Volunteer Retention: Recognize Volunteer Contributions
Posted by mark on Jan 19, 2012 in Volunteering | No Comments »
Recognize Volunteers’ Contributions
When considering non profit volunteer management, we need to recognize volunteers both through an organizational culture that values them and through specific appreciation practices and events. But how can you truly recognize the contributions of your volunteers unless you have the ability to track, quantify, and communicate surrounding volunteer contributions. It is imperative that we have a good hold on our volunteer time tracking, understand what type of work is being done, when, by whom, and for how many hours. We need this information quickly, accurately, and frequently.
Measuring the Value of Volunteers
Most nonprofits cannot or do not measure the dollar value that volunteers provide to their organization. The ability to analyze the dollar equivalent of volunteer hours is just as important as understanding how, why, and when individuals donate money to the organization. Your volunteer management program or membership software must be able to easily provide this analysis without any extra burden on the people already responsible for coordinating volunteers. The volunteer tracking software should do all of the work behind the scenes providing maximum insight with little effort.
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More than one-third of those who volunteer one year do not donate their time the next year at any nonprofit (CNCS Analysis of Volunteer Supplement to the Current Population Survey, 2007). That adds up to an estimated $38 billion in lost labor. The 2004 Volunteer Management Capacity Study conducted by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Urban Institute, and the UPS Foundation provides some clues. Despite the willingness of charities and congregations to take on volunteers, challenges prevent them from meeting their full potential. A number of actions will improve the ability of charities to work effectively with and take on new volunteers.
