What Are Your Volunteers Saying?
On a recent visit back to the United States, I heard very different opinions about volunteerism from two good friends. The first said that she will never volunteer again...she tells why. The second friend said she couldn't get enough of volunteering...and she tells why.
These two testimonies regarding volunteerism make me wonder if the organizations these two assisted are aware of their feelings. And so I ask volunteer managers reading this to consider: What would people who have volunteered with your organization say about their experience?
Do you know? Do you care?
If anything, these two episodes have made me realize yet again the value of surveying volunteers about their experience, and how easily this can be done using e-mail.
Comments
Betty Stallings, Consultant and Trainer, Pleasanton WA USA
January 16th, 2003, 12:29pm
Online question after volunteer goes home......Did you experience anything today in your volunteer assignment for which we did not adequately prepare you?
This is a powerful question used by a Make-A-Wish Foundation program to improve their orientation and training. It also gives volunteers an opportunity to receive a timely response to issues and concerns they might have after completing their field assignment.
Susan Reehl, WestArk RSVP, Program Director, Fort Smith AR USA
January 20th, 2003, 12:28pm
I’m an RSVP Director and I have several hundred volunteers who are available for special events (one shot volunteer opportunities). I personally volunteer at every new event and then a sampling of repeat events throughout the year. Then I make a point of asking my volunteers what their experience was whiling offering my opinion of how I got treated. I get incredibly candid comments - being in the trenches is a huge advantage. When I make complaints or suggest changes to event chairmen I get their full attention. I’ve also stopped recruiting volunteers for several poorly run events.
Lori Mollberg, U of MN College of Human Ecology, Director of Alumni Relations, St. Paul MN USA
February 18th, 2003, 12:28pm
Favorite quick-survey methods to get information from volunteers include short email surveys and personal phone call "interviews" with board members (To be effective, the latter requires an established level of trust and ability to inspire open, honest, and candid communication.)
Favorite questions I like to ask volunteers relate to "fit" and include the following: If you could accomplish one or two things during your volunteer time with us, what would they be? AND Given your skills, connections and experiences, where do you think you could make the greatest impact or contribution within this organization? These questions help me direct the right jobs to the right people and cultivates longer term engagement of volunteers.
Rob Jackson, Royal National Institute of the Blind, Volunteering Development Manager, London England
March 11th, 2003, 12:27pm
I do quite a lot of work to find out what our volunteers think. Exit surveys feature in this but I have been doing a lot around volunteer satisfaction too. This has involved quarterly satisfaction surveys of a random sample of 100 of our 1000 volunteers. Each survey gives the volunteers the same ten statements, such as "Volunteers are given the opportunity to develop their involvement with RNIB", "Volunteers are thanked appropriately for the contribution they make" & "Volunteers are encouraged to make suggestions about how RNIB could improve its work". We then ask them to say (on a scale of 1-10) how important they think these statements are and how satisfied they are with our delivery of them.
We then analyse the standard deviation of the results to see whether the volunteers are speaking of a mind or with differing opinions. Significantly however we look at the gap between what is important and their satisfaction with our delivery. The bigger the gap the higher the priority for improvement in this area.
The advantage of this approach is that it avoids statistics like "80% of our volunteers are satisfied" which tell you absolutely nothing of substance. The approach is also quick and easy, especially if using email.
We know from the last five surveys that the highest priority volunteers say we have for improvement is the statement "Volunteers get the support they need to enable them to do their work effectively". We are convening a group of volunteers on 9 April to explore what they mean by this statement in more detail and to identify things we can do to improve the support we provide. Further meetings of this group are planned to address the other priorities for improvement.