Aatmanirbhara,
Last month I mentioned the Initiative for Strategic Volunteer Engagement. Some of you may have attended the information session as well and learned about who we surveyed and what we learned about the state of strategic volunteer engagement within organizations and what funders think about strategic volunteer engagement.
The Initiative launched two surveys: one to Executive Directors or other nonprofit leaders, and one to funders and foundation decision-makers (check out the reports). We're just beginning to understand how those two groups view the importance and value of volunteer engagement.
As noted in the "The State of Volunteer Engagement: Insights from Nonprofit Leaders and Funders" Funders and nonprofit leaders either disagree, or have starkly different perceptions, about the benefits of volunteer engagement.
Large differences of opinion exist, for example, on whether volunteers to a "great extent" provide cost savings (73.9 percent for nonprofits vs. 38.9 percent for funders); increase the quality of services or programs provided (72.2 percent for nonprofits vs. 25.2 percent for funders); and provide more detailed attention to people served (65.6 percent for nonprofits vs. 29.3 percent for funders). In general, nonprofit CEOs are much more positive about the benefits of volunteering compared to nonprofit funders.
Stay tuned over the next few months as we - along with the other Initiative Partners - work to bridge that gap.
In the meantime I'd love to hear from you! I want to learn about your experience, as a leader of volunteers within an organization. I've put together a quick survey.
P.S. You may have already received an email from us about the upcoming Learning Center hiatus. We will have our regularly scheduled webinars through March 2023, and all of the slides and resources will continue to be available for download during the hiatus. We'll have some exciting new things to share soon!
Jennifer Bennett, CVA
Director, Education & Training | VolunteerMatch