Member Spotlight: Starting a Nonprofit to Support Middle School Extracurriculars In this month’s Member Spotlight, we sit down with VolunteerPro Member Amber Lancaster, founder of Start1Spark, who shares about her experience starting a new nonprofit in the middle of a global pandemic and what inspired her to take the leap. How Pandemic Shutdowns Highlighted Economic [...]
16 Wise Questions to Ask Volunteers to Encourage Deep Commitment Throughout the recruitment and screening process, there are helpful questions to ask volunteers that can both decide whether a volunteer is a good match and set them up for a successful experience. The questions to ask volunteers listed below can be asked at outreach events, [...]
Diversity and Inclusion in Volunteer Opportunities: What’s the Role of Volunteer Managers? While many people are interested in promoting and championing diversity and inclusion in volunteer opportunities, my sense is that many people feel overwhelmed with the idea of actually pulling it off. On a personal level, they feel worried or confused about how to [...]
Feeling Stuck? Help Your Team Pivot to a Growth Mindset The concept of a growth mindset isn’t new but applying it specifically to nonprofits and volunteer engagement might be. In this post, we explore how to help volunteers and the co-workers who lead them to ditch the fixed mindsets that are holding them back and [...]
Member Spotlight: Sweat Equity & Service Learning When thinking about college spring break, a beach party might be the first thing that comes to mind. However, for college and university students across the country that have partnered with (HFHI) Habitat for Humanity International, those scholars are thinking about an alternative spring break, a "Sweat Break" [...]
Share Your Program's ROI with a Volunteer Impact Portfolio It’s no secret that volunteer services departments suffer from an often stunning lack of adequate resources, and the perennial question is always, "How do we get more money?" One way to encourage deeper support is to routinely and concretely show how the resources were used effectively [...]
You’re Invited to Peek Behind the Curtain When we hear "peek behind the curtain," it reminds us of the ominous Oz from Wizard of Oz. Today, in the fashion of the movie, we are giving a behind-the-scenes peek into VolunteerPro membership. If you ever wanted to know what membership is like, follow me down the [...]
Preparing Co-Workers to Lead Volunteers Online & On Land Many nonprofit staff are unprepared, and therefore reluctant, to assume the responsibility to lead volunteers. They are often resistant to engaging volunteers in their departments and, even when they do, it’s not always smooth sailing. But you understand what they don’t - that your volunteer corps [...]
