Volunteering 101

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Volunteering 101
Paige DeLeon Volunteer Resources Director René
Carlin Volunteer Resources Manager
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Todays Learning Objectives

• What is my role?
• Who are these volunteers?
• Value
• Ethics Challenges
• Solutions for Success
• Blueprint

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What is my role?

• Regardless of how you came to be in charge of
  volunteers, the challenge is to cultivate the
  attitudes necessary for success.

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What is my role?

• Regardless of how you came to be in charge of
  volunteers, the challenge is to cultivate the
  attitudes necessary for success.

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• Belief in the value and power of volunteerism.
• Recognition of people's potential capabilities,
  vs. their formal credentials.
• Desire to make the program work to its fullest
  potential.
• Openness to tapping a variety of volunteers
• Willingness to stand up for the rights of
  volunteers.
• Enjoyment of working with volunteers.

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What is my role?

• We, as volunteer managers, are most interested in
  being effective vs. efficient most of the time.
• Assess, assess, assess.

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• Delegating

• Not dumping or getting rid of tasks that you do
  not like/or are boring
• You do not escape responsibility
• Shared process
• You serve as the guide

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• So, who are these volunteers?

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Your Volunteer Base

• Adult Service Groups
• Individuals
• Special Needs
• Administrative
• Students
• Youth and Family

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What Motivates our Volunteers?

• The intellectual challenge
• Opportunities to interact
• Positive change and action
• Doing something

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• Volunteers expand the sphere of influence
• Help create the morale of a worksite

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• What turns off a volunteer?
• Serious
• Time-consuming
• A sacrifice
• The Experience

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If we begin to pay attention to streamlining the
work of volunteers, we may discover more
volunteers willing to say
yes.
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• Volunteerism is about engineering the experience
  to make sure that nothing gets in the way of that
  connection being made.

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The Experience

• Welcome
• Sign-In Instructions
• Housekeeping bathrooms break room
• Clear training
• Allow questions
• Observe, encourage and correct
• Thank them

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The Experience

• Guidelines are rules
• Survey/feedback box
• Follow-up
• Recognition

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What is the value? Worth? To whom? In what
terms?
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What is the value of a city park?
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What is the value to your community?
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Volunteers help EXTEND our services and what we
do.
Volunteers dont save us money.
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• Confidentiality

• Trust
• Ethically right
• Social responsibility

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• Ethics definition?

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• Ethics A set of principles of right conduct.

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• We have a responsibility as partners of a social
  services organization to have high ethical
  standards.

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• Ethics Musts

• Create a social climate through which human needs
  can be met and human values enhanced
• Pursue excellence even when resources are
  limited seek to overcome obstacles of excellence
• Open and honest interaction avoiding
  discrimination or prejudice
• Improve knowledge, skills and ability to make
  solid judgments
• Decision-making advancing the long-term greater
  good

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• Ethics Donts

• Give money or cigarettes to volunteers
• Badmouth other staff or volunteers
• Discriminate
• Pre-judge
• Drive a volunteer home or offsite
• Share confidential information
• Use inappropriate language or behavior
• Start a wildfire

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• Ethics come into play when dealing with difficult
  volunteers.

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• Prevention Keys to Dealing with Difficult
  Volunteers

• Many never clearly understand what it is they are
  to do, how they are to do it, or why they are
  there
• K.I.S.S. principle Keep it sweet and simple
• The doing is the responsibility of the volunteer

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Principles for Dealing With Difficult Volunteers

• Try to handle problems promptly
• Dont try to confront difficult situations when
  youre so upset that youre not rational
• Communication should be carried out in a
  one-to-one setting
• Describe what you have observed
• Indicate a shared commitment to finding a
  solution to problems
• Arrange for follow-up

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When All Else Fails

• You confirmed your expectations
• You clarified the volunteers role and assured
  yourself that they do understand it
• You gave direction about how behavior can be
  changed to make it acceptable
• Youve tried to develop mutually acceptable plans
• You tried to direct the volunteer to other
  projects or agencies
• Nothing works

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People are not unwilling to volunteer, but
rather, organizations often are unwilling to
welcome the skills and the input of connected
community members. 
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People are not unwilling to volunteer, but
rather, organizations often are unwilling to
welcome the skills and the input of connected
community members. 
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"To be creative you have to contribute something
different from what you've done before. Your
results need not be original to the world few
results truly meet that criterion. In fact, most
results are built on the work of others.
Lynne C. Levesque Breakthrough Creativity
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Questions?
Handouts I will follow up with an online
evaluation. Please provide feedback to help
better this training. Thanks for coming and for
all the work you do with our volunteers.
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Paige DeLeon pdeleon_at_austinfoodbank.org