204 – Transforming Your Volunteer Strategy: A Case Study with ScholarMatch

March 5, 2026

Episode #204: Transforming Your Volunteer Strategy: A Case Study with ScholarMatch 

Strengthening a volunteer strategy is not always about fixing a struggling program. Sometimes it is about preparing a successful program for growth. 

In this episode, Tobi Johnson is joined by Lisa Lopez and Paola Gonzalez from ScholarMatch to discuss how their organization examined its volunteer engagement model. Through an eight-month collaboration, the team evaluated their systems, explored new ways to support volunteers, and began building a framework to expand their impact. 

During the conversation, Lisa and Paola share the story behind ScholarMatch’s mission to support first-generation college students and explain how volunteer coaches guide students through the college application process. From building college lists to reviewing financial aid offers and essays, volunteers help students navigate a system many families experience for the first time. 

The episode also explores strategy work behind the scenes, including program audits, communications reviews, volunteer journey mapping, and targeted recruitment strategies. These efforts helped the team step back from daily operations, identify opportunities for improvement, and rethink how volunteers are recruited, supported, and developed as leaders. 

If your organization is thinking about expanding volunteer capacity or improving its systems, this episode offers a real-world look at what it takes to strengthen a volunteer strategy while continuing to serve your mission. 

Volunteer Strategy – Episode Highlights

• [00:50] – Meet ScholarMatch Guests 
• [09:15] – Why Volunteerism Matters 
• [17:24] – First Gen Barriers 
• [22:26] – Volunteer Coaches Impact 
• [35:05] – Scaling Needs New Systems 
• [36:12] – Outside Perspective Benefits 
• [45:37] – Volunteer Personas Breakthrough 
• [48:58] – Big Strategy Shifts 
• [57:17] – What’s Next For ScholarMatch 
• [01:04:24] – Final Reflections And Wrap 

Helpful Links

• Volunteer Management Progress Report  
• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #019: Improve the Volunteer Experience with a Journey Map  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #189: How to Use a Communications Audit to Recruit More Volunteers  
• ScholarMatch Website 
• ScholarMatch Volunteer Page  
• Email  
• ScholarMatch on Instagram  
• ScholarMatch on Facebook  
• ScholarMatch on LinkedIn  

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #204 Transcript: Transforming Your Volunteer Strategy: A Case Study with ScholarMatch

Tobi: Hey, I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and I don’t know if you’ve ever wondered, but today if you are wondering today, you’re going to get answers. So, what does it really take to renovate an entire volunteer strategy? What happens when you dedicate time and energy and what ends up being the result? And today I’m going to, or I have brought on a couple of guests.

Uh, with me today from ScholarMatch, and I’ve been working with ScholarMatch for, I don’t know, about eight months now, I think. And we’ve been working on and helping them facilitate a change to their volunteer strategy. And they’ve been, they’ve already had a really fantastic, and we’ll talk about their organization and what they do.

They already have a fantastic program, but they wanted to take it to the next level. And they wanted to position themselves to expand and expand services to young people and to, they need to do that. They needed more volunteers. And so, they’re building a framework and a platform with which to do that.

And I’ve gotten to know them really well. In fact, when I visited them at their office in, uh, San Francisco, in the Mission District, I actually used to live like four blocks away. I lived in San Francisco for, I don’t know. Five years, six years, and I lived four blocks away. So, it’s a small world. But today I want to introduce a couple of people who are so smart, so talented, and so dedicated to their mission to help you understand what they’ve been doing with their volunteer program.

Lisa Lopez is the Director of College access for ScholarMatch. She has 18 plus years of education and nonprofit leadership teaching and project management experience, including a record of program design and strategy, managing and coaching teams, and building relationships with key stakeholders. She joins ScholarMatch back in 2018.

That’s been a while, Lisa?

Yes, it has. And her, In her current role as Director of College Access, she oversees the Destination College Program team. Before joining ScholarMatch, Lisa was formally. The director of college counseling at KIPP San Francisco College Prep and of college persistence manager for kipp.

Lisa is originally from South central LA and received her bachelor’s degree in education from uc, Berkeley. Outside of work. Lisa is a performer and dancer and enjoys spending time with her two cats, hiking and all things related to art, music, and film. So welcome, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi. Thank you for having me. It’s really great to see you and talk to you today.

Tobi: I know it’s been a while. I haven’t talked to you for a while.

Lisa: I know it has.

Tobi: Uh, Paola, I just talked to this morning on a coaching call. So, Paola and I have seen each other only in the past few hours, but she’s volunteer manager at the Destin for College program at ScholarMatch. She’s a first generation college graduate and cultural worker who is passionate about education and youth development.

She graduated from Skidmore College in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in studio art and intergroup relations. While at Skidmore Powell co-facilitated a semester long intergroup dialogue focused on race and social identity and LED initiatives focused on migrant rights, education, equity, campus climate, and racial justice.

And if you’ve listened to the podcast, you know those topics are close to my heart. Growing up in a low-income mixed status home, Paola understands firsthand the challenges of navigating the higher education system and is passionate about supporting students on their journey to and through college As an educator, Paola has held the role of founding visual arts teacher and teaching artists where she developed curriculum focused on.

Self-expression using art as a tool to promote social justice and art as a source of healing. Outside of Scholar Match, you can find Paola getting her hands dirty, inking a new Lino block watching foreign films and documentaries or baking Girl. I don’t know if you know this, but I have an art degree.

Paola: Yeah, I remember you talking about that when we met in San Francisco.

Tobi: Yeah. And I used to do like a lot of like little blocks and got my little digging into those things. I’m a huge fan and collect actually Japanese woodblock art. Oh wow. Woodblock prints. Yeah. So we’ve got a lot more to talk about girl, but today we’re here to talk about scholar Match.

I’m so thrilled to have you both on the show to talk about ScholarMatch and how the team has transformed its volunteer strategy. I have been, it’s been such an honor to be with you side by side. As we’ve walked this journey together, I hope it will inspire our listeners to take bold steps to understand their current state, and then take purposeful steps to redesign their operations to improve the power and potential of their volunteer programming.

I think we did it the right way, and many folks are out there kind of looking for short-term solutions, looking for tips and tricks, looking for immediate results, and that is not the way you guys approach this. And so I really want to walk people through what we did and just hats off to you. First off, for all the hard work you’ve done so far, I think your both, your volunteers and more importantly, the young people that you serve, are really going to benefit from this.

So let’s get started. I’ve talked a little bit about your bios, but let’s start with Lisa. How did you get into nonprofit work in the first place?

Lisa: So, I started, 20 years ago. I started working with the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program at the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, and I was doing scholarship administration work.

So that’s my beginning entry into nonprofit work. And I will say, I was with him for quite some time for five years, and I think. Through that process, I was like, there’s a lot that goes behind the scenes in terms of scholarship administration. There’s application reading, interviewing, being up to date and keeping abreast in terms of financial aid policies, federal administration policies.

So there was a world of opportunity that opened up in terms of not only my understanding of what it means to run a nonprofit, but also what it means around professional development and training and making sure that you as a professional are keeping up to date with policies and procedures and regulations and laws that might impact the students that you’re serving.

So that was really the beginning of my journey, and I’ve never stopped since then.

Tobi: Awesome. So, you were kind of hooked by the mission?

Lisa: I was, yes. And I’ll say when I was managing the scholarship program, I was like, wait, some of my classmates got the scholarship in college. I was like, how did I not hear about this?

And I was like; how did they hear about it? And I didn’t. And so that’s when I realized, oh, there’s disparities in terms of lack of access and information. And I mean, I’m, and I knew that very early on. I’m a first generation college student myself. So, but I think in doing that process, like, whoa, look at all this amazing work that the scholarship is doing.

My friends got fully funded, they got their bachelor’s Earth master’s and their PhD fully covered. Wow. And funded like amazing work. And I was like, this is amazing.

Tobi: Yeah, I love it when you just kind of, I mean, when I went to graduate school, I had already figured out that I was going to work in nonprofits my whole career probably.

And I started in nonprofit arts organizations in Chicago but quickly figured out that I wanted to do more direct service, more social service. Rather than art. After a while, I just wanted to have a direct impact. Even though I love the arts, I just wanted to have a different kind of impact. But Paola, tell me about how, or tell our audience about how you got into nonprofit work.

Paola: I think that I started this nonprofit work a long, long, long time ago. Before, or like right as I became of the legal age of employment. Mm-hmm. I was part of this program called the Trinity Education for Excellence Program, tep, which was for inner city Boston Youth, and it was a leadership development program, and I credit that program with.

Introducing me to the idea that I could go to college and introducing me to a lot of schools that I didn’t know. They actually took me to do interviews, which I didn’t know you did at Skidmore College, which was not even on my list. And through that program, I did it in middle school. And then throughout high school I was actually employed by them as one of the camp counselors.

So my nonprofit work really started when I was in high school and I think it like led me to the work that I’m doing now and it feels very much aligned with my values. I think one of the things that I really care about is reciprocity and making sure that you’re giving back. And I feel that I’m able to do that in my work and support others in doing that in their, in my work as well.

Tobi: Yeah, that’s awesome. So, Paolo, what does volunteerism in particular mean to you? Have having spent your career in nonprofits?

Paola: Yeah, I mean, I think nonprofits are. We’re always strapped. We’re always doing a lot with a little bit, and I think volunteerism provides this opportunity to be able to support where you can.

I think that when you volunteer, it’s not only good that you’re doing for others, but you’re also reaping a lot of like personal rewards as well. Especially when, for example, for me being able to sort of come full circle where I was once a student, like the students that we serve, but now I’m able to connect them with volunteers who, who are able to like make a difference and introduce them to maybe ideas or concepts, colleges, questions that they don’t know about.

So, volunteerism I think is just an extension of who we are as people who care about the wellbeing of others on the earth.

Tobi: Yeah. How about you, Lisa? In today’s world, what is volunteerism? Why do you think it’s important in today’s world?

Lisa: You know, I think being of service is really important.

I think we all have. Our own set of tools, knowledge, breadth of experience, lived experience, but also professional experience. And I think what better way to share some of your talent, but also your experience and your knowledge and skills than by being of service to others. I mean. Why not we, I mean, there’s so much goodness to spread into this world and why can’t we, why not share some of that with other people?

And being of service I think is incredibly important. And there’s obviously so many ways that you can volunteer your time. Like I, I remember when I first started volunteering, like right after college, I volunteered at a women’s shelter. And I don’t know why, out of all those organizations I decided on women’s shelter.

But something about it spoke to me at that moment, and I volunteered for them for many years and I learned so much. And I was like, wow, everybody here plays a role. All of the volunteers are supporting and one way or the other, and we even, whatever small role you’re playing, if it’s just helping pick out the trash for the vol, the event, that’s something you are doing being of service.

Mm-hmm. So I think that really spoke to me that any act, whether big or small, does make a difference. And I think that’s always stood out to me since then.

Tobi: Let’s switch gears and talk about ScholarMatch. ’cause it’s such a fantastic mission. Youth work and working with young adults and teenagers has always been close and dear to my heart.

Having run some programs, one in San Francisco and one in Seattle, and just working with young people, it’s, there’s so much potential there. It’s just a fantastic place to be. And you know, you always learn something working with young people often because they’re very straightforward about where they’re at and they have a BS detector and they call you if you’re wrong.

So, there’s a lot you can learn personally from, you know, and grow as an adult working from with young adults and and youth. But let’s talk about ScholarMatch and so we can set the stage for this transformation in the volunteer program that you guys have brought about. What’s the history, let’s start with just history and mission about ScholarMatch.

What is it? What’s the mission? What’s the, why was it formed? All that? Let’s talk about the birth story.

Lisa: Yeah, so ScholarMatch was founded in 2010 by author Dave Eggers, who’s a national bestselling author. They, along with a peer of group of friends, started as a, it started as a crowdfunding platform to support students with remaining costs for college.

So students created would create like these profiles and they’re like, I need X, Y, and Z money to pay for my fight for college, or, I still have a gap for my tuition. Or, Hey, I need XO amount of money to pay for like my bucks, whatever college related education related expenses that they needed. But I think early on, the supporters realized that it wasn’t enough and that students needed support beyond the monetary con contributions that were being provided.

I think. As students, they’re like, as students were in college, they’re like, wait a minute. They’re like, they need like advising. They need guidance through the, through college because they still need the support. They need the support of someone, of a mentor. So in 20. 13, that’s when ScholarMatch started pivoting to offering comprehensive services.

In a nutshell, we are now a seven year program model. We are a college access and success slash persistence organization, and we support students from all the way from high school, from beginning of in high school, all the way to college graduation. And we provide students with individualized one-on-one support through all aspects of the college application process.

And this is where our volunteers come in. Our coaches come in because we pair them up with our students. I’ll say that one of the reasons that I think it sets us apart from other college access and success organizations, the seven years of holistic support, it really goes a long way because we’re helping students apply to a really.

Daunting process. Applying to college is not how it was 20 years ago when I was applying. It was very simple. Mm-hmm. Now it’s super complicated and complex and nuances. There’s all these applications lingo that you have to learn. There’s social and cultural capital that comes into play when you really think about it.

And I think this particular path of service means that ScholarMatch, we stay with our students for seven years if they begin in high school and we pair them up. Right. And part of it is that our volunteers are coming in with their own lived experience, with their own set of tools and knowledge, obviously us providing with the training that they need.

But it does provide students with a sense of stability and community through one of a, pretty much a challenging period. It’s very stressful applying to college now we hear it. From our students firsthand. It’s a very difficult process, I would say. The second thing is our flexible scholarship program, financial aid instead of.

Offering the scholarship payable to the students’, college or university. We disperse the funds directly to our students in our program so our students can then choose the funds for school related expenses, housing, meals, and for loan repayment and graduation. And we offer students between 2000 and 5,000 a year without displacing existing financial aid, which is unlike most other scholarship programs actually.

And our school related funds and emergency funds remain flexible. It ensures that students have what they need to purchase like textbooks. Maybe they want to participate in like a school event and it requires funding or cover any emergencies that might potentially derail their studies. And I really do think that this particular model does support with driving like college persistence and helping our students get the most out of their college experience.

And I would say the last thing that sets us apart is dedicated first generation staff and as well as volunteers. ’cause many of our volunteers are also first gen. I would say our biggest asset is the people, right? The majority of our staff are the first in their family to attend college, just like our students.

And this really means that no matter like what our students interact with, like they, they can see themselves represented and find a role model who can relate to their experiences, hopes and fears. And this also translates to the volunteer community, right? Because volunteers also come from a first gen background, but they might also be like, Hey, I’m like the first person in my family to transition to art.

I wanted to be an artist so I know how to apply to these art schools because I submitted my own portfolio and I can help you because I was through this process. Or I’m a student athlete, I’m the first person in my family to be a student athlete. So I think there’s like different. Things. But I would say these are probably the top three things that probably kind of sets us apart in terms of our program model.

Tobi: And let’s go a little bit deeper for folks who might be listening who are not first generation. You could say I was first generation ’cause my mom didn’t go to college. My birth dad didn’t go to college, but my grandmother did. And so. My mother didn’t have anything to do with getting me into college.

What the person who had to do it was my grandmother. So she could start talking to me about college and the expectation that she would just assume I’m going to college. What are you, where are you, what are you going to study? By like junior high, she was telling me. Now I was lucky enough to also have support at school to help me know when my FAFSA was due because you know what?

My mom didn’t know and she didn’t know anything about the fafsa. I had to get that together and my grandmother didn’t either. ’cause she was of another generation and she, they didn’t have FAFSAs back then. So I know a little bit about what it’s like to be different. Most, most of my cousins didn’t go to college.

Most of, so a lot of the extended family that I’m part of is working class and didn’t really, not, some people did, some of my cousins did, but a lot didn’t. And so I was in an environment that was kind of mixed. So I have some understanding of what, what you actually need. And you said social and cultural capital.

That sometimes you just don’t, you don’t have it. It’s not part of, not because there’s any failing on your part, and not because you don’t have the chops to be in college, but it’s just that you don’t have, you don’t know the pathway. So talk a little bit more about those barriers that those first generation students face when they’re trying to fi figure out how to fit in.

Not only like the logistical stuff, but maybe the mindset or the challenges to self-doubt, those kinds of things.

Lisa: Yeah, I would say, I mean, there’s so many. The first one would be like the lack of knowledge about the college experience itself. We’re no one in your family has attended college. Well, how can these speak of the college experience?

Well? Mm-hmm. How do you sign up for a major? How do you sign up for classes? What do you know that you have to submit? You have to apply for financial aid every year. Or what if you want to study abroad? Well, what does that look like? Like how do you show up to your first day of class? Do you know where to go to?

I’m first gen. I remember, I had no idea. I didn’t know that you had to apply for housing. I didn’t know that. I thought that was part of your package when you, when they accepted you in college. I thought I, and I was in a support program when I was in college, a first generation support program, and my advisor was like, what do you mean you don’t have a place to live?

I was like, no, I thought you all would give me my housing, and within three days I got it. My, my dorm. This was a right, this is like a week before school started, so

Tobi: that’s unheard of.

Lisa: Yeah. And I was like, I have no idea. I had no idea that was like required as part of the process of the college experience.

Had no idea. So that’s an example from my own personal experience. So I can only imagine now how complex the college application process is. Like what else do you not know? The second part is access to like financial resources to, to afford college and as well as social life college has become really expensive every year.

Tuition increases every year. There’s costs that are increasing and there’s lack and there’s lack of access to like financial resources. There’s also a lot of scholarship or, or scholarships that are out there. And sometimes it’s difficult to find those resources. So I think that can also become a barrier.

The other thing is family being unfamiliar with the higher education process landscape in the United States, there’s private. There’s Publix, there’s two year, there’s four years. There’s a bachelor’s, a master’s, a PhD. What does all of that mean? What does that mean? How long is it going to take you to graduate from college?

Why do you know? What are units? What does that mean? What is satisfactory academic progress? What happens if you don’t meet that? What happens to your financial aid? Do you get kicked out of college? So there’s a lot of things like that happen. The other thing is also a lack of like sense of belonging. I think that can be a barrier because you’re coming and being like, am I really meant to be here?

Is this a place for me? Do I have what it takes to make it through college? Will I be able to advocate for myself? Do I have someone in my corner who’s going to be able to advocate for myself? Do I have the self-confidence and efficacy to be able to advocate for myself and continue to push through? And then there’s also emotional distress.

We human beings with emotions. And do, are, are, is there an opportunity to receive support if you’re feeling anxious or worried about school? There’s a lot of potential. Information that might be lacking about resources like that in college. I will say those are probably like some of the big, big barriers for college and career success.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. And I think everybody experiences something. College isn’t easy for anybody, but I think for first generation students, there’s just additional barriers that folks have to overcome. Paola, talk to us about the role of volunteers and how they help. Students overcome these things. Why you could have gone with, and there are plenty of paid folks out there that do counseling for college access and also college persistence.

There’s plenty of, there’s people on campus, off campus, you name it. But tell us what role of volunteers, why volunteers instead of paid staff model? Like what value do they bring to the table that’s different?

Paola: Yeah. You know, I will say many of our volunteers are also doing this as independent education consultants, um, in their free time.

So in some ways we have this massive value add from folks who are in, are in this field and are sort of keeping up to date all as well with all the major changes that are happening because higher education is constantly changing. But what I will say is that some school counselors have up to 500 students on their caseload and it’s just.

I would say like nearly impossible to make sure that you’re providing accurate, consistent, just like support to 500 students at once on one person can only do so much. So I think the biggest value that our volunteers bring. Beyond just their commitment and their belief in like the power of education is also their like critical role in supporting students one-on-one.

And I think something that is really important is that we have volunteers that come from all walks of life. Not just like in terms of their background, but also the work that they’re doing and the things that wake them up in the morning. So we have coaches who, and our volunteers as we call college coaches, so you’ll hear me referring to ’em as both.

But we have coaches who used to work in government. We have coaches who work in tech. We have coaches who are retired, higher education consultants, teachers. We have folks who are stay at home moms who maybe had their kids go through the process. And now we’re like, oh, I have all this knowledge. What do I do with it?

And they find us and volunteer with us. And I think that it’s important for our students to also see. All of the different possibilities that are possible when you get a college degree. And our volunteers are a great model for that because all of our students, regardless if they’re first generation, they all have really different goals.

They have really different visions for what they want with their lives. So being able to embrace that diversity and the diversity of thought and experience is something that our program model allows for. These are folks that are just interested in helping first gen students and then we’re providing the training, we’re providing the professional development.

We’re here to answer the questions. We’re our volunteers are just committed and engaged.

Tobi: And not all first gen. Right?

Paola: Yeah. Not all first gen.

Tobi: Yeah. Just people who want to help, who get it.

Paola: Exactly.

Tobi: Yeah. Absolutely. Let me quickly ask, and I forgot to ask earlier, ’cause I know this question, but I think the audience needs to hear it.

What’s your impact? What is the impact on the work of the volunteers? What happens with students when. Caring people get involved and help them navigate these challenging journeys.

Lisa: Yeah. I can talk a little bit more about our impact. When students get paired up with a volunteer as a college coach, they help them with all aspects of the college application process.

So that means that they need to create a college list. They need to submit their financial aid applications, helping them with applying scholarships as well, reviewing their financial aid, award letters, requesting letters of recommendation, submitting their test scores, maybe making sure that all of that is being submitted on time, reviewing essays, which is a huge component.

It’s a big part of the process is reviewing and supporting and editing for the essay. So, I was in, in terms of impact, there’s many ways, right to look at it. There’s the impact of someone who cares about. A student getting through this process, being a mentor and guiding and advocating for them. There’s the impact of a student who at the very beginning might be a little bit more unsure, not confident about the process, and at the very end you can just see the progression of someone who’s building competency and advocacy skills for themselves, but also because someone helped them through that process.

Someone is kind of teaching them those skills and be like, Hey, I’m going to help you. Let me advocate for you. Right. There’s a caring adult slash mentor that’s providing guidance, right. In terms of other ways of impact is the submission of these college applications. That’s the whole point that we’re pairing up a coach with the student, is making sure that a student is being guided through this process.

And on average, our students average around eight application college applications being submitted. That’s just average. We’ve had students who’ve up to 15, 16, 17 applications just that. That’s something that depends on the student themselves and their interest in college match and fit. So I would say that’s the average.

And then average college. Acceptance rate would probably, it’s typically always four. That’s around the amount of colleges that students get accepted to. So I would say that’s big impact. The other thing is we are really big on pushing our students to apply to national scholarships, fully funded national scholarships.

So that’s something that we heavily encourage our students as well as pre-college programs and flying programs. We, every year we encourage our students to apply to flying programs. We always get a handful of students receiving flying program acceptances. It’s a really big deal to be able to be fly, to be accepted to a program and go visit a college for free.

You stay there for a couple days, and again, this is somebody who has never maybe even been on a plane before. That’s a pretty big deal. Mm-hmm. And then the national scholarships, these are really big scholarships that fully fund their college for the next four years. We were like, you have to be strategic.

Come decision, college decision time. I would say the biggest impact as part of our seven year program model is our college graduation rate. The national first generation college graduation rate is 24% compared to the national just general graduation rate, it’s 60%. Our college graduation rate for our students who continue through our seven year program model is 80%.

Tobi: Oh. So that, I think that’s the impact.

Lisa: Yes.

Tobi: That data is amazing. I mean, it’s really, really heartbreaking that for first gen students, it’s only 24%. I mean, that tells you the disparity right there. 24%. I just want to repeat this ’cause it’s really important. 24% of first gen co students actually graduate. 60% of just general population students graduate.

But if they get support. 80% of first gen. I mean, that’s amazing that just, there’s proof in the pudding right there. You know anybody who’s wor, and I know we have people listening who work in mentoring programs, they know that the human to human connection is super powerful, especially when people have some lived experience and wisdom to share.

Let’s take a quick break and after the break I want to return with our discussion of your volunteer strategy. We’ll talk a little bit about why we got it started or why you reached out to me, what we did, and give people some advice on if they’re interested in updating or renovating their volunteer strategy.

But I wanted to give everybody a really clear sense of what is this organization, what do they do, what, who, why is it important? How are they already engaging volunteers? And, and if you’re in the audience thinking ScholarMatch just had to renovate their program ’cause they were in crisis, you can hear that’s not the case at all.

You were, you already had a solid program in place, but you were ready to level up. And we’ll talk about why that is after the break. We’ll be right back after this break with more from Lisa and Paola about how ScholarMatch transformed their volunteer strategy. Don’t go anywhere. We’re going to get into the details.

You’re going to hear we’re going to. Pull back the curtain and we’re going to share with you some of the things we did together, so don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back. Hey, are you looking to upgrade and modernize your volunteer program? Or maybe you’re building one from scratch and you’re just not sure where to start.

If so, we’ve got the perfect resource for you. The Volunteer Pro Impact Lab, having built several direct service programs from the ground up, I know that it doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a clear process that takes careful attention with a focus on impact. In the end, you need a system in place that’s clear, standardized, efficient.

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Tobi: Okay, we’re back with Lisa Lopez and Paola Gonzalez about how to ScholarMatch transformed its volunteer strategy. So we started working together.

Lord have mercy. I cannot remember when, but it was about, you reached out, Lisa, I think you were the first person to reach out when you reached out and you were thinking to yourself, you know what? We need some help. We want to do something. What challenges were you facing, or what aspirations did you have, or growth opportunities were you seeing?

And what made you reach out in the first place? Because I, I think sometimes people think, should I try something like this? I don’t know. Are we ready for something like this? What made you ultimately say, you know what? We’re going to research. We’re going to find a consultant. We’re going to make this happen.

Lisa: Yeah, we had reached a point where we have always wanted to scale up volunteer recruitment efforts and expand our reach.

And we don’t necessarily have an issue with like retention rate. We typically always retain at least 66% of our volunteer base. So the question that was lingering is how do we continue to expand our base of volunteers on a national level? We, we are serving volunteers on a national level, but this is really expanding it more.

And we are a fully remote organization, so having to recruit volunteers poses a, a unique set of opportunities as well as potential unique challenges as well. And at that point, we had received a Genes grant to scale our service, NA services nationally. And I created, really created an opportunity to increase our volunteer pool and improve our volunteer support efforts at scale.

And I think. And in reaching out to you and in collaborating with you, Tobi, I think our aim was to receive an objective perspective and professional expertise on volunteer programming, our recruitment efforts, the training that we’re providing, as well as what’ll be providing for professional development.

And this is really where you came into to help us take a deeper dive into areas that we wanted to further develop. You’ve mentioned this. I think we’re really established in terms of like our processes and protocols, but now it’s really what can we do? How can we expand? How can we continue to engage our really amazing volunteer community, and how do we expand when we’re thinking about.

Doing a more national reach and how do we continue to leverage the strengths of our amazing volunteer community? There’s, like Paola had mentioned, our volunteers come from all walks of life and I think there’s a strength in that, right? That we hadn’t, that we can tap into and we, that was something that we really wanted to gain from this experience with you.

Tobi: Yeah. I think I love, and it was so smart on your part to understand that in order to expand. Your volunteers in order to serve more young people, that you also needed to evolve your volunteer model. And that is not something that every nonprofit understands. They’re just thinking, we want to recruit more volunteers.

We’re just going to go out and recruit more volunteers. But as you grow, you have to get more sophisticated with your systems because if you don’t, you risk burning out staff. You risk not understanding where to grow staff if you need it, and what additional resources might be needed. There’s things that are a challenge on a smaller scale that become a bigger challenge when you grow.

So there’s a lot of reasons why you have to evol. You don’t just recruit vol. More volunteers. You actually evolve your model in some way. In your volunteer strategy. Was there anything when you got started that you were unsure of, that you worried about or that you were concerned about? You thought, I don’t know.

Or were you just boldly saying, you know what, we’re doing this, we don’t care.

Lisa: I don’t think, I think from the beginning in Paola, maybe you can add a bit more, but I think we were just, we were really excited. I think part of it is that maybe, I think at that point we had already fully tapped into our internal resources, right?

And our knowledge and our expertise. Paola and I do not come from a volunteer management background. Not at all. My background has always been in college access experience, but I do know that I have nonprofit experience and I know how to re manage a program. So does Paola. So I’ve learned so much about volunteer management and operations and recruitment and training almost in almost eight years that I’ve been in Scholar.

Meh, this is a whole other world, a whole other industry and sector that I had no idea really existed. And like I was like, oh, this is global. It’s not local, it is global. So at that point we had already reached a tipping point where we’re like, we need consulting to move forward. And we were just really eager and excited to start the journey and we’re really ready to begin the process.

But I don’t know, Paola, if there’s anything else that you want to add or share.

Tobi: Yeah. Paola, did you have any hesitations? Like what about this outside person coming in? What are they going to, what are they going to know?

Paola: No, I think that I live so in the weeds of things on a day-to-day basis, that it really provided us an opportunity and me in particular to like sort of step back and look at what we had created.

Because when I first started at ScholarMatch, we were a drop-in center and then we also had a virtual national program. And then post pandemic, we went completely virtual and remote and we had the steps or we had sort of like the, the ladder, the pathway, whatever you want to call it, set up to become fully remote and virtual.

But a lot of the things that we were building internally, a lot of the systems, a lot of the protocols, a lot of the language, a lot of the graphics, everything that we use to sort of promote and create our program and to make sure that it’s functioning was a lot of internal work. And I think. When new eyes come in, it’s really important to just allow feedback to occur, allow critique to occur.

Obviously, I also come from an arts background, so I think a critique is always helpful because a question doesn’t always need an answer. Sometimes a question can allow you to sort of linger in something and be like, does this thing need to exist? Is this the only way that this can be done? What are the other possibilities?

And I think if you. Have a growth mindset, which in order to grow a program, I think you need to have, you have to be an open and willing participant to someone new coming in and being like, Hey, I’m trying to understand your program. The fact that you knew nothing about it, I think is even better because it felt objective.

Tobi: Yeah. Let’s talk about what we actually did, and I’ve got, just to shout out to people that in the show notes, I’m going to link to some episodes I did on some of these strategies, so. In Volunteer Nation episode 19, I talk about how to improve the volunteer experience with the journey map. We’re going to talk in a minute about how we did that with ScholarMatch in Volunteer Nation.

Episode 180 9. I talk about how to use a communications audit to recruit more volunteers, which I did a communications audit for you all. I also did a program audit, so let’s start with that diagnostic. So just to let people know that if you’re wondering what these things are in more detail, you can listen to these episodes.

I’ll post ’em in the show notes. This project included a diagnostic processes. We did a volunteer program audit. We did a communications audit, and then we did a design process with the volunteer journey mapping. That we did in person. What did you expect from the processes and what actually happened? What was sort of in, in all three, the two diagnostic and the one design process, what wisdom was kind of affirmed by this process?

What surprised you about it? What gave you an aha moment? What was the main top lines from this process that we went through?

Lisa: Yeah, I’ll kick this off first and then I’ll hand it off over to Bola. I think through this process, I think we realized, hey, we have already built a lot of processes and systems to support our volunteers and students.

You learned early and during in the process. We were like, we are very process oriented. We have that, that yes, you are. We’re very process oriented.

They have, I’ll say this P game is strong,

Lisa: but we realized we’re like, we’re very process oriented people and we realized that it was more of a validation of affirmation through the journey mapping process, and we realized, hey, we’re kind of far along in the process protocol process piece, right.

And I think through this journey, I, I, you know, realizing, hey, we’ve been on the right track, but the journey mapping process was really tapping into this creative journey of this other world, like Paola had mentioned, is coming in with a growth mindset. I didn’t, we didn’t know what we were going to expect, but I think once we were doing the actual journey mapping, I was like, this is really cool.

I’ve never done anything like this. Like, how do you think creatively around, how do you provide professional development opportunities to your volunteers? What are your leadership pathways? What does that look like? How do you train volunteers? Let’s dig deeper. What have you done? What have you not done in a world of possibilities, what that could look like?

I think that what ifs was really exciting. Like if you had this. If you could do this, what would you do? And I think that’s always, it’s always nice to, like Paola said, to step outside of the weeds and think of the possibilities because sometimes we’re so stuck on what we have to do in the moment that we are not able to take a step back and be like, what can we potentially do with our volunteer program?

How can we expand? How can we engage our volunteer community? How can we tap into these resources? You have to really think creatively. I love the moving around, like we’re, Paola and I are both really creative and so having to move around and kind of move your body really does something it like makes, it does something you’re like, okay, let’s move.

Let’s do this. So I think it’s just really, you know, it was a different way of like processing and thinking outside of the box. It’s very tactile. I think moving and using your hands is really important part of the process because we are a fully remote and virtual organization. Being stationary helps for certain things, but I think being able to be creative helps with that.

And I think part of the journey mapping process was really. Like, we know that our volunteers deeply care of our students, but we need to take this to the next level. What does the next level mean? There’s so many possibilities with that. So I’ll end with that and then I’ll hand it off over to Paola.

Tobi: Yeah, let me explain.

’cause folks are probably wondering what is this tactile thing they’re talking about? What moving around, what you can go check out those episodes. But we did a journey mapping process, which was using graphic facilitation. So we, I dropped these giant murals and they’re like, what, 12 feet long for each kind of big phase of the volunteer journey.

So we mapped the volunteer journey from First Touch to Fawn Farewell, and at each step and folks at ScholarMatch have a strong SOP game. So you already had a process in place. So it was, it was helpful because I could map out the key steps that were already in your process and then we mapped. What you’re currently doing and what the barriers and gaps are for the volunteers at each stage.

What are gaps in knowledge? What are barriers to to moving to the next phase? And then we looked at informational and emotional needs at each step. And then you brainstormed ideas of sort of very, in these pillars of each step, you can start to think critically about, okay, if this is the be challenge or, and this is the need informationally or emotionally for this volunteer, what are we offering them at this phase?

And there’s a big difference between what someone’s informational need or emotional need is when they first come to your website and check you out versus the first time they meet with a student. Right, and their first experience with a young person, you know, when they come to your website, it’s like, is this organization credible?

Are there people here like me? Are they going to get back to me in a decent time? Are they trustworthy? Those are the kind of things, is this the right fit for me? But when it’s with the young person, you’re getting a match with the young person at that part in the journey. It’s, I, I remember this particularly.

Somebody put on a Post-it note. Will I vibe with my student, right? And I was like, yes. That’s completely different. So often we think of volunteers as a one size fits all, versus a person who is also transforming through their experience and they’re so student is transforming, but the volunteer also transforming.

So that’s what we’re talking about there. And then we also did, I did a full review, desk review and of all of your processes, your outcomes, your survey results, everything you do in your program, that was your program audit. And then we did a communications audit where I looked at your SEO, your website, your recruitment practices, your email marketing, your social media, et cetera, et cetera.

So just to explain to folks, that’s what the journey mapping, we were together in person and we had these giant murals on the wall and we were moving around doing design work. But Paolo, what about you? What was affirmed by this work and what maybe surprised you about it? What were kind of aha like, oh wow, this is something I didn’t think about.

Paola: I think because, and we’re still at a little bit in the middle of our work since we’re just finishing up the recruitment accelerator now, but I think for me, something that has been sort of lingering in my mind as like an aha moment or just, yeah, just lingering is sort of thinking about our volunteer personas.

That activity, I think, for me has been really helpful because as a volunteer manager. Part of my role requires me to obviously recruit volunteers and we serve thousands of students. So I or hundreds of students up to a thousand students. But I think for me, something that it really got me thinking about who are the people that we want working with our students?

Who are the people, what are they like? What do they like to talk about? What do they do in their free time? These are not questions that I was asking myself. I sort of was like, if you’re excited about it, we’ll train you come. But being able to sort of create email campaigns and graphics and sort of marketing materials for specific personas was something that felt like a duh, why aren’t we already doing that?

So that for me felt very, it felt like a growth moment. Because now as I’m thinking about recruitment, ’cause we’re literally right thick in the season of it, I’m thinking like, okay. We are, we’re talking to a specific audience and yes, they’re excited about education and yes, they believe in our students and maybe they’re first gen, but being able to create some targeted language and marketing, I think has been really helpful.

And asking those questions as we’re creating it, who is this for?

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. I remember being on those calls because in addition to the program development, then we also did volunteer, the volunteer recruitment accelerator where we really have been working side by side developing your recruitment plan with my coaching and you guys doing, and I remember those calls, going over those personas and using them as a thought exercise to really strategize, to go from tactical recruitment to, okay, what am I going to put on my flyer?

Where am I going to put my flyer out? Well, wait a minute. Who’s carrying the flyer? Who’s talking about the flyer? Who’s, and you really have also. Boosted sort of your ambassador program of volunteers doing recruitment with you. I remember the personas. You actually developed more than one. There was several and different people who would be low hanging fruit, who obviously would like something where you can really tailor your language.

So I’m glad that hit home. For some people, they’re really resistant to it. ’cause they’ll say, well, well, you’re trying to discriminate. I’m like, no, not at all. This is not about demographics, this is about psychographics. It’s about what people believe, what they stand for, and how you can speak to those values.

And also sort of. Predict their objections of what things that they think are barriers that aren’t really barriers to their volunteering. And so all of that is really creates, and then even, I remember we talked about testimonial collecting testimonials and I said, collect testimonials that are directly related to those barriers and objections that your personas are, would bring up to you.

Those are the most powerful. And I remember the light bulbs going on. I mean, I remember, I think it was Andrea or Sara who were like, I just remember that going, oh yeah. Because they’re responsible for collecting those testimonials. Whatcha most proud of, let’s talk about that. When it comes to this project and your transformation of your volunteer strategy, you made some shifts.

What’s one big shift, and we’ll start with Paola this time. What, what’s one big shift in your strategy that you’re really proud of that we’ve kind of worked on together or that was sparked by this project? I guess I should say?

Paola: You know our, I have so many. So I’m trying to think of which one might be. I think for me, something that this project sort of ignited, it reinforced was that our volunteers are our biggest asset and there are so many things that we live in the weeds of like making sure that folks are passing their training modules, making sure that the student and coach match is good, but also this project sort of, or this experience sort of reminded me that yes, that work is important and coaches are here to work with students, but they’re also here for one other thing, and that is connection and community.

So being able to. Expand on these ideas that we had for many years and sort of start planting the seeds and WA and watering them this year. So I’m thinking very specifically about our Volunteer advisory council, where we’re inviting our volunteers to become part of a stronger voice in ScholarMatch to help us with our resources and materials, and also to help us like reevaluate maybe some of our program elements.

I think that this, I think that this project really helped me sort of start watering other parts of the program that we always knew were really important, but maybe did, but maybe needed some feedback on and some pushing towards.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. I love that bringing the volunteer voice in, which is so on brand and aligned with the values of your organization.

Interconnectedness is all about it, so it’s just nice to even further align beyond just the pairs of hands that come and help, and the hearts that help. You’re actually really bringing the voice, the volunteer into the organization even further, and I love that because it so aligns with ScholarMatch and who you all are.

Lisa, what about you? What are you most proud of? What transformation or change in your program are you most proud of?

Lisa: I think beyond the Volunteer Advisory Council, I think is. Something that’s come out of this is making sure that we’re highlighting the impact of our volunteers. Something being we have an annual report and something that we’ve been thinking about doing for a couple years now is a more granular volunteer impact report of the amazing work that our volunteers are doing.

There’s so much that con that. Is involved in the college application process. There’s so much data, qualitative and quantitative data really, that we, that is going on behind the scenes that I don’t think people really understand. How many hours are you spending helping a student? How many minutes, how many times are you meeting with them?

How much time do your student take to complete their applications? How many applications did they spend? How many times did they revise their college essay? That’s actually really important information because it show it. It talks about the amount of time and work that not only the student has to do, but also that the coach has to do to support them in this process.

This is a very daunting process and I think we’ve been really excited about this volunteer impact report. Again, the Volunteer Advisory Council is really integral because they’re also supporting us in gathering feedback, but we, it’s great to hear from them be like, this is what we want to see. We want to.

See more about our impact in our work. Let’s highlight this with our other volunteers because you’ve, this is a lot that you’ve accomplished and a lot that your students have been able to do. Look at where they started and look where they’re at now. So I think that’s something that we’re really excited about.

And yeah, the Volunteer Advisory Council, we’re just really excited to continue that. That’s been something that we’ve been thinking about for a very long time and we’re really excited to start that last fall.

Tobi: Yeah, yeah, it’s fantastic. A lot of it’s too, I think it’s not always like one thing, it’s just like a mindset shift and it’s, some of it’s very obvious and some of it’s very subtle.

I mean, I see that with our Volunteer Pro Impact Lab members. I watch folks grow their leadership and their thinking around community engagement. What would you. I’m going to ask both of you this question. What tips do you have for other orgs that are looking to build their volunteer capacity and transform their volunteer strategy?

What are a couple of top tips that you would recommend to folks who are thinking to themselves, not necessarily because they’re even in crisis mode, because you were not in crisis mode when you started this project with me. You had a huge aspiration and also. A goal of reaching more students and expanding nationally.

So you were smart to think about how you’re going to grow the volunteer strategy, but what tips would you have for others? And either of you can start.

Paola: Yeah, I think my first tip would be to sit down and look at what’s working, and then as you look at what’s working, try to figure out what’s not. And if you’re stumbling across maybe the same sort of barriers, challenges year after year, or you’re getting to a point where you’re like, I don’t really know how to solve this, it might be good to get some external eyes on it.

And sort of figure out if there’s other ways for something to be done, if there’s other new possibilities. I also would say talk to the people who are in your program, right? Like getting feedback from volunteers is really crucial. Getting feedback from the population or community that you serve is really useful, uh, because they are the ones who are experiencing your program.

So that would be sort of where I would start.

Tobi: Excellent. Excellent. What about you, Lisa?

Lisa: I’ll say that there’s a lot of free resources to support volunteer management and operations, but recognizing that volunteer management is a unique role and really lean into this perspective, I think it’s important.

It is a professional field and it does require a significant amount of investment. It’s, there’s time, there’s resources, money and staff, and it is a global field. And I do think that it also requires a global mindset. I think I was, I saw one of your emails, you know, I’m like. Wait, what? You’re New Zealand.

I was like, that’s so cool. And I was like, yeah, this is global. And I was like, that is so cool. This is global, right? So really thinking about think you’re based maybe locally, but think globally. Maybe somebody, another organization across the world might be doing something and it might be important for you to reach out.

It’s always nice to connect with other people in the volunteer community because you might learn something about how they’re doing volunteer recruitment and how they’re engaging volunteers. Maybe something that they struggled with but ended up progressing and doing really well in. So I think really tapping into the vast volunteer operations community would be of benefit to anyone.

Tobi: Yeah, it’s so funny because I was in New Zealand, I did a training there of journey mapping, but aligned with the national standards, their best practice guidelines. So we did the journey mapping process similar to what we did with you, but we did it not for a single organization. We did it for with their best practice guidelines as each, as each pillar, as each step.

So it was really interesting way to apply that. But when I was in New Zealand, we did a volunteer recruitment accelerator coaching call. I remember Powell was like, Hey, good morning to the future. ’cause I was like a day late or day earlier.

Lisa: Yeah,

Tobi: I was at the foot of Mount Cook and you could see the mountain out the back window.

It’s so funny. Anyway, yeah, it is global. It is global. And you know what? People’s people are more alike than different around the world when it comes to volunteer engagement. I’ve traveled and spoken in a lot of countries that the challenges are the same. Different types of organizations, people or different countries, different cultures.

There’s st. You’re still engaging people in good work and the, there’s some challenges that are just endemic to what we do. They’re just part of what we do. Whether you have a lot of resources or not a lot of resources, we’re about to the top of the hour and I want to ask you all one more question. You’re getting to the end of this project.

I think we have a couple more coaching calls. I think we have a wrap up call in a couple weeks. What’s next for ScholarMatch and what are you most excited about in the year ahead? And I’ll start with you, Lisa.

Lisa: Yeah, we’re really excited to implement our, all of our planned volunteer upgrades that we in discussed as part of the strategy.

There’s a lot of todos.

Tobi: Yes, there,

Lisa: there are. There. There are a lot of todos from our audit work. There are so many tools. We, we talked about this in a recent meeting. I was like, there’s a lot for us to do. So I’m having to create my own little project about all the things that we need to implement and upgrade.

But it’s really exciting. I mean, there’s a lot of work on our end, but you know, we’re excited about this next chapter. As always, I’m really excited to continue to tap into our volunteer community. They are experts in many different fields and I’m always looking forward to supporting their professional growth and communities.

Really important to them and to us as well. So we’re really excited to see how this evolves and our coaches are stepping into more leadership roles. So I will, we’re just really excited to see how that goes.

Tobi: Yeah, I love that. I love that you’re doing that. I love that you’re doing, you have a leadership pipeline now.

That’s fantastic. How about you, Paola? What are you inter what? What’s next and what are you most excited about?

Paola: We’re going to be serving more students this year, which is an opportunity for us to make a greater impact. I think for me, I’m always really excited this time of year is a lot of work. Coach recruitment is not easy, but it’s also exciting to see the applications that come in.

Who are the people that are excited? Where are they coming from? What languages do they speak? What expertise are they bringing? And starting to imagine what the program year is going to look like. I think for me. This part of the cycle is really fruitful. And then being able to start to see when we start matching coaches and students together in the late summer and fall, being able to see those immediate connections that start getting made.

Our matching process, we always call it more of an art than a science because we really do take the time to sort of sift through bios and requests and goals and dreams and sort of try to see which student and coach are going to be the best match. But right now, since we’re in the recruitment process, I get a little bit more behind the scenes of who’s coming in, which coaches are coming back.

And then as we’re wrapping up this program here, it’s a really good opportunity for us. Well, I guess we’re not quite today yet, but as we start moving towards that process, seeing where students are getting accepted and sort of like. Walking students through to the end to graduation and then transitioning into college is always really exciting, and getting feedback from our coaches about things that went well this year and starting to implement some of the changes for things that they’re recommended and their feedback.

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah. I’m excited for you all, your entire team. You’ve been so dedicated to this process. It’s been a long process. But also, and you’re right, Lisa, you, I mean, we did a risk management plan. That spreadsheet is long. The communications audit, the program audit, they have recommendations galore. I mean, I think you have hundred something tips.

Now remember I told you I’ll use or lose. You don’t have to do everything, but you have years of work now. You have a few years of work, and you can prioritize things that are going to have the biggest impact, and that’s the MO and the things that light you up. I always tell people. You can brainstorm and you can even do, go through an analytical diagnostic process like we did in a design process and planning process, and be very purposeful and come up with a, a number of things you want to change.

But if you don’t, they’re probably all good ideas, right? Some will have more impact than others. Some are low hanging fruit, some PE are more likely to get support from others in your organization. So those are always good to choose. But I always recommend people choose the ones that they have the most passion for and that light them up because they’re going to give their time and attention to those, and it’s going to be more enjoyable because in the end, you can’t do it all.

You just can’t do it all. So as you move forward, don’t feel like you have to do it all. Focus on the things you know are going to have an impact and the those, the things that light you up and are going to make a difference in the lives of your volunteers and thus your students. So where can folks find you? I know people will probably want to reach out and learn more about your work and get in touch.

I will post links in the show notes. But Lisa, how about you tell us how can folks get in touch with you and Paola? Or ScholarMatch to learn more about what you’re up to.

Lisa: Yeah. Visit us at our website, ww.scholarmatch.org. You can also email us directly@infoatscholarmatch.org. If you’re interested in becoming a volunteer, you can click on our website and click on the get involved page.

Our application launches on March 1st, so spread the word. If you know anyone who is interested in becoming a volunteer, spread the word to our students. Our student application is live now, so if you know of any first generation students who need support with the college application process throughout the country, direct them to our website.

We also post our, we host monthly information sessions as well, Ola and the volunteer team. We post all of the sessions along with the Zoom links on our website, so you can visit that. And then if you’re interested in keeping up to date until in terms of social media, visit us at Instagram, ScholarMatch hq, and then Facebook ScholarMatch.

That’s our handle. And then LinkedIn ScholarMatch is our handle, and that’s it. Yeah.

Tobi: Awesome, awesome. And I will mention, because ScholarMatch is an awesome organization, if you are looking for a flexible volunteer gig, I don’t do this. I never do this. I never pitch for any like friends and coworkers and colleagues.

But I will say it’s a great opportunity and such an important thing to do. I mean, if you really believe in equity, this is such an easy way to get involved and make a difference in a young person’s life. Imagine you know what’s going to happen with that young person. Yeah, you guys were first gen. Look where you are now and look at all the lives you’re touching and all the ripple effects of, and this came from people who helped you way back when.

And for me, when where I am now came back, it goes all back to my grandmother, both of my grandmothers and what they did for me. And we don’t know how far our touch and our support goes. We will never know how much we impact other people. We only know the people in our vicinity. Vicinity, and the people who tell us.

And the rest of the. We don’t know if you want to be that kind of person and you believe in equity and access to education and the potential of every single person. This is a really great way to live that dream and live that value. I’ll put those links in the show notes. Thank you for joining me today.

Thank you everybody for listening in and just hearing about our journey, working together, partnering to make a difference, and to help this organization, take it to the next level. I’m so proud of both of you and your entire team.

I know I’m going to say this on the wrap up call, but I’m going to say it now.

I’m just proud of all of your work and just so honored to have been able to serve you.

So, thanks everybody for watching. We will be back at the same time next week on The Volunteer Nation, and if you like this, please give us a rating and review and share it with anybody you think could benefit from a little inspiration for updating their volunteer strategy.

All right, everybody, so take care and see you next time.