Resources

Professional Organizations for Volunteer Managers

AL!VE – Association for Leaders in Volunteer Engagement

This is a national organization offering, among other things, webinars on a range of volunteer management topics.

National Association of Volunteer Programs in Local Governments

NAVPLG is the leading national association of directors, managers, and administrators of volunteer programs in city, county and other local governments. Their purpose is to strengthen volunteer programs through leadership, education, advocacy, networking and information exchange.

American Association of Museum Volunteers

The American Association for Museum Volunteers (AAMV) is a national association dedicated to the paid and unpaid staff members who work together in all categories of museums, large and small. AAMV provides information and services to individuals, groups, and museums that seek to start or improve their museum volunteer program. Though it is for museums, there are enough parallels between museums and other non-profit, public facing organizations that their resources are quite helpful to all kinds of volunteer programs.

Wisconsin Volunteer Coordinators Association

The Wisconsin Volunteer Coordinators Association is a statewide professional organization advocating for coordinators of volunteer services through support, resources, and educational development. WVCA was founded in 1969, and is designed to serve as a positive force in the promotion of volunteerism, leadership, and volunteer management. Membership is free! Minnesota

Association for Volunteer Administration

While MAVA strives to be the premier statewide organization for leaders of volunteers in Minnesota, they have a lot to offer to folks in Wisconsin and elsewhere. They host workshops & conferences, conduct research, publish reports, advocate for volunteerism and volunteer administration. The website offers a trove of resources, some free and some for a fee.

Articles & Guides

Templates

Best Practices

  • Volunteer Management Best Practices: Ditching the top-down approach and giving volunteers more autonomy.
  • Volunteer Management Best Practices: Tips for tracking engagement, creating a plan, clarifying assignments, providing supervision, creating a safe environment, providing training, rewarding volunteers, understanding the volunteer lifecycle, setting a budget, and using a multichannel approach.
  • Volunteer Management Best Practices: Streamlining registration forms, writing clear role descriptions, recruiting supporters, using marketing channels, and gathering feedback.

Books

Websites

  • Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration
    • Professional certification signals a commitment to excellence. It confirms that individuals have the knowledge needed to competently attract, onboard, and support volunteers. Certification promotes personal confidence, and helps employers hire, verify, and reward relevant expertise.
  • Energize, Inc.
    • This great website is a clearinghouse of information, including a library, e-bookstore, links to other websites, listing of professional organizations, articles, and more related to volunteer management.
  • Volunteer Canada
    • See what our neighbors to the north do. Volunteer Canada works to increase and support volunteerism and civic participation. Their programs, research, training, tools, resources and national initiatives provide leadership on issues and trends in Canada’s volunteer landscape. Good information on their website on an array of volunteerism topics.
  • Nonprofit Risk Management Center
    • Risk Management is often an uncomfortable topic for non-profits, especially those that are all volunteer, yet it is important. The NRMC offers webinars and consulting services for a fee, to non-profit organization.
  • Points of Light Foundation
    • A vast organization offering many things, including volunteer recruiting, training for volunteer managers, research reports on volunteerism and civic engagement. April 2020 Wisconsin Lakes Conference Presentation. Compiled by Judy Kingsbury, UW-Madison Arboretum.
  • UW Extension
    • If you want to learn about logic models, and use them for planning volunteer training, here is one place to start.
  • USA Volunteer Water Monitoring Network
    • Numerous resources are available through this website, and the guide to growing programs page in particular is rich with material for coordinators of volunteer monitoring programs.

Other