New “Roadmap” for Partnering with Highly Skilled Volunteers

Many of our colleagues in volunteer management are using various online forums to recap their experiences at the just-ended 2012 National Conference on Volunteering and Service. One of our conference “takeaways” was learning about a new online tool for organizations to prepare themselves to involve highly skilled volunteers more effectively.  

For several years, the Corporation for National and Community Service has been encouraging businesses to pledge billions of dollars in pro bono services via the A Billion + Change initiative, garnering $1.7 billion in pledges to date. Yet, knowing the challenges many nonprofit and government agencies face when managing volunteer involvement, we at Energize have been concerned about how all that talent will be put to work effectively. For this reason, we were happy to see the launch last week of the Pro Bono Readiness Roadmap, a free Web site for nonprofits to prepare themselves for engaging volunteers who offer pro bono services or professional work requiring specially trained skills and knowledge (a.k.a. “skills-based volunteering” or “SBV”).

The result of collaboration among the Taproot Foundation, Capital One Investing, Common Impact, and the Points of Light Institute, the Readiness Roadmap walks you through each phase of preparation including assessing your organization’s readiness, identifying needs, evaluating success, and more.  There are various downloadable articles, reports and checklists in each section of the site, plus links to sample programs and further resources.

We are hopeful that agencies will take advantage of this resource before jumping in head first to recruiting pro bono volunteers. An “ounce” of preparation will help to avoid challenges and encourage significant impact by partnering with corporate sources of assistance.

To learn even more about pro bono and highly skilled volunteering, visit that section of the Energize, Inc. Volunteer Management Library.