Member Spotlight: How Building Structure Made Time for a Volunteer Strategy 

Welcome to another installment of our Member Spotlight series, where we are proud to feature the real-life challenges and victories of volunteer leadership professionals who are taking action and gaining traction in their volunteer strategy. 

Recently, Valerie had the opportunity to sit down with Laura Brindza, Volunteer Program Director for All Caring Hospice, in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Valerie: Hello, Laura! Thank you so much for making time to speak with me. Can you tell us a bit about you and an overview of your organization?   

Laura: My name’s Laura Brindza. I am the Volunteer Program Director for All Caring Hospice. We’re in Cleveland, Ohio, and I’m over both the Cleveland and the Canfield Youngstown office, and then oversee the volunteer coordinators at our Cincinnati office, as well as our South Carolina and Georgia office.  

We’re a smaller, independent hospice that uses volunteers to help support patients and families either indirectly or directly, providing added care to improve their quality of life.  

We have administrative volunteers helping in the office with mailings, bereavement volunteers, as well as those direct patient care volunteers that go out to see patients and sit with them and their families to provide socialization and companionship.  

And then, in the past year, we just started the creative volunteers to make comfort items: lap blankets cards, and various other things to help celebrate and support our patients.   

Previously, I worked for a large insurance company paying death claims on life policies and dealt directly with bereaved families. I had already started volunteering with hospice, using the skills gained from my job as a claims examiner to support bereaved families.  

I began shadowing my Volunteer Coordinator (and now my mentor) and decided to make a career change.  

My background in marketing and advertising also helps in my new career to recruit and market my program to the communities I serve. I am VERY passionate about connecting volunteers’ specific talents to help them find a rewarding hospice volunteer journey! 

Valerie: So about how many volunteers do you have now? 

Laura: I have about 35 active on my roster and then I have about 25 to 30 creative volunteers. Creative volunteers make cards, masks, and lap blankets whenever they have time. So, they’re not really counted on my roster because they’re not fully onboarded and background checked.  

Then, I have four virtual volunteers that are out of state that actually do remote projects and call a few patients on a weekly basis 

Altogether, about 60 volunteers. 

Valerie: Working directly with clients, a lot of your support relies on that interaction. I imagine that really hit your program hard this last year. Have you been able to have those volunteers come in regularly?   

Laura: We had to pivot and think of virtual and remote ways to engage our volunteers. I had already been doing the card making workshops to supply our patient care volunteers, that were actually going out and interacting with the families, additional ways to reach out to their patients during that time.  

It just started snowballing.  

I started getting more and more cards and even got them from other countries. I got one volunteer in Germany and one in Saudi Arabia and they were scanning their artwork to me, and I was printing it on card stock. So, I was definitely thinking outside the box when it came to virtual and remote opportunities.  

Valerie: Yeah. Going virtual definitely opens up who you can engage as a volunteer, which is great. I imagine having people from different countries participate brings a lot of value to your clients, as well.  

They’re seeing these people, from so far away, caring about their experience. So that’s great. 

Laura’s Challenge: Finding Structure and Defining Her Volunteer Strategy 

Valerie: how did you first hear about Tobi Johnson and VolunteerPro? 

Laura: I needed more continuing education after getting certified as a Certified Volunteer Administrator (CVA). I joined a networking group of all the nonprofits in Northeast Ohio, FVA Ohio, which is a Forum of Volunteer Administrators.  

We share best practices, education, continuing education workshops and coffee chats to share our experiences-so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I think Tobi came to my attention from social media feeds related to that. Maybe in my Facebook? LinkedIn? 

Valerie: Were you looking for something in particular?  What was your biggest challenge prior to becoming a VolunteerPro member? 

Laura: I was looking for ways to kind of structure my program and do some strategic planning. When I came into my program, there were zero volunteers. To meet the regulations of Medicare, every hospice program has to have a volunteer program and meet a minimum requirement of hours each month. Social workers were managing our programs and having to do it part-time, in addition to their other work.  

So, there was nothing in place when I started. Nothing digital. There was a training manual binder for me and my volunteers, but nothing on the computer, no resources, no presentations. I really had to start from scratch.  

Even now, we have one job description that encompasses all of our volunteers. So, that was one of the workshops that I did – writing accurate job descriptions and expanding my program so that it would encompass all of our volunteer roles. 

I feel like that happens a lot for volunteer managers who come into the job and there’s no set structure in place.  

You’re doing so many different tasks! You’re strategy or HR. You’re marketing, You’re just doing so much. It’s just a piece here and a piece there and you have to kind of figure out how to make it all work together. Wearing MANY different hats is part of our job description! 

Laura’s Objective: Establishing Basic Foundations for a Successful Volunteer Strategy

Valerie: So outside of getting this kind of structure in place, did you have any other goals or objectives in mind?   

Laura:  I think I had the recruitment piece down pretty good.  

I was a recruitment manager for the Girl Scouts in Ohio, and that is a pretty strenuous job. That’s all you do – is recruitment. You don’t really get to build those relationships with the volunteers.  

They got handed off to the engagement team or the community outreach team. For All Caring, there is so much more to the relationships. 

Over the last two years, there has been significant turnover. Our Hospice used a LSW and a music therapist to manage their volunteer programs. It was hard for them to focus enough time and energy to make a difference and build relationships with their volunteers, while maintaining their other positions.  

In the process of training them, I realized no procedures were documented. So, the training of new volunteer coordinators needed some help. 

We need accurate job descriptions that apply to all of our volunteer roles, virtual, creative, and, eventually, we’re adding vigil volunteers to sit with patients when they’re declining in their last days and hours. That will require them to do additional training, above and beyond what the normal job description says.  

So, we need job descriptions or we can’t really recruit for the roles. Clear guidelines will let a volunteer know what the expectations are. 

Laura’s Results: Procedures Into Progress 

Laura: This year, I started doing onboarding zoom calls with the different offices as they onboard their nurses or their marketers or their social workers to engage the whole team into engaging our volunteers and supporting our volunteer program and appreciating them.  

We have a volunteer appreciation gathering and, this year, we did it virtually with several staff members on the call. We created a “Kudo Board,” as well. That’s a virtual online card and the staff all posted little gifs and quotes or comments thanking our volunteers for their service.  

We’re able to share that and post it on our social media. It was a great way to engage the staff without having them do a lot of extra work. 

I’m also, slowly, developing all of the documentation for my program and being proactive instead of reactive.  

Just recently, I did the VolunteerPro workshop about working ON my program versus IN my program because before we got volunteers, I had to step up and fill in and, and do some of the visits and some of the interaction with our patients and families until we got volunteers in place.  

I was doing trainings one-on-one instead of in groups just to get the ball rolling. Now, I can actually step back and train three or four volunteers at a time. Since the trainings are split into two or three sessions, I’ve used VolunteerPro resources on how to keep them engaged in between those sessions too. 

I created a training manual that will now be used company wide. 

We now have volunteer teams to help manage the different volunteer roles created over the last year and build stronger communication with them. 

It has really helped me get my program organized and plan for the future. Had I not joined prior to the pandemic, I don’t think I would have been poised to “pivot and change” with all the challenges I was faced with last year.  

I think my upper management is finally taking notice of all the hard things and all the effort I’m putting into the program to build it right. 

What Laura Wants You to Know

Valerie: what would you say to somebody who is on the fence about becoming a member? 

Laura: I found VolunteerPro and some of the resources that I’ve gained from it really have elevated my program.  

I think just having a network of people, the coaching calls, where you can interact with other volunteer managers that may be in other States or other countries, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. 

 You can ask them and they’ll gladly share their resources with you. And even if it’s a different type of organization, you can always adapt the materials to suit your needs.   

I know I have one PowerPoint that I use for my informational sessions and recruitment sessions to sell our program and engage the volunteers to sign up with us.  

That alone has been invaluable because it makes our organization look more professional. I didn’t have to spend hours and hours on a presentation when the format was already there. 

I’m still striving to be proactive instead of reactive. It’s easier to find the resources and get what I need quickly to help me in my job.  

I think half the battle is believing in yourself, your authority and managing your confidence to become a leader.