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The Best Volunteer Management Practices

By Sebastian Troup


While it might seem difficult to organize a giving and volunteer program at your company, with proper management the task is far less cumbersome. Your first priority should be to make it simple for employees to give or to sign up for a volunteer opportunity. Pre-organize an event and provide plenty of different options so that your staff only needs to look at sheet, find a spot that works and fill in their names. Be sure to publicize the event as much as possible. Hang posters in your staff break room or in other spots where workers congregate. Don't forget to discuss the event and pass around a sign-up sheet during staff meetings.

As busy administrators, you also will want to make the program simple to manage. Make sure you have the right tools in place to manage the program logistics. For company volunteer events focusing on a particular non-profit, make sure an administrator from your company is in close communication with someone from the charity so all details are closely coordinated.

In addition, when it comes to corporate volunteerism, be sure that your volunteer efforts are a seamless fit with the other philanthropy programs in your company. When you build upon your current charitable efforts, this creates a synergy that produces the best possible results. If your main corporate goal is promoting a cleaner, better world environment, make sure that your volunteer events and giving program support this goal. On your company website or intranet, list all of the volunteer options for your employees and make it easy for them to find volunteer tasks, make a donation or see any other possible option. Showcase the idea that there are many ways for employees to help. By keeping all of this information in one, easily accessible location, it reduces your management burden.

You also need to ensure that record keeping is a high priority. Keeping accurate records of volunteer hours, monetary donations and other philanthropic efforts is the best way to monitor campaign performance. You can easily track what parts of your program are working and which areas need to be enhanced.

Instead of trying to track this data on a spreadsheet, consider using volunteer management software as this makes the whole process much easier and far more accurate. This type of software also allows you to instantly grab a progress report and share the results of your corporate giving program with company leaders as quickly as possible.

Many employees may want to volunteer but don't quite know where or how to channel their passion. Providing vetted volunteering options for employees to choose from will make involvement easier, rather than asking employees to find and identify volunteer opportunities on their own. Remember the first rule of volunteer management: Make it easy.

It is also important to recognize that some employees already have strong volunteer commitments they are passionate about, and they shouldn't be neglected. Asking employees to suggest events or ideas for volunteering is a great way to keep them engaged and a part of the process.

You might be surprised to learn that the biggest reason why employees don't take part in volunteer and giving programs is because no one asked them to participate. Be sure to ask and using multiple sources to get employees involved from inviting them personally to use company emails, staff meetings and sign-up sheets. It is also equally important that when employees do volunteer that they be recognized for their efforts as this will encourage further participation and make your program a great success.




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