The Human Side of Tech Transitions: A Change-Management Playbook for Modern Volunteer Programs

Volunteer programs are modernizing at the same time volunteerism itself is changing. Across sectors, leaders are coordinating more complex schedules, more diverse volunteer motivations and higher expectations for impact reporting, often with fewer administrative resources. It makes sense that technology has become a larger part of how we recruit, support and retain volunteers. The promise is real: better tools can reduce manual work, improve communications and make participation easier to sustain.

But in Volunteer Engagement, the success of a new technology-enabled process is not determined by a list of features. It is determined by adoption. In this Ahead of the Curve, author Sam Fankuchen explains why adoption of tech transitions is both a human process and a technical one. And through his change-management playbook, he shows why the most important shift Volunteer Engagement leaders can make is to treat technology rollouts as change-management initiatives, not software implementations.