Member Spotlight: Matching Volunteer Roles And Creating The Perfect Fit for Every Volunteer
Placing volunteers can be a lot like matchmaking, and finding the right fit for both the organization and volunteer is critical for long-term success. At Humane Fort Wayne, they are taking matchmaking to another level by connecting with volunteer passions from day one.
We are joined this month by Dani Wagner, CVA to chat about how building relationships with volunteers has helped them think outside the box and find creative ways to utilize volunteer talents to drive the mission.
Chelsey: Welcome Dani. I’m so glad that you’re here. Tell me a little bit about your organization.
Dani: I work with Humane Fort Wayne as the Volunteer Development Coordinator. We are the region’s only nonprofit animal shelter, low cost spay/neuter/wellness clinic, and pet food pantry.
Chelsey: How do volunteers make an impact at your Humane Fort Wayne?
Dani: Our volunteers make an impact across the board. When I came on board six years ago, the organization went through Service Enterprise and it really restructured our whole program to have volunteers at every level. From helping with things like cleaning kennels, leading playgroups, assisting with surgery things like organizing fundraisers on their own outside of the organization as third-party hosts, and lending their voices to various planning committees.
Chelsey: What kind of events do your volunteers have as third-party fundraisers?
Dani: One of our volunteers is actually doing her own right now. She’s trying to raise 30,000 pounds of pet food by her 30th birthday and she gave herself 30 days to do it. (She actually just announced that she was able to raise just over 27,000 pounds!) We’ll have things, we’ll get invited to different organizations, we’ll put on events, and we’ll be the nonprofit of the event.
Chelsey: That’s fun. How do those events get started? I’m always interested in how people create and what kind of support organizations provide those folks that come forward and say that they want to do something for their organization.
Dani: We have a form on our website for third-party fundraisers that anyone can fill out, and then they can request assistance in different areas if they need it. Then there’s a negotiation back and forth to see if we can support it. Sometimes we’re able to combine events.
We have one that a restaurant has put on for us every year for 10 years. A local bank here wanted to do an adoption event on the same weekend, we were able to just combine those two and had an adoption event at the restaurant sponsored by the bank.
Chelsey: I love how volunteers can get involved in that from a fundraising and community awareness perspective.
Dani: We encourage volunteers to not just do what they can sign up for. We really want to promote them in finding something that is theirs and that they can make their own. A lot of our long-term volunteers don’t necessarily do stuff that another volunteer would ever do. It’s something that we’ve created together and cultivated an opportunity specifically for that volunteer or for a group of volunteers. Sometimes volunteers even come to us with ideas and we try to make those ideas come to life.
When volunteers are able to tap their true strengths (these are not always those they use at work), they feel more fulfilled and have a greater sense of personal volition and agency. Learn How to Match Volunteers with Rockin’ Roles HERE>>
Chelsey: How do you communicate these types of opportunities to your volunteers?
Dani: We talk about finding your niche right from the beginning during our orientation, and all of our communication to volunteers that are starting out (or struggling down the line) has language in it about how we are here to help them find the perfect fit.
Our Executive Director likes to say that if you come in and you are an accountant and you want to do accounting, great. But if you’re an accountant who loves ballroom dancing and you want to put on a ballroom dancing fundraiser for us, then we want to encourage that and we want to see that grow.
Our whole staff is really wonderful at encouraging the volunteers to bring their own ideas. It doesn’t have to be one-size-fits-all for volunteering here. Obviously, we do still have those needs. We have kennels that we have to clean every morning and we work different ways to make those things happen, but really what we want is to see our volunteers grow out of positions and make something that is their own that they want to keep coming back for.
Chelsey: How did you get into the field of leading volunteers?
Dani: I moved back to Indiana about six years ago and I knew that I wanted to volunteer at an animal shelter specifically because I love animals and always have. I had adopted a dog eight years ago and volunteered in California where I’d lived. I started volunteering here on the weekends and was lucky enough to be offered the opportunity when the prior coordinator left.
Chelsey: It’s great that she found you. What’s the biggest challenge for your program right now?
Dani: I mean, I think just like everybody across the board, we’re still just not seeing the numbers that we did pre-COVID.
Chelsey: How are you engaging with your volunteers when you might not see them on a regular basis?
Dani: We have a private Facebook group that we kept active all through COVID and still use. We had daily “lives” scheduled either showing the shelter animals or Q&A with different staff members and other content. It gives our volunteers an easy touchpoint with the organization.
Want to engage virtual volunteers at your organization? Find some Innovative Ideas to Increase Virtual Volunteer Engagement in Your Nonprofit HERE>>
Chelsey: Did you have a lot of engagement with that?
Dani: We did! We were still operational, and our volunteers were included in small groups, but a lot of them were sick themselves or caring for sick family at home and couldn’t come in. Post-COVID we did not really see a huge drop-off in engagement from our core active shelter volunteers.
Chelsey: What do you love most about your job?
Dani: The thing I love the most about my job is probably when we are able to make that connection of a volunteer coming in to start cleaning the cat rooms and getting to sit down with them and figure out where they want to fit. I guess that personalization of a position for volunteers is my favorite thing when we get to that point.
Chelsey: I love that your volunteers are able to have a working knowledge of all the pieces at the organization and then drill down to what they would like to do. It probably helps when they go out to fundraisers or other community events to know all that goes on behind the scenes.
Dani: That’s one of the things I always tell our volunteers at our shelter tour, we really try to stay as flexible as possible. As long as you’re meeting our required amount, you’re not required to sign up for a certain number of shifts or anything like that, you just have to hit a certain number of hours and it’s not a high number.
I really encourage people to sign up for as many different tasks as they can because they never know what they’re going to like. Those are always the most successful volunteers, the ones that get in and try to learn a little bit of everything instead of just sticking to what they think they want to do and not try anything else.
Chelsey: So true. What project are you working on right now in your program?
Dani: We are looking at growing our public volunteer opportunities. We have two right now where you can just sign up to volunteer for our Tails on Trails program where you can come in and check out a dog. And then our Pet Food Pantry. But we’re talking about potentially making our kennel cleaning a public opportunity, so that college students can come in and get their hours at a more convenient time for them. It will help better serve the shelter and free up time to take the volunteer program in other directions.
Chelsey: Tell me about this “checking out a dog” business.
Dani: We call ours “Tails on Trails” because we partnered with the local trail system here in Fort Wayne. They are building the back end of the trail system right in front of our shelter.
Interested people can go onto our website, take a 10-minute orientation, and a quiz/application. Once you’re approved, you just call in and schedule a time to come check out a dog for the day. You can do between 30 minutes to the full day if you want. We encourage people to use our trails, but you can also go anywhere that dogs are allowed.
Chelsey: Sounds like you all are super creative. I would just want to be in the room and like just watch all of this happen!
Dani: That is one thing from day one, our Executive Director has always said, “We’ll try anything once. If it doesn’t work, we’ll go back.” It’s important to us to keep trying new things and making sure that we’re trying to be thinking ahead of what the community needs instead of dealing with problems as they come.
Chelsey: What would you say to someone thinking about joining VolunteerPro?
Dani: Do it! I’ve been thinking about it for the last probably three years since I found out about VolunteerPro. I’ve done the free webinars but having relationships with people, even in the short time that I’ve been on there, it is easy to get questions answered and work with people that have actually been leading volunteers for years and not just a few months. It’s been very, very helpful.
Chelsey: If you had one piece of advice you could give a new leader of volunteers, what would it be?
Dani: Be patient. It is overwhelming so many times throughout the year, and this work will do nothing if not teaching patience. You will get there. Start small. Just work on one little project at a time and eventually you’ll get there.
Chelsey: What keeps you busy outside of work?
Dani: I’m married, and we have two dogs. I spend all of my free time with them. I’m a huge reader. I love to read fantasy books and sci-fi books. I also cook a lot and we love to travel.
Chelsey: Thanks for joining me today, Dani. I look forward to seeing you in the VolunteerPro community.
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