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Nonprofit Spark Radio Interview Makes Great Advocacy Tool for Volunteer Resource Managers

Submitted by Cara Thenot
on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 16:43

Thanks to Nonprofit Spark, an online radio show for new or emerging non-profits, volunteer resource managers have a new tool for garnering attention to the importance of volunteer involvement in their organizations. The January 23rd show, “The Case for Strategic Volunteerism in Your Non-profit,” makes a compelling case for being as strategic about involving volunteers as nonprofits are about other management issues such as fundraising.

September 4, 2011: International News From the Field

Submitted by Susan J Ellis
on Sun, 09/04/2011 - 00:00

501Videos (www.501videos.com) is a video production company owned by Christopher Davenport, a successful documentary producer. His interest is in presenting his video production services to nonprofits and he’s found a unique way to market his services that also provides useful resources. 501Videos offers a weekly series of free, short (3 to 5 minutes) videos called "Movie Mondays."

Although promoted as "for Fundraising Professionals" and focused on increasing financial donations, the videos cover many different topics, including board management, community outreach, and donor relations. For example, the topic last week was "The New Look of Board Meetings (for creating high performing boards)," dealing with how to prepare for and structure meeting agendas for more effective board interaction.

A new topic appears every Monday and that’s the point. When you sign up, you get notices by e-mail of the new topic and log in for one week of access to the newest video.

But My Executive Won’t Read This!

Submitted by Lindsay Liprando
on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 00:00

You may have seen our new “executive set” – From the Top Down and Leading the Way to Successful Volunteer Involvement, two books designed to help agency leaders lay the groundwork for effective volunteer programs. And I bet many of you are thinking, “these books look great, but I can’t even get my exec to read one book on volunteer management, let alone two!” As Susan Ellis wrote in Stalking the Elusive Executive:

Leading up to “Leading the Way”

Submitted by Lindsay Liprando
on Fri, 07/23/2010 - 00:00

I’m excited to report that Betty Stallings’ new book, Leading the Way to Successful Volunteer Involvement: Practical Tools for Busy Executives will soon be ready! Pre-order now and save 20%.

Leading the Way‘s collection of checklists, worksheets, idea stimulators, and real-life examples provides the how-to tools you need to ensure effective volunteer involvement. Better yet, it is fully integrated with the newest edition of From the Top Down – each section of Leading the Way includes references to the chapters in From the Top Down that explain more fully the concepts on which the tools are based, and each chapter of From the Top Down references the tools in Leading the Way that will help you to implement the ideas.

Here’s an excerpt on the important but often-overlooked topic of funding a volunteer program.

Key Concept:
Challenges in Raising Funds to Support Volunteer Involvement

Pre-publication excerpt from the manuscript of Leading the Way to Successful Volunteer Involvement:

Book Excerpt: Getting Middle Management On Board

Submitted by Lindsay Liprando
on Tue, 03/02/2010 - 00:00

The third and fully revised edition of From the Top Down: The Executive Role in Successful Volunteer Involvement has just been sent to the printer! It’ll be available for sale in March. Until then, here’s another excerpt to whet your interest. It introduces an idea new to the 3rd edition: for your volunteer program to sail smoothly, you need to get middle managers on board.

Middle Managers Are Key

Every decision must be implemented across and down the organizational ladder, relying along the way on the buy-in of middle managers: branch or affiliate directors, department heads, unit supervisors, and others for whom volunteers become a factor in their teams’ effectiveness. These key people convey overt and subtle messages about expectations and can become an obstacle to effective volunteer involvement by not encouraging their team members’ attention to volunteers. In the worst cases, this can amount to sabotage.

Are your middle managers supportive of or resistant to volunteer

Volunteers as Donors (plus Peek at New “From the Top Down”)

Submitted by Lindsay Liprando
on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 00:00

“Volunteers Donate, On Average, 10 Times More Money than Non-Volunteers.” That’s a headline sure to get the attention of anyone in the not-for-profit world. It’s just one of the important findings in a recent study released on December 3 by the Fidelity® Charitable Gift Fund and VolunteerMatch.  The findings support Energize’s long-held stance that volunteer-involving organizations should remember their “time donors” when looking to support volunteer involvement financially. In 1996, Energize President Susan J. Ellis wrote in her best-selling book From the Top Down, “studies have shown that satisfied volunteers frequently are so supportive of the organizations with which they serve that they become donors of money and goods as well.”

When revising her book, Susan greatly expanded her take on the connection between volunteering and donating funds.  Here’s an excerpt from the soon-to-be released 3rd edition of From the Top Down: The Executive Role in Successful Volunteer Involvement.

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