A key element of leading a volunteer force and effective collaboration is retaining our people. The resources in this section will help you focus more on the way you motivate and appreciate volunteers, as well as how you assign responsibilities and tasks.
What your volunteers need to be happy
Volunteerism has changed in the past decades, and with that volunteer expectations have evolved. A modern-day volunteer is looking for a balance of giving and gaining. These easy practices will help you make new volunteers want to engage and stay with the organization.
Understanding volunteer motivation
This brief document will help you understand the importance of getting to know the reasons why one is volunteering. It will also point out the necessity of keeping an eye on motivational shifts, and how that can help retain our volunteers.
Input from volunteers: the stepstone to innovation – TED Talk
This video will show you the importance of listening to new ideas and standing up for your opinions to allow for innovation to happen.
The power of appreciation – TED talk
We often assume that appreciation and recognition are the same things. This can lead to the misbelief that recognizing our volunteers is a top priority and have us end up in situations where our middle and low performers feel discouraged. This resource will shed light on how fundamentally different appreciation is from recognition. It will help you get ideas on how to tailor your appreciation efforts to a team varied in skills and performance without anyone feeling left out.
Volunteer appreciation ideas
This list will give you ideas on the different ways an organization can express their thanks to volunteers. The article discusses practices from the basics of showing gratitude, to in-person and social media initiatives.
How to delegate
Managing a chapter is an overwhelming task if we attempt to handle everything ourselves. Learning to divide up tasks, trusting people to complete them, and coaching them to success brings us to the art of delegation. This article gives you a basic explanation of what good delegation looks like and how profoundly it differs from micromanagement.