Introduction
Volunteers are a valuable resource for non-profits and a component that can lead organizations towards fulfilling their goals of a greater good. Volunteering is widely recognized as a key strategy of community engagement and participation. Providing much-needed support and services at a community level, volunteering also delivers on civic and philanthropic values within society at large. Every successful volunteer program starts with a well-planned volunteer management process. A volunteer management process ensures your organization, event, or non-profit is operating efficiently, saving time and resources while ensuring volunteer retention. Volunteer management encompasses all of the steps a non-profit takes to attract, monitor, engage, and retain volunteers. Through effective volunteer management, your organization can build a more strategic, positive volunteer experience and cultivate long-term, mutually beneficial supporter relationships. Creating a strategic plan offers you a long-term plan for your volunteer management program providing a clear vision to reference at all stages of the process. We tried to create a learning module which along with other learning and educational resources, will guide you through an effective volunteer management program.
The following activities are directed towards these sector organizations (TSOs), who are already working or wish to start working with volunteers. In the first case, they can be seen as a guide to (re)evaluate some of our methods and approaches, while in the latter it can be viewed as a short guide to understanding and start implementing volunteering programs.