Volunteer Management

There are a wonderful array of interesting and informative articles and tools on the Internet on a variety of volunteer topics:

1. Getting the organization ready.
   • Volunteer Canada: The Volunteer Management Audit: The Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement; a useful guide to assist board and staff to work through initial planning stage to engage volunteers.
2. Applications forms
   • The Volunteer Application Form, from Proof Positive
3. Position descriptions
   • Volunteer Canada web site.
4. Interviewing and screening:
   • Strategy for Interviewing Volunteers; Sample questions and other suggestions (keep scrolling through the pages) from Literacy Partners of Manitoba
   • Volunteer Interviewing Scenarios; Written by Steve McCurley for CASA. Also available as a PDF.
   • Volunteer Screening; Scroll down to detailed volunteer screening section on the CASA site
   • What Is Screening?; Excellent overview of the rationale for and steps of effective volunteer screening from Volunteer Canada. Includes "Screening in Faith" PDF for faith communities.
     Volunteer Canada: Safe Steps: A Volunteer Screening Process. Published by Volunteer Canada, 2001.
   Articles and excerpts on this topic:
   • Assessing and Interviewing Volunteers, tips from Volunteering Tasmania
   • Before Interviewing Volunteers, tip sheet from Ohio State 4-H
   • Charities Find Ways to Screen Volunteers Despite Insufficient Funds, Time from The Chronicle of Philanthropy
   • Gut Feelings and Intuition from Beyond Police Checks
   • How to Select the Best Among Prospective Volunteers, Voluntary Sector Knowledge Network (Canada)
   • Interviewing Basics from the Volunteers in Parks Guidelines
   • Methods of Screening Potential Volunteers, by Monika Penner, CharityChannel
5. Recruitment
   • Visconti, Ron, Brounstein, Marty. Effective Recruitment Strategies. 50 Minute Crisp Publications.
   • Nelson, Judith Grummon. Six Keys: to Recruiting, Orienting and Involving Non-profit Board Members. National Centre for Non-profit Boards.Washington, D.C. 1991.
   • Vancouver Volunteer Centre. An Action Book: Volunteers: How to Find them and How to Keep them. The Volunteer Centre, Vancouver, B.C. 1990.
   • Vineyard, Sue. Secrets of Motivation: How to get and Keep Volunteers and Paid Staff. Heritage Arts Publishing, Downers Grove, Illinois. 1991.
6. Orientation & Training
   • Vineyard, Sue. The Great Trainers Guide. Heritage Arts Publishing. Downers Grove, ILL. 1990.
   • Bondage, D., Thackeracher, D. Adult Learning Principles and Their Application to Program Planning. The Minister of Education, Ontario, Queen's Park, Toronto. 1980.
7. Selected web sites
   • Volunteer Canada (excellent resources on screening, risk management, audits) Is the site for CVI resources: Canadian Voluntarism Initiative.
   • OCVI (Ontario) Ontario site of the Canadian Voluntarism Initiative.
   • Professional Administrators of Volunteer Resources - PAVR-O - (Standards of Practice)
   • Charity Village - good research and topical articles on all areas of volunteer management.
   • www.volunteering.org.uk
   • www.nonprofitscan.ca
   • www.worldvolunteerweb.org