Margaret McCarthy at the 2014 Alliance Leadership Retreat. Photo: Maggie Smith

I’m a real nerd about volunteerism.

I managed volunteer programs at two other local nonprofits before joining the staff at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, where I help the Coalition's dedicated and energetic volunteers get more deeply involved in the organization. It was my great pleasure to lead a breakout session on volunteer management at the Alliance for Biking & Walking's 2014 Leadership Retreat.

This is such a rich topic! We absolutely didn’t get to answer every question or explore every avenue, but we were able to dig deep into a few key areas: data & record keeping, training, and accountability. 

Here are a few key takeaways from our conversations and from my experience. I hope that these can help inform your work with volunteers for biking and walking advocacy.

Data & Record Keeping

What role does record-keeping play in volunteer management? What do you think is important to monitor in order to ensure a strong volunteer program?

Record-keeping doesn't only help with managing your volunteers by keeping track of your volunteers’ availability and skillset, or helping monitor community service hours. Your data set can have big fundraising implications as well.

Among other things, knowing your total annual volunteer hours can assist in grant writing and annual reporting. For example, at the SF Bicycle Coalition, we have nearly 1,000 active volunteers annually, who by the end of 2014 had collectively donated over 11,000 hours of their time. The Independent Sector rates volunteer time nationally at $22.50/hour (check your state, it’s $26.34 in California), which means my organization benefitted from $289,740 of volunteer time in 2014 alone.

That’s great for all you fundraisers out there, but what about some fun math for volunteer managers?

Believe me: I am all about the importance of making volunteers feel the love. But I am also all about the cold, hard data. Turns out, these two things are not unrelated.

For a volunteer experience that feels like this:

... you need a volunteer manager experience that looks like this:

Good data tracking and management (particularly a volunteer management database, such as VolunteerSpot or Volunteers for Salesforce) will allow you to see not only any given individual’s volunteer record, but will let you slice and dice your data any way you please. This is information you can use to gauge the health of your program (nobody wants 100% turnover!) as well as to reward your top performers.

Look at that: The cold, hard data got all warm and fuzzy!

Photo: SF Bicycle Coalition

Training

What kind of support do volunteers need in order to represent your organization? What do you need to do to feel comfortable and trust their ability to represent you?

Most likely, not every volunteer opportunity necessitates a two-hour training. At the SF Bicycle Coalition, our opportunities range from drop-in to invitation-only.

Look, I made a chart about it.

If you haven’t done so already, mapping out what the ladder of volunteer engagement looks like at your organization is going to give you a great sense of where your volunteers are, as well as help you create pathways for people to progress.

Too often, people try to jump straight to the top and then everyone, the volunteer and the staff, gets confused and irritated when things don’t work out. With a clear ladder of engagement, volunteers will know that they’re building their skill set and becoming more valuable to the organization, and you’ll feel confident that your time is well-invested and will be rewarded with excellent volunteer support. (Does this tie back into record-keeping? You bet your boots!)

Accountability

How can you create and support a culture of reliability in your volunteer community? How can you scale this work?

A question I’m asked sometimes is, Can I fire a volunteer? And my answer is always, Yes, absolutely. But naturally, you want to make sure you’ve done everything possible to keep things from getting that bad.

When it comes to reliability, our breakout session agreed that you’ve got to provide structure in order for this to flourish. This starts with clear job descriptions and goes on to encompass hosting orientations, and as applicable, providing manuals and offering more advanced, role-specific trainings. It also entails follow-through on your part as the volunteer manager, which means sending a follow-up email or call when someone doesn’t show up or is significantly late for their shift.

It’s on you to be clear what the policies and procedures are, and to enforce them when necessary.

This doesn’t mean that a late volunteer is a fired volunteer. Sometimes somebody’s cat is unexpectedly having kittens and it really throws off their evening. I get it! But making sure to close that communication loop? That’s crucial. And that’s on you, as the volunteer organizer.

Photo: SF Bicycle Coalition

Scaling

Scaling your work was an area of interest to just about everyone who came to my session at the Leadership Retreat. It's no surprise that scaling has close ties with accountability and record-keeping and training.

An example here at the SF Bicycle Coalition is that for major events, such as our annual Bike to Work Day (which involves nearly 200 volunteers at 27 different stations across San Francisco), we have volunteer Captains who are responsible for the on-site management of both their station and the other volunteers. There’s no way I could handle phone calls from over one hundred volunteers at 7AM. That’s what Captains are for!

Hey, how about another chart?

There’s no one-size-fits-all model for managing your volunteer program, of course.

In our breakout group, we had representatives from single-staff, volunteer-only organizations, as well as groups with hundreds of volunteers. Ultimately, your organization’s volunteer management needs to match your organization's needs and goals.

To get yourself started, ask yourself three questions: What’s a change you could implement at your organization this month? This quarter? This year?

Thanks, Margaret! Learn more about the SF Bicycle Coalition here!