What Nine Days on a Boat Taught Me About Volunteer Team Development and Being a Leader Volunteer team development can be tricky – we want our volunteers and employees to work in harmony. But how do we pull it off? Sometimes, it’s by reflecting on our own experiences. I was both privileged and pushed [...]
Do Volunteers Have a Role in Capacity Building for a Nonprofit Organization? Capacity building for a nonprofit organization is defined as engaging in activities and developing processes that strengthen an organization’s ability to fulfill its mission. Activities might include strategic planning, updating communications strategies, technology upgrades, operational improvements, board development, and improving community and volunteer [...]
The Power of Intergenerational Volunteer Programs to Build Strong Communities In addition to satisfying the psychological needs of participants and achieving the goals of nonprofit organizations, there are benefits to the community at large from intergenerational volunteer programs. Intergenerational programs bring children and older adults together, with opportunities to interact and create relationships for [...]
The Value of Volunteerism: 5 Real Life Measures That Truly Count According to research, there has been intense debate over whether and how to calculate the economic value of volunteerism, ever since the notion of assigning it economic value began in the 1960s. Some have argued against quantification, citing the “statistical [...]
Volunteer Impact Reporting: Why and How to Measure the Value of Volunteers Are you looking for a way to accurately build a volunteer impact report that shows what your contributors have helped your programs and clients accomplish? We hear it all the time: measuring volunteer impact (and then showing that impact) can be a tricky skill to master! In order [...]
The Importance of Volunteer Pulse Surveys While volunteer pulse surveys are relatively new, in the corporate world these kinds of surveys are a common tool when it comes to employee engagement. And, while they have not really been used very much in the volunteer space they can be particularly valuable, especially during the current [...]
How to Convert Nonprofit Data to Wisdom: Is it All About the Numbers? Nonprofit data can be a powerful tool for generating a greater impact on communities. But when it comes to converting trends into something that informs our actual, on-the-ground management decisions things can get confusing in a hot minute. For example, back in [...]
3 Steps to Building a Sustainable Nonprofit Partnership Building a sustainable nonprofit partnership isn't easy. I know first hand, as I have built several over my career. Sometimes we spend hours and hours in negotiations, only to have the potential collaborator back out at the last minute. Or, we make it through the set-up phase [...]
Your Simple Guide to Improving Nonprofit Impact In addition to the obvious, there are many reasons to track and improve nonprofit impact and efficiency in meeting missions. These secondary issues might be because a major funder requires accountability to a set of outcome measures, or the Board of Directors is asking why goals aren’t being [...]
We assume that volunteer programs enhance the capacity of nonprofit organizations by supplementing and extending the work of paid staff. But by how much? Maybe it’s time for us to get down to the business of calculating our volunteer program ROI.
