to address that need and maybe it’s Working with a colleague to say hey, I noticed that your team is having this challenge? 

Can I help you? I think I have a volunteer who might be able to, to address this need. Or would you be, would you even be open to it? Looking for the ways to fill the gaps that do exist in, in your specialized position of, of working with volunteers that can be powerful. The last thing I’ll say is, is really advice for, for everyone, but find your tribe. 

For volunteer engagement professionals, you are automatically a part of one of the coolest groups out there, in my opinion, and you automatically have an extensive global network of people who do not exactly the same work you do, but similar enough to have a common starting point and the field is so generous and so giving with their time and volunteer pro has been impactful for me as a professional, even though. 

still today. My role with the Georgia Association for Volunteer Administration is another great way to connect with professionals who work in your more localized or regional areas. So, I would really encourage finding people, especially if you are a department of one or two, find people who are doing similar work in other places. 

And, just have that person that you can pick up the phone and ask questions to. It’s invaluable, both from an operational standpoint, but then also from an emotional standpoint, just having that support of knowing there’s somebody else who’s walking in your shoes somewhere else.  

Tobi: Yeah. Absolutely. 

Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better. Find your tribe, people. And we’d love to have you in our tribe. We have a fantastic group of people. All kinds of conversation are going on lately in the community. Lately it’s been getting kind of busy. I love it. Yeah. And we started doing. You know, we’ve done a lot of seminars and webinars and teaching and, and I’m hoping to get more guest speakers on in the coming year. 

But we started last year, we started doing huddles that are really like loosely organized. It’s sort of like, okay, let’s get together. Whoever’s got something they want to talk about, want a project they want feedback on. And I just kind of go around the room. What are you working on? What do you, and, and then folks just like, give advice, and then afterwards there’s probably a resource or two that I share in the, in the replay recording post or whatever, but it’s a great, I’m excited. 

It’s working out well. We used to do hot seats and nobody would sign up. It’s a little intimidating. Michele, I think you got in a hot seat once. I want to say, I know Saskia, one of our members, she’s like She’s fearless. She’ll do any hot seat. Yeah. Yeah. But no, we don’t, we stopped doing hot seats because people were like, oh, it’s too intimidating. 

And so we don’t do that, but we do these huddles and we’re going to have a huddle today. It’s been fun. And Michele, you’ve been such a great member and it’s the best part of the job. My job is working with our members. So, I really appreciate you joining with me today and talking about building nonprofit capacity and everything, all the way that Hire Heroes has embraced that concept and how you’ve developed and grown as a leader and just the smart ways your organization is going about its business of growth. 

One last question before we wrap up, what are you most excited about in the year ahead?  

Michele: I am most excited about continuing to work alongside some neat, smart people both at Hire Heroes USA and then on the GAVA board. It’s just a fantastic community in both places that it looks different, it feels different, but I just feel really privileged to be able to work alongside some amazing people and to continue learning from them and continuing to strengthen our missions. 

Tobi: Awesome. Awesome. So how can people learn more about your work? Of course, I have some links for GAVA, for Hire Heroes, for your LinkedIn, but if they want to get in touch, what’s the best way if they want to talk about or learn more about what you do?  

Michele: Yeah. If you want to have a one-on-one conversation, then please feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn for the volunteer pro community members out there. 

I’m in the community, so feel free to, to message me. Always happy to, to jump on and have a conversation. And, and yeah, the, the links, if you want to learn more about Hire Heroes USA. We’ve got a lot of great information on our website if you’re interested in joining our mission or just learning more about it. 

And same thing for the Georgia Association for Volunteer Administration. Our website has a lot of really great information about how to become a member or even if you’re not a member. We do events that nonmembers can attend every month. So always happy to have those conversations and continue building community. 

Tobi: Awesome. Michele, thank you so much. I think I heard a rooster in the background at some point. Do you guys have a rooster?   

Michele: Yeah, I’m really sorry. This is. We have three roosters, so if anyone’s in the market, let me know. 

Tobi: Reach out to Michele. No, because what you guys don’t know, this is just a side, Michele is on a farm. Yes. I heard the rooster a while ago, I don’t know, probably everybody didn’t hear that, but I’m thinking about getting chickens when I move to Washington, so I’ll be tapping you and asking you. I won’t have three roosters, though. I don’t even know if I’ll have one.  

Michele: Oh, I would not recommend the rooster experience. It’s just what has happened after having chickens and one rooster, and yeah. I swear, I invested in noise canceling headphones, but nothing has been able to, to reduce the noise of a rooster. It’s a unique problem, but if anyone has ideas, please, please hit me up.  

Tobi: And with that, everybody, thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, I hope you’ll share it with others. And I, we would love a five star rating if you, if you’d like to give it, we would totally appreciate it. And I hope you’ll join us next week, same time, same place, on The Volunteer Nation. And maybe more roosters, who knows?