Customer Reviews

The Volunteer Management Handbook

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I loved this book. It is very well written and extremely well outlined. And the list of contributors to this book is impressive. They bring much credibility to the ideas and concepts presented. What this book does is provide helpful, practical and proven solutions to anyone who needs to be able to effectively manage volunteer efforts at nonprofits. Are you an executive director at an NPO, a member of a BOD of an NPO, or a consultant providing capital campaign direction to an NPO? Then this book is for you.

Volunteers have always been and always will be an important resource for nonprofits of all types and sizes. As a result, this is a very important book. It has the following 18 chapters:

1. Metaphors and visions for the voluntary sector
2. Motivating people to volunteer their services
3. Preparing the organization for volunteers
4. Recruitment, orientation, and retention
5. Training and development of volunteers
6. Training volunteers in quality management techniques and tools
7. Policies for volunteer programs
8. Administration of volunteer programs
9. Episodic volunteering
10. Volunteer and staff relations
11. Reward and recognition systems for volunteers
12. The role of volunteers in fundraising
13. Managing corporate and employee volunteer programs
14. General liabilities and immunities
15. Board member liability and responsibility
16. Risk management strategies
17. Volunteers and employment law
18. National service: 20 questions and some answers

And these chapters are grouped into three parts:

I. Volunteer Development (chapts 1-6)
II. Volunteer Management (chapts 7-13)
III. Volunteers and the law (chapts 14-18)

Volunteers work for nonprofits in many ways. Some are members of boards of directors. Some help run programs offered by nonprofits. Others help run fundraising activities such as special events and capital campaigns. And yet others make major gifts to NPOs and do "asks" in major gift campaigns and capital campaigns. This book is about how to keep these people helping your organization.

Volunteers sitting on a BOD expect something different from an NPO than volunteers helping to put on a special event or volunteers leading a capital campaign. But all volunteers consistently expect their NPO to provide a worthy cause and be credible. This book does an outstanding job of explaining how an NPO and its leadership can attract, manage, and keep wonderful volunteers. If lead and managed appropriately (professionally), volunteers will continue to volunteer their time, services, and money. Read this book and find out how this is done. 5 stars!

This is a very comprehensive manual for the management of volunteer based groups. I used this book extensively for two years as president of a 100% volunteer based non-profit org. Frankly, it was indispensable as both a guide and reference in countless situations, from rewriting the bylaws and policies, to managing/inspiring/leading a board of 12 directors and over 60 volunteers/500+ members. This group went from a dwindling, unorganized, under-funded lot to a vibrant, well organized, and well funded group during my time of service. I owed a lot of that success to this book.