Becoming the Best You Can Be: Creating Yourself as a New Volunteer Manager
By Susan Moscareillo, CVM
Director of Volunteer Services and Community Relations
Baltimore Ronald McDonald House
Apr 9, 2003, 09:29 PST

Three years ago, as a fledgling volunteer manager hired to direct the volunteer program of the Baltimore Ronald McDonald House, I faced unexpected professional challenges. I was surprised to discover that the volunteer program I inherited was understaffed, disorganized and mediocre in quality.

I was challenged to acquire additional skills in order to transform our program into one that would deliver both quality and quantity of service as quickly as possible.

Research on the Internet turned up an abundance of articles and web sites about directing an effective volunteer program. I decided to invest my time and energies in three areas:

It would take a year before my efforts would yield noticeable improvement in our program and almost two years to complete my continuing education and gain my "street smarts." Fortunately my confidence and sense of direction were given an immediate boost when I acquired a mentor.

A local professional association had just begun a mentoring program for less experienced volunteer managers so I applied and received as a mentor the talented Ann Heil, Manager of Volunteer Services at Baltimore's Franklin Square Hospital. Her wisdom, accessibility and expertise supported me and Ann urged me not to panic, to document every step of what I was doing, and most importantly, not to compromise the quality of prospective volunteers I might accept in order to fill empty positions.

It was Ann who introduced me to the concept of the "three fiery hoops,"

Requiring potential volunteers to navigate these hoops helped me to always remember the immense responsibility I had to the clients my volunteers serve, my agency, and my professional reputation.

The phrase "the three fiery hoops" is a source of amusement to my co-workers. But I believe this concept is the reason we possess a volunteer staff that has increased in size every year while maintaining quality and increasing instances of service to our residents.

Hoop Number One: pre-screening. 

Talk with the prospective volunteer to determine how they found out about you and what motivated them to call. Don't be anxious to sell at this point - concentrate on gathering information. If the application is returned to you in a timely, complete fashion, they have cleared the first hoop. Automatic red flags for me are people who:

  1. Are too eager and want to volunteer NOW.
  2. Repeatedly lose the information you send them and keep calling back.
  3. Vaguely allude to having volunteered with your agency before but you can't find any documentation.
  4. Return their list of references without complete addresses or phone numbers.

Hoop Number Two: screening. 

Review the application for completeness. Speak with references, reminding them that what they tell you will remain confidential. Look for a mix of sources: co-workers, neighbors, friends - to offer different perspectives on the applicant's talents and personality. Ask the same questions of all to establish credibility, verify information and determine suitability for assignment. Document all remarks - don't trust your memory. If you're like me, there are days you talk to dozens of people.

Hoop Number Three: the interview. 

Review the application with the candidate. Ask questions that establish their interest, background and a good match of skills and personality. Again, don't sell and don't offer the assignment on the spot. Review your notes and give the prospective volunteer an opportunity to go home and reflect again on whether this is really the volunteer job they want.

Although intuition is a subject of debate among volunteer management professionals, those I know with a proven track record invariably refer to "following their gut." After four years in this field I still believe in erring on the side of caution when I receive aural or visual signals or information inconsistencies that make me uneasy when talking with an applicant or their references. 

The options for continuing education were many, including local community colleges and the Internet. I chose the excellent certificate program of Washington State University, which you can complete totally on-line. My children joked about mom sitting at the computer at 10:00 p.m. doing her homework in her pajamas, but it fit around my long hours and guided me to the information I needed to learn to succeed.

The four units of the Volunteer Management Certificate Program are: recruitment, training, supervision and management and recognition/evaluation. You can access more information at http://vmcp.wsu.edu/.

After four years in this field, I realize there is still much to learn. I continue to read everything I can about volunteer management and to learn from experience (and marvel at how little I knew when I began!) If you are new to this field I encourage you to explore the paths that worked for me, and seek out ones of your own that will enable you to learn and grow and" become the best you can be."