Responses
to July 2004 Hot Topic
In
search of the 'perfect' volunteer program manager
by
Andy Fryar
Submitted
on July 2, 2004 by Mary Beth Harrington, Director,
Volunteer Center of Dallas County, Dallas, Texas,
USA
Just
my two cents worth on Andy's July Hot Topic...
While I think the variance in volunteer management
positions does not allow us to designate the "perfect"
volunteer manager (coordinator, director, administrator
etc....), through my experience as a volunteer manager
and now as someone who supports volunteer managers,
I see some definite traits that tend to embody those
who are ultimately successful in our field.
I agree the ability to lead and motivate individuals
(staff as well as volunteers), good communication
skills and record keeping abilities are critical to
success, I also there are two additional critical
abilities.
1) The ability to be creative and (to use an overused
phrase) "think out of the box" is really a trait that
separates the good volunteer manager from the great
ones. At least from my perspective, while we see the
number of people volunteering increasing, the hours
that they are volunteering is actually decreasing
and so it is incumbent on the volunteer coordinator
to develop methods for incorporating a more episodic
volunteer into their program. This also means that
they have to sell the staff on using these volunteers
as well.
2) Therefore, the other trait that I think is crucial
to one's success is the ability to sell. I often tell
volunteer managers that "selling" volunteer opportunities
is actually the hardest thing you can possibly do.
Because after all, when you are asking someone for
money (while difficult) they do have the ability to
get more money. Yes it is hard and may even be illegal,
but one has
the ability to get more money. In contrast no matter
who we are and what we do, we can never get more time.
We each have 24 hours in a day and we cannot go to
the store to buy more time. So in actuality, we are
asking someone to give us something that they cannot
ever get again.
I think it is crucial for the success of our programs
as well as the success of our industry that we embrace
the need for creativity and the ability to sell as
traits that we need to develop within our industry.
Submitted
on July 2, 2004 by Greg Colby, Volunteer Services
Manager UnitingCare Ageing - Hunter, Central Coast
and New England, Australia
I agree with Mary Beth whole heartedly. I
think the days of the entrepreneurial volunteer manager
have arrived. The ability to motivate and excite volunteers
and organisations who utilise volunteer staff is a
key factor in the success of any volunteer manager.
The ability to manage change and work toward redefining
organisational culture is also an element.
In these days of more charities and less money I think
volunteer managers who can come up with creative ways
of funding their volunteer programs are goin to succeed
as well. A case in point in Australia is the Lyell
McEwin centre in Adelaide - where Andy has business
areas that bring in money for his volunteer program.(www.lyellmcewinvolunteers.org.au)
Creativity + entrepreneurship + delegation + hard
work + a whole heap of fun = success!
Submitted
on July 2, 2004 by Rosanna Tarsiero, Volunteer Manager
at bipolardream.com, Italy
I
think the challenge and the beauty of this profession
is that VPMs come to it from very different backgrounds.
This implies that VPM educational programs *have*
to be different and diverse, so to cover all the spectrum
of needs that different persons have. Therefore eterogeneity
is mandatory.
I
think that there are some "core competencies" that
we all should have, aside from basic human contact
predisposition.
These
competencies are:
1)
writing skills: some journalistic/writing background,
so to be able to write appropriate job assignment
as well as announcements as well as ads in newspapers.
2)
basic legal background: knowing which legal issues
can arise (workplace legislation, copyright, privacy,
confidentiality, sexual harrassment and health and
disability issues) is not all that is there to know.
We also need *some* basic ideas of how legal things
work in our countries.
3)
IT skills: how to use a pc, how to use software (database,
programs for writing, painting, making pdf files,
anti-virus, firewall), internet searches, cyberculture.
4)
psychological skills: relatively to dyadic interactions,
group dynamics, facilitation, moderation.
5)
management knowledge: organizational culture and communication,
training skills, some coaching skills, management
of teams plus all the basic of the 9 best practices
of VM
6)
knowledge relative to the field our agency works into.
I
also think that only each of us knows what s/he lacks
of, but we should be able to undergo to some form
of "continuous education" basing on our honest assessment
of our weaknesses.
Thank
you for this space
It's
not too late ~ let's hear what you think!
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