This organisation has earned a star for excellence in Volunteer Management

There’s been some talk from associations for Volunteer Managers on creating accreditation type programs for organisations. Accreditation is a good thing and many organizations in many industries rely on this process.

Sadly, it’s never gotten off the ground as far as volunteer management is concerned.

Wouldn’t it be great to see associations for volunteer managers adopt a system where they can say that an organisation is Association approved? And that approval will last 2 years.

Associations would develop a criteria and send a member annually to ascertain that criteria was being met…paid for of course by the organisation engaging volunteers.

What would be your criteria for an organisation to get the tick of approval from a national volunteer management association?

Some of my thoughts

•The Volunteer program receives an annual budget equitable to other programs within the organisation

•The Volunteer Manager sits in a position equitable to other management

•The organisational mission or value statement acknowledges its volunteering team

•The Volunteer Manager is seen as the expert in all matters volunteering

•The Volunteer Manager is able to demonstrate excellence in service provision and leadership

•An independent audit of the volunteering team determines that volunteer management is pivotal in the success of the volunteer program

6 criteria with each carrying a score of 16.6.

The organisation gets a tick if scoring 83 out of 100

The result need not be a reflection on the Volunteer Manager as results of each criteria are made public to the organisation and Volunteer Manager.
So we could have a case where the organisation fails to receive a tick based on their value placed in volunteer management and not on the work of the individual VM. Yet the organisation could be denied a tick due to poor Volunteer Management.

Sounds too simplistic? Well it’s not being done and something like this needs to happen. Maybe we complicate processes by too much thinking!