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August 2011 

Tools for In-House Educators: Teaching Your Colleagues to Work with Volunteers   

In This Issue
Featured Resource: Training Busy Staff to Succeed with Volunteers: The 55-Minute Staff Training Series (Complete Set)
Other Resources
Excerpt: "Developing Staff Interest in Training and Education in Managing Volunteers"
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 Everyone Ready: Volunteer Management Skill-Building Program 

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Everyone Ready
Online Training
Designing Work for Today's Volunteers
(Online Seminar)
Starting September 19, 2011

Trainer: Steve McCurley, Partner, VMS Systems, Washington, USA

Define tasks for volunteers that benefit the organization, allow the volunteer to make a significant contribution, and work for today's time-challenged population.

Access this online seminar plus other topics and benefits by signing up for our $99 trial run.

Managers, coordinators, and directors of volunteer involvement are in key positions to affect staff perception of volunteering throughout the organization. It's up to you to start the ball rolling and to speak out for what is best for your organization. Taking on the role of in-house educator can ensure that your organization obtains the maximum benefit from volunteer involvement, while preparing for the best possible experience for volunteers as well. Here are some tools to help.

resource2 Featured Resource
Training Busy Staff to Succeed with Volunteers: The 55-Minute Staff Training Series (Complete Set)
By Betty Stallings

By the PeopleTeach all staff the fundamentals of working with volunteers in your setting with 12 ready-to-deliver, but completely adaptable, training sessions. Each training module is designed for delivery in 55 minutes of staff time - complete with a detailed trainer's guide and PowerPoint presentation.

Visit our online bookstore for the list of 12 training topics, a sample of the material, and what other readers have to say about this unique resource. In PDF format with PowerPoint slide presentations embedded. Buy the complete set or individual modules. Multiple-Use licenses are available as well.

Order Now
resource2 Other Resources


More Resources

 

Stalking the Elusive Executive 

Educating "up" is a big part of the in-house educator's role. This free e-publication has a dozen tips written mainly for volunteer program managers who need help in gaining administrative support, even to get their bosses to read a book on the topic of volunteers.

 

Leading the Way to Successful Volunteer Involvement: Practical Tools for Busy Executives
After reading the guide above, this is the book to share with that overly busy ED! It's a set of checklists, worksheets, idea stimulators, and other practical guides for senior-level leaders to incorporate volunteer involvement as a key ingredient in the overall strategy of an organization. The materials are all discussion starters on critical elements of supporting volunteer involvement.

 

Focus on Volunteering KOPYKITTM 

For training on the run or short brown bag lunch meetings...formatted, printable pages about volunteering, how to work with volunteers, the history of volunteering, and today's trends, for use as training handouts, bulletin board posters, newsletter inserts.

 

Why It Matters 

Need help convincing decision-makers why it's so important to train all staff about working with volunteers? Visit this free area on our informational site for the Everyone Ready Online Volunteer Management Program. 

 

Training Designs in e-Volunteerism 

A regular feature section of our online journal, e-Volunteerism, is "Training Designs."  These quarterly articles provide training examples, exercises, tools, resources and tips on various aspects of content and processes in training staff and/or volunteers.  Subscribers get complete access to 11 years of these articles.

Resources Book Excerpt
"Developing Staff Interest in Training and Education in Managing Volunteers"

Excerpt from Training Busy Staff to Succeed with Volunteers: The 55-Minute Staff Training Series (Complete Set) 

by Betty Stallings

� 2007, Energize, Inc. 

 

Staff will only be interested in training if they can understand how it will benefit them. It must be perceived as solving their problems. For example, rather than inviting them to a workshop on "interviewing volunteers," invite them to learn how to design interview questions that will screen in the right volunteers. The following are some additional suggestions:

  • Involve staff in the process of identifying skill/information gaps and designing methods to provide them. Utilize these same staff to promote the training to other staff.
  • Make certain that the training is designed to solve staff identified problems. If you alone have defined the needs, your presentation will fall on deaf ears.
  • Have the agency administrator endorse the training and participate, if possible.
  • Offer the same training topic twice so that staff can select the most convenient time to attend.
  • If you have a three to four part series, offer a certificate of completion suitable for framing. Write a letter for the participant's personnel file.
  • Utilize staff in the training. A peer-to-peer educational exchange is generally more readily accepted. This is a wonderful way to recognize a staff person who models excellent leadership of volunteers.
  • Involve some of your outstanding volunteers in parts of the training. (In a seminar on staff training I gave to a Florida DOVIA, a participant said she learned the most about recognition when a panel of her organization's volunteers shared what kinds of recognition they had received and which ones had been the most meaningful.)
  •  If, due to budget restraints and other barriers, you are not given staff time to present skills training workshops, offer an optional lunch-time series where lunch (and perhaps other incentives) are built in. On a tight staff training budget, one innovative director of volunteer services offered a four-part optional brown bag seminar series called "Skillbuilding Workshops in Bite-Sized Pieces." Her "menu" of topics was quite enticing. If the word gets out that the sessions are beneficial, you may reach many who will share the word with others.
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Permission is granted for organizations to reprint this excerpt. Reprints must provide full acknowledgment of the source, as cited here:
Excerpt from Training Busy Staff to Succeed with Volunteers: The 55-Minute Staff Training Series (Complete Set) by Betty Stallings, � 2007, Energize, Inc. Available in the Energize Online Bookstore at http://www.energizeinc.com/store/4-109-E-1 .
Energize, Inc.
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Philadelphia, PA 19144
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www.energizeinc.com

Energize empowers and inspires leaders of volunteers worldwide. Our specialty is creating and selecting the most relevant, innovative resources in volunteer management. We're advocates for the power of volunteers and for the recognition of the leaders who unleash it.
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