Effective volunteer management is critical to unlocking the potential embedded in a non-profit organization’s mission/vision and other resources. Therefore, by understanding who your volunteers are —and who they’re not—you can create success for your non-profit organization. "The Secret Sauce for Volunteer Management" is a semantic scheme for distinguishing volunteers from supporters. Questions for self-evaluation are posed to help readers apply the "secret sauce" to their own volunteer management programs. Adapted from the author's blog post by the same title: http://wp.me/p1gC2f-hP

1. The Secret
Sauce for
Volunteer
Management
Kaleb Nyquist

2. Therefore, by understanding
who your volunteers are —
and who they’re not—you
can create success for your
non-profit organization.
Effective volunteer management is
critical to unlocking the potential
embedded in a non-profit
organization’s mission/vision and
other resources.

3. Someone who believes
in you and your
mission/vision and is
willing to resource you
in order to carry out
your mission/vision.
Supporter
Someone who believes
in your mission/vision,
but needs to be
resourced by you in
order to carry out that
mission/vision.
Volunteer
The Secret Sauce:
Distinguishing Volunteers from Supporters

4. Volunteer
Staff
Supporter
Mission /
Vision
Abstract
Experience of
Mission/Vision
Resources Volunteers,
Resourced by
Supporters
“Hands –On”
Experience of
Mission/Vision

5. Is this
person a
volunteer
or a
supporter?
Is this
volunteer
being
resourced?
Is this
volunteer
free to go?
For everyone who offers to
help, it is up to you to
discern whether they are a
volunteer or a supporter
(or both). Yes, it may take
some intentional effort to
learn where a person’s true
passions and commitments
lie — but learning this piece
of knowledge upfront will
save you from quite the
headache down the road.
What motivates a volunteer
is your organization’s
mission/vision. What keeps
a volunteer from going
“lone wolf” — and instead,
joining forces with you — is
acknowledging that you
have accumulated the
assets, relationships &
opportunities needed to
make the mission/vision a
reality.
When the time finally does
come for your volunteer to
go: celebrate. If you are a
healthy organization with a
compelling mission/vision,
what will take your
volunteer out of the picture
is likely a task better suited
to their skills and
ambitions, an opportunity
to do something better for
the world.
QuestionsforSelf-Evaluation

6. Share/read the original blog post at:
kalebnyquist.wordpress.com
Follow Kaleb on Twitter:
@KalebNyquist
Front Slide Image Credit:
“Sauce Warming” by Amy C Adams
of Southern Foodways Alliance; used
under a Creative Commons
Attribution 2.0 Generic License.