There are more than 77 million volunteers in America and many more people who are interested in getting involved in their local communities. However, managing volunteers and assignments can be daunting. Between the responsibilities like recruiting, scheduling, sending emails, tracking hours, and creating reports, many people may feel under-prepared to take on the challenge.
Effective volunteer management is essential for achieving an organization’s mission.
13 Reasons Volunteer Management Is Important
To learn more about effective volunteer management and how it can streamline your organization, explore these benefits:
1. Saves Time
Managing volunteers can take up a great deal of time between coordinating schedules and handling communication with your team. Volunteer efforts have many moving parts. By prioritizing dependable management practices, organizations can streamline various responsibilities and manage teams more efficiently.
Volunteer teams can approach projects and tasks more productively when they have organized agendas from their managers and clear procedures to follow. Implementing proper management can free up more hours for managers and volunteers alike.
2. Improves Operations
Effective volunteer management can significantly improve your organization’s operations. Without proper leadership, teams may miss the opportunity to evaluate and assess their current efforts.
Management can help you refine your processes and raise the bar for volunteers. Plus, teams are more likely to do better work when they have established leadership they can depend on.
3. Helps Build New Relationships
Proper volunteer management can help organizations build and foster new relationships. This is especially important because many donors start as volunteers. By taking control of your management efforts, you can establish new connections that could pay off big time in the end.
Before creating new relationships, you must show prospective volunteers and other nonprofit organizations how your processes are both efficient and well-established. As a leader, you can achieve this by taking control of administrative operations and investing in volunteer management efforts.
4. Improves Current Relationships
While building new connections is essential for volunteer organizations, it is also crucial to nurture established relationships. Whether you want to connect more deeply with your volunteers or your organization’s employees, having an excellent management approach can help with this pursuit.
When your team feels prepared and everybody understands their role in your organization, this creates a sense of trust necessary for maintaining long-term relationships.
5. Increases Participation and Engagement
When volunteer efforts have organized management, volunteers are more likely to engage in opportunities and feel like they are part of the mission.
Well-managed volunteer initiatives put their teams first and ensure everyone has the tools they need to meet the collective goal. And when volunteers feel seen and heard by leaders, they are often more willing to offer their time again in the future.
6. Boosts Volunteer Retention
With proper management efforts, your organization can improve volunteer retention. It’s no secret that actively engaging with your volunteers is a great way to keep them coming back.
Ask your volunteers the following questions:
- What motivates you to volunteer?
- What are your favorite kinds of projects to get involved in?
- Do you have any special skills?
- Is there anything we could do to make volunteering better?
Use the answers they provide to cater to their wants and needs as volunteers. Doing so can help them feel valued and appreciated, leading to higher retention rates.
7. Improves Volunteer Recruitment
Finding the right volunteers for your organization is crucial for keeping operations running smoothly. From promoting new opportunities to evaluating potential recruits, finding new volunteers is an ongoing process.
Effective management practices allow your team to get a better grip on the many facets of volunteer recruitment. Attracting new people is easier when your organization’s management is well established and organized.
Successful volunteer management is a great way of attracting more people to your mission.
8. Influences Empowerment
The best managers make their volunteers feel empowered to get out in the field. The following tips can help management enhance a sense of excitement in their volunteers’ work:
- Match volunteers with assignments that pair well with their skills.
- Give them comprehensive training that makes them feel equipped and qualified.
- Be available for them to ask questions and share any concerns they may have.
You can also share additional opportunities for volunteers to get even more involved in your organization. Have dedicated individuals host fundraising events on your organization’s behalf or encourage them to become donors. By offering your most devoted volunteers more responsibility, you can make them feel empowered and acknowledged.
9. Boosts Connection
Quality volunteer management influences a sense of connectedness. People are looking to participate in activities that make them feel like they belong and are important. Actively engaging and communicating with volunteers encourages better interpersonal connections. Well-orchestrated volunteering events allow participants to bond with one another and work together to meet a common goal. Volunteer management can make team or corporate volunteering more effective in bringing peers together.
10. Makes Leadership Simple
It is important for volunteers to have strong leaders for guidance and support. With effective management, people in leadership roles can focus more on the individuals they are working with instead of concentrating all their energy on administrative tasks.
Volunteer management requires a lot of juggling. When you have an organized system in place, team leaders can more easily balance the many responsibilities of overseeing and tending to their volunteers.
11. Informs Decision-Making
A volunteer organization without proper management in place is destined to make a few poor operational decisions. But, when leaders are systematic and have organized procedures, they are more likely to make informed judgments.
Effective volunteer management also allows managers to track their teams and get to know everyone better. This ability helps managers identify the volunteers who are best suited for certain assignments.
12. Streamlines Communication
Communication is among the most important facets of good volunteer management. Having open lines of communication allows for collaboration and better problem-solving.
Managers should aim to be transparent with their team. This makes coordinating events and volunteers much easier. It is also important to give and receive feedback to improve operations and reach goals more efficiently as a team.
13. Improves Recognition
Part of volunteer management is ensuring the people who are selflessly donating their time and energy to a special cause feel valued. Having the tools to stay organized while doing everything from scheduling to tracking allows leaders to see those volunteers who go above and beyond with their contributions. Sending thank-you messages and spotlighting their impact is a great way of giving worthy volunteers the recognition they deserve. This practice also keeps them returning time and time again.
Improve Volunteer Management With Volgistics
Volgistics makes volunteer management simple. Volgistics software is highly customizable and can accommodate the needs of any size volunteer organization. Your team can save time and reduce IT costs with upfront pricing and free support. We believe in quick response times and cater to your operation’s needs with an extensive help library and video tutorials.
Interested in learning how Volgistics management software can benefit your organization? Sign up for a free trial today!
