May 7, 2026

Episode 213 – Impact Lab POV – Community-based Volunteer Networks with Kristi Sebald 

Strengthening volunteer engagement isn’t always about doing more with your own program. Sometimes it’s about letting go of the need to hold onto every volunteer and instead building connections across your entire community.

In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, part of the Impact Lab POV Series, Tobi Johnson is joined by Kristi Sebald, a guest advisor and expert in volunteer and community engagement. Kristi shares how an abundance mindset and intentional coalition building can transform isolated volunteer efforts into powerful, community-wide networks. Drawing from her work with Habitat for Humanity and other local collaborations, she explains why collaboration is a force multiplier – increasing trust, sharing resources, and amplifying impact far beyond what any single organization can achieve alone.

The conversation challenges the myth that we must keep volunteers for ourselves and instead explores practical strategies for outreach, referral, and relationship-building with community leaders, faith groups, and corporate partners. Kristi also offers real-life success stories and actionable tips for effective communication and follow-up that nurture long-term partnerships.

If your organization is ready to stop working in a silo and start building a sustainable volunteer network that expands your reach, this episode – and Kristi’s upcoming Impact Lab seminar on May 12th – will give you the playbook to get started.

Volunteer Networks – Episode Highlights 

• [00:00] Introduction to Kristi Sebald
• [04:33] Importance of community collaboration
• [08:13] Volunteerism in today’s world
• [16:12] Mindset shifts in volunteer management
• [32:23] Practical outreach steps
• [37:45] Success stories in coalition efforts
• [44:37] Cross-referral strategies
• [50:00] Power of gratitude and follow-up
• [55:07] Upcoming Impact Lab Seminar

Helpful Links

• Volunteer Strategy Scorecard™ 
• Volunteer Management Progress Report 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #152: What Every Nonprofit Executive Should Know About Community Engagement 
• Find Kristi on LinkedIn 

Contact Us

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

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Episode #213 Transcript: Impact Lab POV – Community-based Volunteer Networks with Kristi Sebald 

Tobi Johnson: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. I am your host Tobi Johnson and we’ve got another Impact Lab POV episode for you. Today I am joined by Kristi Sebald and she’s gonna talk about community-based volunteer networks. So we’re really gonna talk about collaboration building in your local community.

And we are often very much focused inside our organizations on making the lives of our volunteers, make them happier, healthier, more productive. Often thinking, we’re looking into the community for recruitment and attracting volunteers. Sometimes we have formal partnerships with other nonprofits and entities and corporate folk in our communities, but there’s more to it than that. And I think what we want to uncover today is a little bit about why you might want to invest time in developing volunteer networks and doing more community collaborations. But before we do this, I just want to give everybody a bit of an overview of what this POV series is all about. We have brought on to the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab six new guest advisors.

And they are starting to do training and deliver their points of view inside the community. It’s fantastic because we get to expand all the voices inside the community. It’s not just me training all the time. Although I love training, I also want to expand the points of view that are available inside our Impact Lab. And so I hand chose some people that have really amazing points of view and are really leaders in the future of volunteer engagement.

And I was really lucky that they all said yes. And so we have been having a really good time forming our own sort of small community. And I wanted to bring each of the guest advisors on the podcast so that you can get a sense of who they are and what they have to offer. So today’s guest is Kristi Sebald, as I said, an expert in effective volunteer and community engagement and a Volunteer Pro Impact Lab member as well.

So we’re diving into how to develop stronger local volunteer networks. And I cannot wait for you to hear her perspective. Welcome to the show, Kristi.

Kristi Sebald: Thanks, Tobi. It’s such an honor to be here and to be included in this esteemed group of guest advisors. I’ve already learned from them, and so I’m really looking forward to being part of this as we grow over the next few years.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. I will let me give you a quick overview of Kristi’s bio. She is the volunteer services and events manager at Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity. She joined the Volunteer Pro community a couple years ago. She currently serves full time at Habitat for Humanity and brings people together to carry out Habitat’s mission. So many of you are familiar with the mission of Habitat.

I remember way back when, when I was in graduate school, one of my fellow students went to Americus, Georgia for the summer for a summer internship, and he was doing photography. He was an art student for Habitat way back then. This was in the 90s, like early 90s.

Kristi: Yeah. Love that. Like I tell people all the time, you don’t have to know how to build a house to work for Habitat.

Tobi: That’s right, that’s right. So you’ve had over 30 years of experience in the areas of education, volunteerism, team building, and you lead the Habitat staff in engaging the greater Milwaukee community. Also, her husband grew up in Milwaukee and they relocated there from Phoenix in 2016. She loves her adopted hometown and is thrilled to be part of the work that makes Milwaukee Habitat increase the availability of affordable housing in the city.

She’s also looking forward to sharing insights and experiences through her new role as a guest advisor with the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab. So there we go, Kristi. So one of the things I like to start with on our Volunteer Nation podcast with guests is just to hear their birth story when it comes to volunteer engagement. So tell me a little bit about how you got into the world of volunteerism in the first place.

Kristi: Yeah. Like, I’m not sure how many people actually go to get a master’s degree in volunteer management. Like, we all started somewhere else. And honestly, I think my story really starts like I was one of those people when I was in high school and college, I just always raised my hand. I was a volunteer. Stuff needed to get done. I jumped in. I said yes. So I learned a lot about what that meant to contribute in a whole bunch of different ways.

And then, you know, I volunteered, I was a teacher, was my original career. And so I started learning to manage volunteers when I was a teacher and had parent volunteers in my classroom. I was part of the staff liaison for our PTO booster clubs. So working with volunteers to carry out the mission and projects at the school. And then my first kind of real formal where I started really diving into what does this mean to be a volunteer manager was when I was on a church staff in Phoenix managing a children’s ministry program and we had 80 or 100 volunteers that rotated every Sunday. And so I was like, I need to learn how to do this for real. And so that was in 2010 and that motivated me. I became CVA certified while I was in that position.

And I’m actually up for renewal this year for the second time, which is very exciting, working on that. I highly recommend for the people that are listening, if you have never become CVA certified, it will help you professionally and just personally to understand your role better and what’s available to you. So I put in a plug for that.

And so yeah, I started, went from some ministry and then into some community organizing. I worked at a nonprofit that was helping communities figure out what their neighborhoods needed. So a lot of focus groups, a lot of community organizing there. Yeah, and then I landed at Habitat six years ago, right during COVID. So it’s been an interesting journey. Yeah.

Tobi: That must have been interesting. Outdoors, could you still carry on volunteer work, builds? Because it was outdoors.

Kristi: We did. It was outdoors at a limited scale, right? And so we had to scale back how much we did that year, but we were really blessed. We never had any cases transmitted through our volunteers in that first couple years. So, yeah.

Tobi: Fantastic. Yeah, must have been nice for people to get outside and stay in community with people, you know. And thanks for the plug for CVA. I also have my CVA. I think I’m on my third upcoming renewal. The good news is inside the Impact Lab, all our completion certificates, you can get all of your professional development hours that you need for your CVA renewal. And for those of you who don’t know the Certification in Volunteer Administration from CCVA, I’ll post a link in the show notes. And absolutely, I’m a huge proponent as well. And most of our guest advisors are CVA certified.

Kristi: Mm-hmm.

Tobi: So why do you think, Kristi, you work with volunteers, you work in a very focused volunteer-driven organization, volunteers are essential to what you do. Why do you think volunteerism is important in today’s world?

Kristi: So what’s been really interesting in my journey is my husband is a fundraiser. And so we’ve had some overlap on how people give back and sharing ideas across those. You know, he’s a CFRE and so.

Volunteering is important because it is a way that we build community and we just find that at Habitat. We can bring people together from so many diverse backgrounds, people that may never get to know each other other places in the community, and we get to witness this really incredible relationship building while they’re serving. And it creates shared experience in a world where we try to silo and divide. So volunteering is a place where we really can find common ground with our neighbors and the people in our community.

Tobi: Absolutely, could not agree more. I remember in the Lab, there’s been a fair amount of political division. I think everybody can agree on that. And I was asking in the Impact Lab, because I was planning out content, and this was a couple years ago. And I said, are your volunteers having conflict over their political beliefs and how they vote? Because if so, then I’ll create some training to help you manage that conflict. So I was kind of doing a little needs assessment with the members. And I remember people saying like, no, that’s not a problem. And I said, really? They said, no, no. People vote all kinds of ways. But once they start working together on a project or volunteering on a task together, that all sort of evaporates. It’s about the mission and that is the thing that binds them together. And so I absolutely have heard this over and over again from folks who work with volunteers that that stuff just gets kind of put aside. And we stop othering people and we start bringing people into the fold. So I think it’s very powerful, especially in today’s world.

Kristi: Yep. That shared experience can just be transformative. Yeah.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. So let’s jump right into this. What’s a belief you hold about volunteer networks that most people in this field tend to miss or get wrong or have myths around?

Kristi: I think you touched on it already a little bit. Many organizations that utilize volunteers tend to want to hold on to their volunteers, right? They’re my volunteers and we don’t like to share. And I just think that when we silo that way or limit our volunteers to only serving at, try to encourage them just serve here, we miss out on opportunities for those volunteers to give more and to contribute to the community more, but it does create this scarcity mindset. Like, I never have enough, I don’t have enough volunteers, I can’t let this person go. And so I think as volunteer managers, and that’s really what we’re gonna kind of flesh out, is having this abundance mindset that my volunteers are not my property. And if I encourage them to go share and create networks for them to go other places, then we all win and the community wins. Right. So yeah, I think that’s kind of the direction this will go.

Tobi: Right. Yeah, absolutely. It’s a force multiplier. You know, I often say collaboration is the new competition when we’re collaborating with other organizations in our community. And you’re going to be doing some training on coalition building. I also, one of my first jobs in nonprofits was a regional outreach coordinator. And so I was building coalitions and getting out and doing partnership development and business development from the beginning, which is a really interesting job to start out with in the sector. It’s a rare kind of occurrence. And so it was obvious to me early on that these connections actually matter and we are much better. I think too, people outside of nonprofit organizations, they tend to see us as similar. They know the brands, especially the bigger ones like Habitat has a very strong brand presence. Red Cross, Make-A-Wish, these are organizations that have really big brands. But if someone has a poor experience with one nonprofit as a volunteer, like let’s say they apply and nobody ever gets back to them, then they may say volunteering as a whole isn’t for me. And they will broad brushstroke every nonprofit in the community because of one bad experience. So nonprofits in any community, back in the day when I worked in nonprofits, there was a lot of turf. There was a lot of feeling of competition, feeling of scarcity. There’s only limited funds out there. Well, there actually isn’t because if you’re looking at individual donors and volunteers, those funds are unlimited. You don’t know who’s leaving some of their bequest, their estate to you. You don’t know who works for a corporation that wants to give a big chunk of money because they’re volunteering. You don’t know those things. So I feel like people don’t understand the potential of networks and that they are seen as a network from the outsider.

Kristi: Yeah, it’s so, and we’ll get into this in my webinar in May, but we even have that challenge within our Habitat Network. Every Habitat affiliate is an independent operating organization. And so we have six Habitat affiliates in southeast Wisconsin. And so even like people donating to a ReStore, we just had a volunteer passed away and somebody sent a donation in memorial to a different affiliate and that affiliate called us and said, we think this is not for us, we think it’s for you. And it was a substantial memorial gift, right? So because I’ve worked really hard on developing this network, even within our Habitat network, we’re able to, I want to keep this very large check, but it doesn’t belong to me. And vice versa, we’ve done that back for other affiliates as well. Yeah.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. There’s more trust. There’s more ethics. I feel like people are more ethical when they know people. They just are.

Kristi: It’s all about trust and relationships, right?

Tobi: So I remember when I first started out in nonprofits, my boss would tell me, Tobi, it’s all about relationships. And I remember early on, I was like, what are you talking about? Your mouth is making words, they’re forming words, I don’t know what they mean. And it took me a pretty long time growing as a leader to really understand what the heck she meant. And after the fact, I really wish I could have gone back and said, I get it. Relationships are everything in getting our work done. How has your mindset shifted? You talked about abundance. I don’t think everybody comes out of the womb thinking abundance, or maybe we do as a child. We think from an abundant mindset and then somehow we lose that through adulthood. But what’s one mindset shift, whether it’s scarcity to abundance or some other, how have you evolved in your thinking around volunteer networks?

Kristi: Yeah, couple things. It’s interesting that you touched on that with the relationship thing, because my natural tendency, I’ve done lots of StrengthsFinder and personality. I am very task driven and very let’s get it done. And so sometimes in my younger years to the detriment of the relationships, right? And so that has been an area of growth for me. People over tasks, taking time. And so that has played into my role as a volunteer manager. And I think especially in placing people, people who come to us, it’s the Habitat brand. We really don’t have an issue recruiting new people, but not everyone who comes to us is a good fit. And so how do you balance that line of they want to contribute, but this might not be the right fit? But we have several different roles that they can plug into. And so instead of bending over backwards to adapt to make every prospective volunteer happy, to be really clear about this is the role, this is what we are looking for. And if you’re not a good fit, here’s my network of 10 other nonprofits in the city who, and by the way, I’ll introduce you, I think you’d be great. And not feeling like I gotta hold onto them just because they came to me.

Tobi: Yes, yes, yes. And being part of a network, you know, I know so-and-so over at XYZ nonprofit. If you really wanna work with puppies and kittens, they are such a good fit for you.

Kristi: Or you have this skill, this person has a skill that just doesn’t really fit in our needs, you know.

Tobi: Yeah. Or if you’re looking for a really short term one-off, I know so-and-so has a whole list of these types of projects. You know, it just makes us stronger. You become a consultant and then people start sending people to you. You know what? Kristi knows all the volunteer opportunities in town. Let’s go to her first and figure it out. She’ll be honest about whether or not Habitat’s the right fit. So I love that. In today’s world, why do you think collaboration — and really leaning in, people are overwhelmed, they feel stressed, they feel like they have enough on their plate. They’re like, what, Kristi, you’re asking me to do one more thing, get out of my office and go network. What the heck? Why is this important to do right now?

Kristi: Yeah. I’m going to use some examples from Habitat, some real life examples. In our city, there are a number of different agencies that address affordable housing. And prior to COVID and actually prior to my being at Habitat, there was some mission drift where we as an organization said yes to some projects and programs that didn’t really align with our core mission because there was funding attached, but then all of that snowballed out. And so I think it’s important because every nonprofit does have a role and does have a space. And where there tends to be overlap, building the coalition and the network can actually help clarify for each organization and for the staff and the volunteers that are carrying that out. Like we do affordable homeownership and we do it this way. Here’s another organization that’s doing rehabs. We don’t rehab houses anymore, but this other organization in our city, this is a real life scenario, they help people buy the home and then walk them through the rehab process and get the good contractors to help. So there is another way to approach affordable housing that we don’t have to invest time or energy in, and they take volunteers. So that’s a real life example. Milwaukee is really blessed. I don’t wanna go down the details of this, but we have a Community Development Alliance that is focused on housing. Our mayor just declared 2026 the year of housing and so all of these nonprofits that are working on affordable housing are working together.

Tobi: I also think in that type of coalition, it’s very sexy to big funders because they’re like, there’s not duplication of effort. My money’s not gonna be wasted. We can get bigger bang for the buck because they’re already aligned and working together.

Kristi: Yeah, and I think another real life example is our Habitat. Actually it’s a national partnership that we’re implementing locally, and your listeners can go Google it if you’re interested. It’s called Team Up. So Team Up is a national initiative and it’s a collaborative partnership between Interfaith America, Habitat International, Catholic Charities and the YUSA. Those four organizations launched about three years ago. And so we’re replicating the national partnership locally. And this is where I really wanna encourage people and we’re really gonna dig into in the seminar in May. We’re not talking about these big formal write an MOU with legal obligations. This is really an informal collaborative, sharing of information and people and resources because it’s good for the whole community. So it sounds sexy, but honestly, right now we’re taking such baby steps with our Team Up project where, hey, the YMCA is doing a river cleanup at the end of April for Earth Day. Can we share that volunteer opportunity with our volunteers so that people can go help, right? Catholic Charities needs help with some refugee immigrant resettlement. They need things for when people first move into their houses. So we’re sharing that through all of our faith partners at Habitat so that those donations can go to Catholic Charities, not us. It’s really seemingly little things and very informal, but you start to build the trust and the relationships and the awareness of what else is going on in your community.

Tobi: Yeah, and if we’re truly mission centric, then the end user, the beneficiary, whoever they are, is gonna get a value add. I remember when Medicare Part D came out, the prescription drug benefit, back in the day. And I worked for an organization, I was the director of a program where we had volunteers across the state who were doing Medicare counseling and other health insurance, helping community members, mostly Medicare beneficiaries and Medicaid beneficiaries, navigate really complex choices that they needed to make that impacted their pocketbooks. And when Medicare Part D came out, everybody was like, whoa, okay, now we’ve got to explain to the entire state how to assess and choose their Medicare Part D plan. And if they didn’t choose a plan, they would get a penalty. So there were real consequences. And if they chose the wrong plan, then they would have to pay more or not get certain medications covered. So it’s really important that Medicare beneficiaries sign up for their Part D plan. And so we had some loose affiliations. I worked with the state insurance commissioner, we worked with AARP, obviously the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, because they were the ones that were rolling out the program. So we worked really closely with them. We worked with some pharma folks because their medications are the ones that people are buying. And then all of our local senior centers and anybody who touched seniors and people with disabilities throughout the state. And I was the one in my region that facilitated the coalition. And it was so wonderful to go, okay, we have zip codes, who’s doing this work? How are we doing this work? Who has which resources? Let’s break it down by zip code and let’s split it up and then let’s come back every month and stay in touch and see if anybody’s not getting served, if there’s gaps in service. And we had a huge uptick in our state around prescription drug plan enrollment because we were organized, right?

Kristi: And it’s more efficient because you’re not duplicating effort and the volunteers and the people that are receiving the services aren’t confused because they have different people coming at them with the same information, right? Yeah.

Tobi: And we would do big enrollment events where we would all come together and we’d have tables and tables of people on computers helping people get signed up. It was just smart. And after that, we kind of continued to have good relationships amongst our different organizations. And we would talk about resource gaps. I did a fair amount of facilitation to figure out who has what, who can bring what to the table. But like you said, I don’t think we had formal MOUs with anybody. We all were getting funding from different sources, so that didn’t even really matter. The point was, let’s get people the medicines that they need at the cheapest price. That was it.

Kristi: Yep. You have a shared goal, a shared outcome that you’re all trying to work toward, and yet you’re actually kind of rowing all the same direction without doing each other’s work. Right? And it’s more fun. It honestly creates other volunteer opportunities. For example, one of our current core volunteers that helps us build houses also volunteers at a local food pantry distribution place. And so he’s created these opportunities for us to collaborate with them and learn more about what they do and share their resources. So you never know where it will lead, but it’s about getting more people involved. And I talk a lot about social capital. When you silo and you’re just concerned about your own mission, you have very bonded capital, which you need — that’s our families, our faith communities — but you miss this whole world. Bridge building is a huge part of what we do with Team Up. How do you find that common ground, bring people together so that we can serve together, whether we agree on politics or whatever? That bridge social capital is really what volunteering and building community is all about. And so those loose collaborative coalitions or networks, they don’t have to be fancy. They don’t have to be formal. But like you said, they take facilitation and effort. Somebody kind of has to keep beating the drum, which I find is my role.

Tobi: Yeah, exactly.

Kristi: So I think back to your other question, it also takes time, right? So if people are listening and going, that would be great, we’d love to partner with this, it took me two years to get a Zoom call with the person at the YMCA here locally. So you just have to keep it in front of you. We’ll talk about some ways to manage those tasks in the webinar. How do you keep on track, don’t drop the ball, and then how do you find the connections? How do you work your way in? I’m a pretty good networker. I’m not afraid to pick up the phone. But that shouldn’t be scary because there’s ways to do warm calling. Finding the right person at the organization to talk to is also sometimes a challenge.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. I remember if y’all are listening and you’re thinking you’re breaking out in a cold sweat right now because you’re like, hell no, am I going to do cold calling? That’s not how it works. There’s a technique to reaching out, and Kristi’s going to share her technique during our seminar. But I remember I was that person when I first started in my job as an outreach coordinator. I was like, I don’t want to pick up the phone. And back then people didn’t email first. They picked up the phone first. And you have to realize, it’s a mindset to say, first of all, I’m in it to win it for the people we serve. So when we get out of our own heads and know that we’re grounded in our mission, that’s the first thing. Second thing is a lot of the people you’re reaching out to, part of their job is partnership development. If you get to the right person, they’ll understand what you’re trying to get done. Third thing is, whenever I would meet with people or get on the phone with somebody, I would first listen to them and ask them questions about what they’re about. What’s your organization, what are your priorities? Tell me about what you’re working on. I’m curious so that I could understand what value I could bring to them. We often think we have to show up and have a presentation and slide deck and make a pitch. That’s actually not the smartest way to do it.

Kristi: Not at all. Just to follow up from what you just said, it’s starting with your why. Why do you want to do this? What is the benefit for you but also what could be the benefit for them? Let’s start with why. And then when you’re in that conversation, it really is more about, I always approach it like, how can I help you? I always want to give them something before the end, because I am asking for something, but I always want to be able to give them something before the end of the conversation. Like, hey, you mentioned this and I can connect you to this person, or you talked about this, here’s a great book I read about. You always want to be able to give something.

Tobi: Yeah, reciprocity is a huge human psychological trait. Let’s take a quick break and we’re gonna get into a few more practical steps that Kristi will offer to us. So we will be right back after this break with our chat with Kristi Sebald about how to build better volunteer networks in our communities. So don’t go anywhere, we will be right back.

Okay, we’re back with our discussion with Kristi Sebald on how to build better volunteer networks, most specifically in our local communities, how to get out from behind our desk. If we’re working from home, how to get out of our front door and get down the street and start building collaborations that are better for our organizations, better for our volunteers, and better for our community. That’s really what it’s all about.

And so Kristi, let’s talk about your thinking around coalition building and that abundance mindset, that there’s a way to do this that doesn’t have to be super formal or bureaucratic. We’ve talked about the benefits of coalition building. Can you share an example that stands out that was just completely awesome, didn’t take a ton of work, but had a big impact?

Kristi: You know, the other thing that I’ve found doing this work is that sometimes my organization at Habitat for Humanity can be a catalyst and help externally. So I talked about our Habitat affiliate network. I’ve talked about our network with other nonprofits in our community. But another real focus that I have in my role is working with the faith communities. Their long history of faith involvement with Habitat for Humanity, back in the day, people would show up on Saturday with their tools and all the churches would just come and they’d build a house. We don’t do it like that anymore. But that’s kind of the roots of some of our strongest coalition support.

During COVID, and that was right when I started, it was really a struggle of how do we keep our faith community partners who want to be involved, but they’re not meeting, and we can’t have them come out en masse like we had. And so we had to get really creative in maintaining and strengthening our faith partner coalitions. We have four of them. And that created all kinds of fun things that we would never have thought of. Blessings, silver linings from going through that pandemic. And so I think one that stands out to me the most is with our Catholic partners here in Milwaukee. And I’m sure some of your listeners work with their faith communities. So we have a Catholic coalition, we have an interfaith coalition which is amazing, and then we have a Presbyterian group of churches that have built a house with us every year for 30-plus years, and then we have a Lutheran coalition as well. But our Catholic coalition, each parish is doing their own thing, and the archdiocese has their offices that support that, but there was really a desire to do something together. And so again, relationship building, working with my contact at the Archdiocese and some other people, I was able to start making contacts at each parish. And that’s where even with corporations, as you’re doing this kind of networking, you’re not gonna talk to the priest or the pastor and you’re not gonna talk to the CEO at a company, but who is the person in that company that can give you the most leverage to build that support internally on their side? And so what we found with our Catholic parish partners is usually it’s their human concerns or their social justice committee and someone from that committee. You really want to find your person at each organization. Like at the YMCA, it’s the VP of programming. He and I talk monthly and we’re constantly sharing. So it’s not like you’re networking or doing a coalition with the whole organization. You do have to find who’s going to be the champion within that organization. And so it took some time, but now our Catholic coalition is probably a dozen parishes and four Catholic high schools, and Trusted Fraternal Life has their national headquarters here, so they’re involved. Over the last four or five years, each year they were volunteering and fundraising to support a house. This year they’re doing multiple houses. That one has really stood out to me because you could see it from almost nothing to now a lot.

Tobi: Wow. Yeah. And so it was just persistence and keep trying to figure out who is the right person.

Kristi: Persistence to find the right person in each parish, and also persistence in just why is this important for them? And why it’s important for parishes to come together is because they’re all part of that greater Catholic community. And this is one way they can express their faith by serving together and serving the greater community. And so it’s been really fun. People from different parishes, they know each other, but they go to different parishes and then they show up on the build site together and they’re like, oh, hey!

Tobi: Yeah, I think at core is understanding your strength as a catalyst. You mentioned at the beginning of this story, Habitat’s a really great catalyst for this. Under the archdiocese, you’d think they’d automatically already get together, but it took an outside source. And no matter what, you can be a convener no matter how big or small you are. I remember I was the state director for Enroll America for Tennessee when the Affordable Care Act first became a law. I’ve been a long time health care advocate and I took a pit stop when that happened and took six, seven months off my consulting practice and I just said, you know what, I’m going to take this job because it matters to me that people in Tennessee get access to affordable health care. And we were a tiny little organization. It was me and three other staff across the state. And we were convening and working and collaborating with other organizations that were also working on the same thing. And I remember putting together an event to really generate more support, more volunteers, more understanding in the community, more coalition building. And we convened the event, but we had all these other folks coming in. We were kind of new on the scene because Enroll America really only got formed because of the Affordable Care Act. So we were a brand new nonprofit, tiny little team, and we were convening these big events. And then I remember working with the mayor of Knoxville at the time. We wanted to get all the mayors across the state to write an op-ed and have it published in the local paper in each of our big cities: Chattanooga, Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis. And all it took was one person. The only reason I got to meet with her is because Tracy Far, who was really instrumental in starting Volunteer Pro, said, I know the mayor, I’m gonna introduce you. So I went and I talked to the mayor and I said, this is what we’re trying to do. We wanna make sure people get access to affordable healthcare. And because she said yes, then I could call the mayor of Memphis and say, you know what, I met with the mayor in Knoxville, she’s agreed. They made a soft introduction. And all of a sudden it’s not taking a ton of work, it’s just time and having people make introductions. It’s not super complicated. It’s just following the trail.

Kristi: It’s kind of more community organizing than volunteer management, but they really go hand in hand. And then you’re bringing people together to serve in Memphis and serve in Nashville. You can then become that connector, and then every community is like, well, thank you, nonprofit, for doing this because it’s making all of us better.

Tobi: Yeah. How have you done coalition building to support volunteer recruitment or bringing more volunteer support into an organization? How do you do that within Habitat right now?

Kristi: Yeah. So mostly through that piece is really intentional through our faith coalitions where we assign a house to each of them. Catholics will get multiple this year. So then it’s, we need you to fill these days. And so here’s the information. And then our normal recruitment pipeline, the communication goes out through all of the faith organizations. So they become like the advertising promo for our volunteer opportunities. Also like I mentioned earlier with the YMCA, they don’t have a ton of group opportunities. So organizations will come and ask, can our company come volunteer at the Y? They don’t place a lot of groups because they have background checks and working with youth and things like that. So they’ll refer groups to us. Hey, we can’t take your group, but Habitat probably can. So the reciprocal benefit of how we support each other’s volunteer recruitment, the intentionality comes around communication. When are the opportunities available and how are they being shared and who are they being shared with? Then you really have to involve marketing and communications teams. If you’re a shop of one and I’ve been there too, you really have to be intentional about creating your communication plans so that you stay on task.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. I love this idea of cross promotion, also cross referral. We do this with clients in direct service organizations all the time. Someone will come to our organization, we do an intake with them, they don’t qualify for our services, then we’re immediately looking for other services where they can fit. I don’t know why this is such a strange concept for volunteer organizations.

Kristi: I mean, another example for us, and this happens pretty seasonally. We live in Wisconsin, January and February. We still have volunteer days in January and February, but there are fewer and far between because it’s really cold. So a former colleague that used to work at Habitat is now running a program at another nonprofit in our city and he reached out to me in January and said, we need help, you got anybody? I’m like, yeah, because we can’t place many in January. So I put out a call through our communication channels to say, here’s an opportunity if you are interested in volunteering at this other organization, here’s the contact information. So it becomes this. It really is about clear communication and not doing anything new. That’s why I want people to hear too. It’s about having the relationships and the trust so that you share the information, and then you have to have the communication channels to get it out.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. Not holding on to your volunteers for dear life. People volunteer for more than one organization. That is a reality.

Kristi: Right, and I think the other fear, volunteer managers are like, well, if I send them to go volunteer at this organization in January, are they gonna come back to me in April and May? Yes. Yes, they are.

Tobi: Yeah. And you’ve provided a service. If they really have a vision for how they’re going to contribute to the community, you’re helping them fulfill that vision by making referrals. It’s just a no-brainer.

If someone feels like they need to improve in this area, maybe they are like me when I was early in my career. I would break out in a cold sweat if I had to pick up a phone and call some stranger. I was like, what? They’re not going to want to hear from me. I feel like a salesperson. I had to get over it. It took me a while. Y’all think I’m a total extrovert. I’m not. So it wasn’t my favorite thing. But once I started getting out and working with people and I started to see success and benefit from these coalitions, and I started getting to know people, the more I did that throughout my career, the more I was like, you know what? This is really fun.

What’s one simple step for people who are like, no, I can’t. I gotta stay at my desk. Either they are saying, no, I don’t have enough time or I have enough priorities right now. And for those of you watching on YouTube, I’m looking straight into the camera right now. You need to ask yourself, are you not doing this because you’re uncomfortable? Or are you not building these networks because you don’t have enough time? Because if you’re using the “I don’t have enough time” excuse, Kristi has just given you a bazillion reasons why you do have time, because it might save you time, right?

Kristi: Yeah. So the very first thing I would do is talk to your core volunteers and see where else they volunteer. Find out where else are they connected. Because probably most of them, you’re not their only gig. And it might be they’re also volunteering at their faith community or their church. That’s a connection you could explore there. Maybe they work at a company and their company is supporting some other nonprofits. But start with your core people that are already connected. Start with an attitude of curiosity. I’m really curious, who else are you supporting? Your volunteers could very well be donating to other organizations in your community financially. So start there, get curious and get ready to have some coffee.

Tobi: Yeah, accept the invitations when there’s coalition invitations. Don’t ignore them. Don’t delete them. Go to them. Even if it’s not completely aligned early on, I say go to everything. Say yes to everything early on and just get to know people. And I always like to ask people, who else? I’m trying to do X, Y, Z. Who else? It has to be mission based, it can’t be about you. When I was out networking and doing outreach, we’re trying to make sure everybody has access to affordable healthcare. We want to work with organizations so we’re not duplicating effort and helping people in Tennessee understand how to sign up and get inexpensive healthcare. And people would go, okay, yeah. And I would say, who should I talk to? At the end of every single meeting, I would say, who else do you think I should talk to? And they would say, you should talk to so-and-so. Would you like me to make an introduction? Because I spent 75% of the meeting listening to them and learning about their organization, their priorities, their challenges. And then coming back with, here are the things I can help out with, or here’s somebody I can put you in touch with, just like you said. And then at the very end, who else do you think I should talk to? By then, we’re partners. It can happen in an hour.

Kristi: Yep. Again, the other thing that I’ve found really important, and going back to I’m a task oriented, get things done kind of person, but pulling back and thinking about the relationship. I think this is really key and we don’t do this much. After those coffee meetings, I write a handwritten thank you note and plop it in the mail. Thank you for your time. Dear so-and-so, thank you for your time. Looking forward to working with you. Grateful. Simple.

Tobi: Yes. And how many times do people get an email like that? It’s something.

Kristi: Right. That stands out to people and then they come back to you.

Tobi: Yeah, forget the email unless you’re following up with something. Often I am. I’ll leave people with a paper packet. I usually bring a folder with some info in it and I’ll say, I’m going to leave this packet with you. It has my business card. Even today I would do that if I were doing this. But at the end, I don’t whip it out at the beginning and pull up my laptop and do a pitch. I’m just sitting and listening and curious about learning about their organization. And then if I see anything that comes up later, I can say, you know what, I’ll start being that connector. But also anytime I make any commitment to anybody, I would get it to them the next day if I could. Follow through. You build trust or break trust in your follow through.

Kristi: Absolutely. Yep. Follow up with an email within 24 hours. If you promise something, get it to them. Absolutely. And like I said, for people that are listening, it might feel like this is outside the scope of volunteer management, but just remember that you are helping build relationships in your community that is gonna help and support your volunteer program at your organization.

Tobi: Yeah, I mean, community engagement, and you can do it in an intentional purposeful way. So it might be I am doing this networking to find new sources of volunteers. I’m going to network with folks with that purpose in mind.

Kristi: And I do that with churches, with companies. I want them to bring groups to volunteer. Absolutely.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. It’s not just anything goes, right? And we don’t promise things we can’t deliver either. It’s a purposeful practice.

Kristi: No, my boss wouldn’t like it if I went to have coffee every day just to go have coffee with people.

Tobi: Yeah. Well, Kristi, this has been really fun and very insightful. A lot of wisdom here. You and I have both been in the trenches doing networking. For tips on collaboration and partnership, I did want to call this out to our audience. Check out Volunteer Nation podcast episode 152, “What Every Nonprofit Executive Should Know About Community Engagement.” So if you’re wanting to get this as part of your list of responsibilities, or you haven’t been able to make time for it, sometimes you have to convince others of its importance. And it’s not just a one-shot thing, as Kristi said, it’s something that you have to do repeatedly. And a relationship doesn’t stay a relationship unless you cultivate it. So it takes time to both establish and maintain collaborations and volunteer networks. So listen to that episode and it’ll give you ideas about talking points, and maybe even send your ED or your boss or your program director to it if they aren’t up on why this is important. So I wanted to call that out. But Kristi, in your upcoming Impact Lab Advanced Seminar, “Building Community-Wide Volunteer Networks and Coalitions” on May 12th, what will you help people do differently? You’ve talked a little bit about this throughout our talk today, and who will benefit most from joining you in this training?

Kristi: Yeah, well, we’re going to flesh out kind of what we talked about today with some really actionable steps. I’m going to share, like when you get to the actual work of this, I have email scripts, I have phone scripts that I can share with the community. Here’s what I would say. And then a brainstorm checklist of here’s how to find places to start. I have some graphics I’m going to share about community organizing and what it is and what it isn’t. So you can keep your focus on track and narrow because it’s real easy when you network. I’m sure we’ve both been accused of like, pull it back, what are you trying to do? So I have some graphics I will share. This is really timely for me as well in my own work. So I’m really looking forward to digging into it with the community and hoping that I learn something too.

Tobi: Yeah, so it sounds like it’s gonna be a playbook. Basically a very practical playbook. Folks, if you’re listening right now and this date has passed, May 12th has passed, no worries because we post all our replays inside the Impact Lab. We also will be sharing, Kristi has lots of different resources, we’re gonna combine them into a start guide so you have an implementation workbook that you can take and walk with and really make it happen. So if you can’t join us live, it’s okay because it’ll still be there in the community. So Kristi, this has been really helpful. It’s been fun to walk down memory lane a little bit. It’s been a long time since I’ve done community development in the way that I used to. So it’s been really fun to just talk it through and hear some of your insights and see that we have some overlapping experience.

So to our audience, if you’re ready to really go beyond these ideas and take something into implementation to create a sustainable volunteer strategy that includes a network around you, a coalition where you can work in tandem with and grow with in your local area, then join Kristi for this seminar on May 12th. Again, it’s called “Building Community-Wide Volunteer Networks and Coalitions.” And also, you can interact with Kristi anytime you want right there in the community, because she’s a member. So if you’re an intermediate to advanced leader of volunteers, the Impact Lab is the best place for you. And we also have monthly coaching calls, so you get live advice, and we do Q&As at the end. It’s not the same thing as going to a free webinar. It’s much more than that. Plus we have a library of resources. In fact, we have an MOU if you are putting together a partnership agreement. We have a template for that inside the community.

If you are intermediate to advanced, the Impact Lab is the perfect place for you. If you’re a beginner, the best place for you is our fundamentals course to get that foundation and use that as a springboard. And then once you’re ready, jump into that community. So I want to welcome everybody to that if you’re interested. I’m really excited to hear your training, Kristi. I’m sure it’ll teach me a few things. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend or colleague. It’s free. If it was helpful, give us a rating and review. We always love that. And then join us next week, same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Thanks everybody, and thanks Kristi.