THE JOSSEY-BASS HANDBOOK OF NONPROFIT LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT Chapters 19 – 26

CHAPTER 19 – DESIGNING AND MANAGING THE FUNDRAISING PROGRAM

FUNDRAISING Fundraising success measures the degree to which an organization's purpose is affirmed. Donors' support for a particular organization or institution reflects their perception of that entity as an effective vehicle in meeting a community or human need. (P. 505)

The three stages of fundraising development are the Formative , Normative and Integrative. (P. 506)

The formative stage views fundraising as an appendage to organizational life—something we do because we have to, a “necessary evil.” It is characterized by an emphasis on fundraising techniques that generate needed income, such as mass appeals through direct mail and telephone solicitation. Fundraising in the formative stage is motivated by the simple need to have more money. The objective is to “sell” the organization and what it does (the products) to donors who want to “purchase” the idea or service that the nonprofit represents. Success is measured by how often asking for gifts results in “making a sale.” (p. 507).

The normative stage often employs the image of family, applying fundraising techniques largely to prospective donors whose connections to the nonprofit have been established through some other relationship, such as those who receive services (for example, clients, students, audience members, or patients) or volunteer leaders and workers. Leaders and managers typically concentrate on the operation of the institution. Fundraising in this stage is commonly staff-centered also, with a small number of others, usually the chief executive and a handful of volunteers, participating selectively in the process of engaging a prospect's interest, soliciting a contribution, and maintaining good relationships with donors.

The integrative stage places philanthropy at the center of who we are and what we do. That is, it is central to the building of a human community that achieves a common good. Donors are regarded as thoughtful participants in the organization's life and work, filling a role that is appropriate to them and essential to the well-being of the nonprofit. In the integrative stage, volunteer leaders are vocal advocates of the nonprofit and its work, and they participate fully in the process of building constituencies who can financially support the organization. In addition, senior staff, board members, and other volunteer leaders work at sustaining healthy relationships (or growth partnerships) with those who have made philanthropic commitments to the organization, responding to donors' needs and interests that relate to

the nonprofit and its mission and its activities. There is a high level of communication between the nonprofit and those who make “leadership gifts.” These donors know the organization well. Their gifts reflect values that are important to them. Furthermore, because they are known for their generous commitments, their views are valued by others, and they are often articulate advocates of the organization. In the integrative stage, organizational leaders are capable of looking at their institution or agency from the perspective of important donors whose views may help assure an organization's continued growth.

The three stages are not mutually exclusive. Fundraising principles and techniques are important to all three. But how they are used reflects the organization's style of management and institutional philosophy. Philanthropic fundraising strives to achieve the integrative stage of fundraising practice, which incorporates voluntary giving as one of the nonprofit's core values. (pp. 507-508)

Classic management (including Fundraising) practice consists of five activities: analysis, planning, execution, control (gift processing), and evaluation. (p. 508)

The Donor Bill of Rights Philanthropy is based on voluntary action for the common good. It is a tradition of giving and sharing that is primary to the quality of life. To ensure that philanthropy merits the respect and trust of the general public, and that donors and prospective donors can have full confidence in the nonprofit organizations and causes they are asked to support, we declare that all donors have these rights: I. To be informed of the organization's mission, of the way the organization intends to use donated resources, and of its capacity to use donations effectively for their intended purposes. II. To be informed of the identity of those serving on the organization's governing board, and to expect the board to exercise prudent judgment in its stewardship responsibilities. III. To have access to the organization's most recent financial statements. IV. To be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given. V. To receive appropriate acknowledgement and recognition. VI. To be assured that information about their donation is handled with respect and with confidentiality to the extent provided by law. VII. To expect that all relationships with individuals representing organizations of interest to the donor will be professional in nature. VIII. To be informed whether those seeking donations are volunteers, employees of the organization, or hired solicitors. IX. To have the opportunity for their names to be deleted from mailing lists that an organization may intend to share. X. To feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful, and forthright answers. (p. 520-521)

Successful fundraising is the result of disciplined management. (p. 522)

CHAPTER 20 – SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AND NONPROFIT VENTURES Social enterprise may be an option to any nonprofit, yet that does not mean every nonprofit should launch a commercial venture. Then how should a nonprofit begin to decide? The answer to this question requires significant deliberation, particularly regarding four core areas: Mission impact and relevance Characteristics of the nonprofit's operating environment Financial and revenue implications Organizational capacity to implement the enterprise Each of these four areas offers a different and complementary lens through which to examine your enterprise's possibilities. At the core, it is essential to have clarity regarding who you are as an organization and how a potential enterprise strategy might relate to this. Typically, when asked to define their organization, nonprofit leaders will recite their mission. Mission is important, so this is an important starting point, but I would assert that mission only begins

to describe the true nature of a nonprofit. In what ways might a potential enterprise be relevant to mission? What are the organization's core values or guiding principles and what guidance do they offer when it comes to exploring enterprise options? Will the development of an enterprise add value to the organization or might it distract us? It is essential that nonprofit leaders develop a shared sense of why they might explore an enterprise option, the results they seek, the risks they are willing to incur as a part of the process (and why they would be warranted), and whether an enterprise option will in fact offer appropriate benefits and results. (pp. 528-529)

Cause-related marketing is defined as “a mutually beneficial collaboration between a corporation and a nonprofit in which their respective assets are combined to: create shareholder and social value, connect with a range of constituents,…and communicate the shared values of both organizations” (Foundation Center, 2010). Research on CRM has validated the potential value of a mutual-benefit relationship as described in the definition and, more specifically, research has found that CRM between organizations with similar purposes improves customer perceptions of the for-profit organization. (p. 537)

Unlike CRM and brand licensing, which are enterprising strategies using a nonprofit's soft assets, asset reappropriation involves finding alternative uses for tangible assets. Too often nonprofits look at their assets through overly narrow lenses: a building, for example, is only a place to implement core mission activities, or land is merely green space that adds to the aesthetic quality of the campus. A strategic look at these same assets may uncover a possible revenue opportunity or stream not previously considered. (p. 538)

CHAPTER 21 – MANAGING THE CHALLENGES OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

Since the mid-1990s, performance contracting with nonprofits (and for-profits) has risen rapidly. This is due in part to the “reinventing government” and New Public Management movements, which have sparked extensive interest in improving the performance of public services, especially through more market-based strategies. Over time, performance contracting spread to a wide variety of service categories. (p. 558)

To compensate for revenue shortfalls from contracts, nonprofit managers often try one or more of several strategies: (1) diversify their government contracts so they can obtain greater economies of scale; (2) seek private donations from individuals or corporations; (3) obtain foundation grants; and (4) increase earned income from more commercial revenue sources (for example, from rental income or technical assistance services). (P. 561)

Arguably, the current contracting environment also places a primacy on the ability of nonprofit executives to work collaboratively, both internally and externally. Competition and scarcity of funding mean that executive directors need to be able to work closely and productively with government contract administrators. In addition, agency executives need to be able to partner with local foundations, United Way chapters, and local businesses. Agency executives with government contracts also have a major incentive to work with other nonprofit agencies in support of shared public policy goals on funding and regulatory issues. Further, given the challenges of staff recruitment and retention, effective nonprofit executives are able to share leadership throughout their organization. (p. 566)

In support of improved nonprofit capacity, government can structure contracts to include support for reasonable administrative costs. This effort is especially important given the

constant challenge faced by nonprofits to find sufficient funds to support their administrative infrastructure. Underfunded infrastructure is a common problem, since many government and private funders focus on program-related funding. Without sufficient funds to pay for an adequate administrative structure, agencies are at a disadvantage as they raise private funds and compete for public grants and contracts. Insufficient infrastructure also contributes to program instability, especially among smaller community-based organizations. (pp. 573-574)

A central challenge for nonprofit agencies that seek contracts is to adapt their management and organizational structure to emphasize flexibility, nimbleness, and efficiency while retaining a commitment to equity, social justice, and community support and engagement. Nonprofit agencies will need to be innovative in their organizational structure and willing and able to invest resources necessary to comply with government regulations and performance expectations. More broadly, agencies should develop—with government encouragement and support—new ways to engage clients in agency governance as the staff and board strive to adapt their organizations to foster greater client choice and input. Through such internal investments in capacity and good governance, coupled with sustained engagement of local citizens, the promise of nonprofits as effective providers of vital public services may be realized. (p. 575-576)

CHAPTER 22 - FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT & ACCOUNTING Information on the full cost of carrying out a particular endeavor has four basic uses: pricing, profitability assessment, comparative analyses, and external reporting. (P. 580)

Conceptually, the goal of full-cost accounting is to measure as accurately as possible the resources consumed in producing a particular product. In some instances, the measurement process is quite easy. For example, an organization that produces a single product usually has little difficulty in calculating the full cost of each unit. All costs associated with the organization, and hence the product, can be added together and divided by the number of units produced during a particular accounting period to arrive at a full cost per unit. By contrast, organizations that produce a variety of products, each requiring different amounts of resources, will have a more difficult time determining the cost for each unit sold. (pp. 582-583).

Mission centers are associated with main focus, sometimes called revenue centers. Service centers accumulate the costs of activities to support mission, like laundry, admin. The full cost of a mission center includes its fair share of the organization's service center costs. The problem arises with a mission center's indirect costs, that is, those costs that cannot be unambiguously associated with a cost object. Costs fall into four categories: (a) indirect labor, such as supervisory time; (b) indirect materials, that is, materials that cannot be directly associated with a cost object, such as cleaning solvents for machines; (c) other indirect costs, such as depreciation on administrative computers; and (d) service center costs that were allocated to the mission center. Total costs are the sum of the fixed, stepfunction, variable, and semi-variable components. Because cost analyses combining all four types of costs are quite complex, however, most analysts generally classify all costs as either fixed or variable.

Ideally, all the accounts in the account structure make up a single, coordinated system. Technically, such a system is called an articulated system; each account is related to all other accounts. Serious responsibility accounting problems can arise if program accounts are not linked with responsibility accounts, or if the actual costs in each set of accounts cannot be compared to the budgeted costs.

A budget is a plan, expressed in quantitative (usually monetary) terms, that covers a specified period, usually a year.

One of the most difficult aspects of designing a responsibility accounting system is defining the system's structure—its network of responsibility centers. In determining what sort of responsibility center a given manager's unit will be, senior management needs to pay careful attention to the resources the manager can control.

Once costs have been classified as either fixed or variable, we can analyze how they will vary with changes in the volume of activity. One technique used in such situations is cost-volume profit (CVP) analysis. The intent of CVP analysis is to determine either (a) the volume of activity needed for an organization to achieve its financial surplus (or profit) goal, (b) the price that it needs to charge to achieve its surplus goal, or (c) the cost limits (fixed and/or variable) it needs to adhere to if it is to achieve its surplus goal. A CVP analysis usually is conducted for a particular activity within an organization—such as a product line or program. (p. 607)

A differential cost analysis attempts to identify the behavior of an organization’s costs under one or more alternative scenarios. (p. 614)

An analysis of differential costs is most easily performed when the fixed and variable costs of the particular activity are analyzed separately from the allocated overhead costs. An analysis that separates costs in this way usually is structured in terms of contribution to overhead. The difference between a unit's revenue and its variable, semi-variable, fixed, and stepfunction costs is its contribution to the organization's overhead costs. A contribution income statement, which is the term given to this analysis, has a different format from a more traditional income statement. One typical construction is as follows: Total Revenue (net) Less: total variable costs Equals: margin (for fixed and overhead costs) Less: the product's or program's fixed costs Equals: the product's or program's contribution to the organization's overhead costs Less: allocated overhead costs Equals: surplus (deficit) on a full-cost basis. (p. 617)

Depreciation is NOT a differential cost. This is the mechanism that charges each accounting period with the expense associated with “using up” the asset. (p.618)

Programs can be classified as either mission or support. Mission programs relate to the organization's objectives and usually are focused on clients. Support programs provide services to other programs but usually don't work directly with clients. In making decisions about the allocation of resources, management usually focuses its attention on mission programs. Within limits, the amount of resources required for support programs is roughly dependent on the size and character of the mission programs. (p. 628)

A budget is a plan, expressed in quantitative terms, that covers a specified period, usually a year.

One of the most difficult aspects of designing a responsibility accounting system is defining the system's structure—its network of responsibility centers. In determining what sort of responsibility center a given manager's unit will be, senior management needs to pay careful attention to the resources the manager can control. This is the driving force behind responsibility center design. Beyond this, senior management needs to consider ways to attain goal congruence between the personal goals of each responsibility center manager and its goals for the organization as a whole. In part, a responsibility center manager's goals are determined by the incentives that senior management creates to reward certain forms of behavior. In addition to these considerations, senior management also must pay close attention to the fit between programs and responsibility centers. Programs represent the operational definition of an organization's strategy, and each aspect of a program must be assigned to a responsibility center. Thus, the responsibility accounting system must be designed in such a way that it can provide information on both program and responsibility center activities. This calls for a careful design of the account structure, a task that ordinarily is carried out by the accounting staff but needs considerable guidance from senior management. Senior management must constantly bear in mind that responsibility accounting is fundamentally behavioral. The various control tools are effective only to the extent they influence behavior, and they will influence behavior only to the extent that the culture of the organization is conducive to their doing so. (p. 639).

Senior management can influence the personal goals of the organization's managers and professionals by using its hiring, promotion, and termination policies to select and retain individuals who have personal goals that are closely aligned with the organization's goals. (p. 641)

PART FIVE: LEADING AND MANAGING PEOPLE IN NONPROFITS

CHAPTER 24 – EFFECTIVE HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES

Successful nonprofit organizations recognize that organizational success lies in the creative engagement of the human resources of the organization. They regard human resources not as a staff function outside the organization's operation but rather as the central conduit through which organizations succeed. They capitalize on the power of mission to attract and motivate staff. (P. 671)

There are two key concepts to keep in mind while imagining the end state of an effective nonprofit human resource system: fit and embeddedness. These two concepts make clear that whereas successful executives design human resource systems, these systems are continually re-created by everyone associated with the organization. Therefore, in successful nonprofits, all staff are continually rebuilding their human resource culture. (p. 673).

Fit is not a synonym for homogeneity. Staff are attracted to organizations with which they perceive an alignment between the goals of the organization and their own values. Successful organizations tend to seek and engage diverse viewpoints and nourish a culture of diversity. (p. 673-674)

Embeddedness refers to the extent to which staff and their families are engaged in the organization and its community. (p. 674)

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964: Title VII of that act focuses on employment, and it specifically prohibits employment discrimination based on race, skin color, religion, sex, and national origin. In addition, it established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency empowered with the enforcement of discrimination violations. (p. 675)

All organizations with fifteen or more employees are required to adhere to nondiscriminatory practices in all aspects of their treatment of employees. (p. 676)

Other legislation has extended nondiscriminatory practices to other protected groups. For example, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (and amendments in the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act) applies to employers with twenty or more employees and protects workers over age forty (younger in some states) against discrimination based on age. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (an amendment to Title VII) protects women who are pregnant against refusals to hire, requires treatment of pregnancy that interferes medically with the employee's ability to work to be treated as any other disability, requires that any health insurance offered by the employer include pregnancy coverage (but not abortion coverage), and requires that employees be given leave, vacation calculation, and pay under the same practices that are afforded to other employees on leave. One final group deserves special explanation: the disabled. The Council for Disability Rights estimates that 43 million Americans have physical or mental disabilities (Council for Disability Rights, 2009).

The employment rate of those with disabilities is half that of those without, despite the fact that two-thirds of those unemployed with disabilities say they would prefer to be working (National Council on Disability, 2007). The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) protects those with physical and mental disabilities, whether perceived or real, from discrimination in employment (and public access). The act covers all employers with more than fifteen employees, as well as all state and government programs and activities. The ADA defines a person with a disability as “someone with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, has a record of such an impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment” (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2002a). Clarifications of the ADA by the EEOC indicate that the use of items like medications or prostheses does not disqualify a disabled person. Mental and emotional characteristics such as thinking and concentrating are covered, and short-term impairments are generally interpreted as less life-altering (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2000). Active drug use is not a disability, although prior drug use can qualify if the person is discriminated against based on a record or perception of prior use. Although the ADA and its amendments do not specify the disabilities that qualify, case law has upheld such diverse conditions as mobility, vision, speech, and hearing impairments, asymptomatic HIV status, learning disabilities, and mental illness. The passage of the ADA changed employment screening practices directly. Under the ADA, no employer may require a medical examination prior to extending a job offer. Further, where applicants or employees request “reasonable accommodation” of the physical workplace, the design of their jobs, or their benefits, employers are required to comply to the extent to which the accommodations do not cause the employer undue financial or logistical hardship. (pp. 680-681).

Other Legislation that affects nonprofit managers: Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which covers wages and hours standards, as well as overtime, for employees who work interstate. This act covers large employers (with $500,000 in annual revenue) and small employers whose employees operate across state borders. Of particular interest in this legislation is the determination of which staff are exempt from overtime pay for work in excess of forty hours per week. “Professionals,” “executives,” and “outside salespeople” are the official exempt categories, but interpretations are more complex.

Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits sex-based wage discrimination and applies to most organizations with one or more employees. Exceptions include seniority, merit pay, and job performance.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 extended the time allowed for filing pay discrimination claims.

Executive Order 11246, which requires nondiscrimination and affirmative action plans of federal government agencies and government contractors. At the time of this writing, the status of affirmative action in various states and at the Supreme Court level was in flux.

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guarantees up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to employees in organizations with more than fifty employees to welcome a natural or adoptive child into the family, to care for an immediate relative, or to recover from an illness.

Homeland Security Act of 2002, which contains provisions regarding the hiring of foreign workers. The act created the Department of Homeland Security and transferred the processing of work authorizations from the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which requires employers to verify employee identity and legal eligibility to work in the United States. (pp. 683-684)

Identifying Job Characteristics In human resource terminology, these characteristics are called KSAs, for knowledge, skills, and abilities. Knowledge encompasses the content knowledge a staff person needs to know prior to being hired. Proficiency in many positions presumes a specific body of knowledge. Is an understanding of how arts management organizations are funded essential to the position? Is a knowledge of state laws related to nonprofit status required? When thinking about the term knowledge, it is useful to think about what facts an individual should know. The term skills refers to proficiency in doing things with objects or ideas. Is operating a computer necessary for this job? Does the applicant need to be able to calculate tax credits on a loan? When defining the term skills, think about what the applicant needs to do. Finally, abilities refers the capacity to undertake certain work responsibilities. Does the individual need to be able to communicate effectively? Are supervisory abilities paramount? When defining abilities, think about what the individual has the capacity to accomplish.

KSAs are similar to, but not the same as, competencies (which are defined as capacities to act). KSAs have long been in use in government settings and made their way into the private sector nearly two decades ago. Although the term is somewhat less commonly used in the nonprofit sector, the KSA concept has an important legal distinction. In the event the nonprofit organization is required to demonstrate that a job requirement is related to the ability to perform the job, the organization will be asked to demonstrate what KSAs were used for hiring and how those KSAs are related to job performance. Thus they serve as the underpinnings for any legal and fair recruitment process. Effective managers begin by determining what KSAs are desired for the available position through a process called job analysis. (p. 688)

The selection process should be designed to attract and hire qualified candidates who fit both the job and the organization. Throughout the process, attention must be paid to the overall hiring strategy and staff and succession planning of the organization. Performance standards must always be kept in mind during the selection process. A thorough job evaluation should help guide the criteria on which decisions are made. It is advisable to involve multiple staff members in the selection process to ensure an open dialogue among current and future staff. Legalities should be considered, and each step of the selection process should be valid in that it leads to the selection of a staff member who can succeed in the organization.

When hiring, use a structured interview format; stick with behaviors; keep it legal and consider a team interview. (p. 696-697)

The selection process should be designed to attract and hire qualified candidates who fit both the job and the organization. Throughout the process, attention must be paid to the overall hiring strategy and staff and succession planning of the organization. Performance standards must always be kept in mind during the selection process. A thorough job evaluation should help guide the criteria on which decisions are made. It is advisable to involve multiple staff members in the selection process to ensure an open dialogue among current and future staff. Legalities should be considered, and each step of the selection process should be valid in that it leads to the selection of a staff member who can succeed in the organization. (pp. 698-699).

CHAPTER 25 – TOTAL REWARDS PROGRAMS IN NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

An effective compensation program should communicate about several basic areas to all employees: The employee's job description and how it was developed (i.e., job analysis) The general methods by which jobs are evaluated How market data are collected and analyzed How performance relates to pay How performance is measured and appraised Administrative policies and procedures Benefit plans

Organizations need to design administrative policies and procedures that ensure that their salary and benefits programs are consistently, equitably, and effectively delivered to employees.

After identifying the relevant markets, benchmark jobs should be identified. These are jobs upon which the salary system will be built, so they should be well-defined and clearly understood within the organization. Every organization has its own unique jobs that do not exist in the rest of the world and for which no market data are available. However, benchmark jobs should be those that (1) are easily found in other organizations within the relevant labor markets, (2) are relatively unchanging, (3) as a group, represent nearly all levels within the organization, (4) vary in levels of compensable factors (which will be discussed below), (5) have multiple incumbents, and (6) for which the organization is experiencing particular difficulty recruiting (Kovac, 2008; Wallace and Fay, 1988). Typically, it is desirable to choose a group of benchmarks representing a minimum 25 to 30 percent of all jobs in the organization, many more if the organization wishes its reward system to be market-driven. A critical point in this process is to recognize that job titles are not determinants of benchmark jobs, job content is. Job descriptions created from the job analysis should be used to ensure valid market matches. Also, to avoid confusion, titles should accurately reflect the contents of the job and should not be manipulated to reward special employees or increase the prestige of the supervisor, as often happens in salary systems that are not adequately designed and maintained. (p. 718)

Regardless of the type of job evaluation method that is used, a system of regular review should be established so that jobs are analyzed and reevaluated about every three years, more often if they change frequently. Obviously, organizational needs, as well as jobs, change over time and a regular system is necessary so that internal equity is maintained. (p. 729).

Salary administration procedures must be written that coordinate with the goals, plans, and policies of the organization. There should be policies covering the salary impact of transfers, promotions, demotions, reclassifications (which happens when a job is reevaluated and placed in a different grade due to changes in its duties), and new hiring. It is essential that these be carefully thought out so that the intentions of the compensation plan are not subverted due to haphazard (and often non-motivational) administrative procedures. Pay satisfaction is popularly regarded as the worker's satisfaction with the level of salary and benefits he or she may receive. However, since research shows that pay satisfaction depends on the structure and administration of the program as well as salary and benefits levels and raises. (pp. 735-736).

Organizations, nonprofit and for-profit, are being challenged to compete effectively. In order to do this, they must have qualified employees who are motivated to accomplish the strategic goals of the organization. Attraction, motivation, and retention of high-caliber employees require that total compensation systems be carefully and thoughtfully designed and implemented. Pay strategies must fit the organization's culture and goals; thorough consideration must be given to identifying the outcomes and behaviors the organization desires and designing reward strategies to ensure that they occur. To do this, effective organizations must have up-to-date salary and benefits policies and communicate them to their employees. Second, organizations need to design and build effective base compensation programs, considering how external competitiveness and internal equity will be balanced. Although job evaluation programs can be effective in communicating management's intentions to pay equitably, it is important that these time-consuming and expensive systems not be over-utilized. Third, management must decide how it plans to encourage the key behaviors needed to accomplish strategic goals. This may be done through group or individual incentive programs, merit pay programs, or other plans. Each system has advantages and disadvantages that need to be weighed and evaluated in light of each organization's unique culture and characteristics. Fourth, it is critical that nonprofit organizations conscientiously evaluate necessary benefits levels. It is imperative that organizations understand both competitive pressures and employee desires. Finally, organizations need to design administrative policies and procedures that ensure that their salary and benefits programs are consistently, equitably, and effectively delivered to employees. (pp. 750-751)

CHAPTER 26 – DESIGNING AND MANAGING VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS The volunteer program is a vehicle for facilitating and coordinating the work efforts of volunteers and paid staff toward the attainment of organizational goals. The core program functions that make this achievement possible can be grouped as follows: Establishing the rationale for volunteer involvement Involving paid staff in volunteer program design Integrating the volunteer program into the organization Creating positions of program leadership Preparing job descriptions for volunteer positions Meeting the needs of volunteers Recruiting and retaining volunteers Managing volunteers Evaluating and recognizing the volunteer effort (P. 753-754)

A more accurate description of the economic benefits that volunteers can bring to an agency is “cost-effectiveness.” When a volunteer program has been designed to supplement or complement the work of paid staff with that of citizens, volunteers can help an agency to hold costs down in achieving a given level of service or to increase services for a fixed level of expenditure. (P. 755)

Explicit policies for volunteers demonstrate that the agency takes their participation seriously and values their contribution to goal attainment. By setting standards as high for volunteers as for paid staff, an agency builds trust and credibility, increased respect and requests for volunteers from employees, a healthy work environment, and, perhaps most important, high-quality services. (P. 758)

The manner by which the office of the director of volunteer services is staffed sends a forceful message to employees regarding the significance of the volunteer program to the agency and its leadership. (p. 764)

Prime candidates for delegation to volunteers are tasks with the following characteristics: Those that might be performed periodically, such as once a week, rather than on a daily or inflexible basis Those that do not require the specialized training or expertise of paid personnel Those that might be done more effectively by someone with specialized training in that skill Those for which the position occupant feels uncomfortable or unprepared Those for which the agency possesses no in-house expertise Those which might be performed “episodically,” that is, on an occasional basis using very short time intervals Those which might be performed “virtually” or through computer technology such as e-mail or the Internet The culmination of the task analysis should be a new set of job descriptions for employees and a second set for volunteers that are sensitive to prevailing organization conditions. Paid staff are primarily assigned to the most important, daily functions whereas volunteers handle work that can be done on a periodic basis or that makes use of the special talents for which the volunteers have been recruited (p. 768).

Specifications for volunteer positions should include: Job title and purpose Benefits to the occupant Qualifications for the position Time requirement (for example, hours per week) Proposed starting date (and ending date, if applicable) Job responsibilities and activities Authority invested in the position Reporting relationships and supervision Evaluation Probationary period (if necessary) (pp. 768-769)

Volunteers stated that they joined the organization for predominantly service reasons, but that friendships and social interaction became more influential in their decision to remain with it. Although the long-range rewards of helping others, supporting organizational goals, and making a contribution decreased in importance to them (albeit the scores remained at high levels), the rewards of meeting people and enjoying the company of friends and coworkers increased. (P. 775)

44 percent of adults over the age of 21 volunteered with a formal organization in 2000. On average, they volunteered 15 hours in the preceding month. Of these formal volunteers, 69 percent reported they volunteered on a regular basis, monthly or more often. In the month prior to the survey, 27 percent had volunteered, averaging 24 hours of time donated in that month. In all, an estimated 83.9 million adults formally volunteered in 2000, giving approximately 15.5 billion hours. The formal volunteer workforce represented the

equivalent of over nine million full-time employees, with an estimated dollar value of $239 billion.

The message for management is decidedly more positive: the foundation for effective management of volunteers rests on applying different techniques and incentives than commonly used for paid employees to motivate and direct work behaviors toward agency goals. Managerial investment in building trust, cooperation, teamwork, challenge, growth, achievement, values, excitement, and commitment are much more effectual strategies for this purpose than are the conventional methods. (p. 781).

The key elements for a successful, organizationally-based volunteer program are as follows: The program should begin with the establishment of a rationale or policy to guide volunteer involvement. Paid staff must have a central role in designing the volunteer program and creating guidelines governing its operation. The volunteer program must be integrated structurally into the nonprofit organization. The program must have designated leadership positions to provide direction and accountability. The agency must prepare job descriptions for the positions to be held by volunteers, as well as see to the related functions of screening, orientation, placement, and training. The volunteer program must attend to the motivations that inspire volunteers and attempt to respond to them, with the goal of meeting both these needs and the needs of the organization. Volunteers must be attracted and recruited to the organization and retained for service. Managing volunteers for best results typically requires adaptations of more traditional hierarchical approaches toward teamwork and collaboration. All components of the volunteer effort—citizens, employees, and the program itself—benefit from evaluation and recognition activities. (pp.787-788)

	Created by Sybil Altman over 8 years ago

CAWA CAWA Note on Nonprofit Leadership and Managment 19-26, created by Sybil Altman on 20/05/2016.