Image of Volunteering

We read a lot about volunteer engagement and leadership from the perspective of agencies who have paid Volunteer Managers – those who oversee, manage and coordinate the efforts of the volunteer team who are committed to support the work of their agency. In those conversations, it’s often easy to forget that the vast amount of volunteer leadership occurs in ‘all volunteer’-led organisations, where there is no paid staff member to take control and where the challenges can sometime be different from having a single person designated to that leadership role.

From the outside, the large agency looks like a model nonprofit when it comes to involving volunteers. It hosts a significant volunteer and paid staff team. There are volunteer applications, legal waivers and comprehensive training. The team is guided by operational plans based on lessons learned from the corporate world and nonprofit consultants. The leadership heeds and hones best practices for volunteer management; it collects and makes decisions using many, many data points. It has come a long way from its humble all-volunteer roots.