Effective practice, annual volunteer staffing analysis needs

Effective practices in annual volunteer staffing analysis relate to:

1) a complete and detailed organizational strategic plan, with goals and objectives;

2) an overall organizational workplan, related directly to the goals and objectives;

3) individual project descriptions and task plans associated with the overall organizational plan;

4) Assignments to staff and needed volunteer positions related to project or organizational tasks.

A volunteer assignment should explicitly and directly relate to item(s) in the overall organizational work
plan; the item(s) in the organizational work plan should relate to the organization's goals and
objectives, which should relate to the organization's overall strategic plan. The importance for this
practice of relating volunteer activities directly to organizational goals is that a) volunteers need to feel
that they are part of the larger organization, and have a sense that work they are doing fits into a larger
coherent whole and b) for the organization, the process of planning results in prioritizing how scarce
volunteer resources are to be applied. An assessment of organizational capacity to support volunteers
is also important, assessing Managerial Readiness:

• Do we have adequate assigned workspace for the volunteer?
• Have we assigned a supervisor for the volunteer?
• Do we need to provide any orientation or training for our staff before they work with volunteers?
• Do we have a clear idea of the qualifications we will be looking for in a prospective volunteer?
• Do we know what training the volunteer will need to do the job the way we want it done?
• Do we have a firm description of the goals and objectives of the work to be done?
• Do we have a plan for including the volunteer in our office activities and communications flow?