Girls on the Run of Southeast Michigan is a nonprofit that uses running to encourage positive development for girls. It covers five counties but coordination is difficult due to separate sites and a small staff. The organization faces challenges in attracting and retaining volunteers, as well as volunteer management. Recommendations include clearly defining employee roles, hiring additional help, exploring internships, improving volunteer recruitment and retention through incentives and feedback, and better communication.

1. GIRLS ON THE RUN
OF SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN
By: Thomas Geddes, Steven Kellner,
Neha Shah, and Tori Raymond

2. WHAT IS GIRLS ON THE RUN?
 Non-profit organization
 Uses a character development program to serve girls
 A medium to encourage positive emotional, social, mental,
spiritual and physical development in the girls
 To help prevent girls to get into trouble
Mission: To inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident
using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively
integrates running.

3. GIRLS ON THE RUN OF SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN
(GOTRSEMI)
 Covers the counties of Washtenaw, Livingston,
Monroe, Lenawee and Jackson
 The many different sites makes it harder to
coordinate and function as one
 Only five full-time staff members

4. INDUSTRY
 International non-profit organization
 Main purpose is to empower girls in grades 3-5
 Volunteering is a major aspect of the industry
 Have various branches not only in the same state but
also in other states and in Canada
 Spreading the same messages in different sites become
difficult

5. GOOOO GIRLS ON THE RUN!!!

6. METHODOLOGY
 Met with Shana Bussa of Girls on the Run,
Southeast Michigan in their offices in St. Joseph’s
Hospital
 She provided us with: core issues, their solutions,
short and long-term business strategies, and basic
information

7. BRIEF INTRO TO HR CONCEPTS
 Staffing
 Hiring the right volunteers who will make the full
time staffs’ jobs easier
 Job design
 Giving variety and feedback to volunteers
 Know exactly what is expected of them
 Overall business strategy
 Maintaining long term focus, while keeping an
eye on day-to-day
 Augmented by having a larger staff

8. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
 We discovered three main issues in GOTR’s
organizational structure
 Organizational Communication
 Attracting/retaining volunteers
 Volunteer Management

9. ATTRACTING & RETAINING
VOLUNTEERS
 8-15 girls per team
 Need the best volunteers, to make a strong
impression in the community
 Bad coaches are unwilling and
uncooperative

10. VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT
 Need coaches who want to work with the
girls
 Conflict resolution
 Properly training the kids
 Appealing to individual needs

11. ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION
Mainly communicate through email
GOTR makes policy changes
 Sometimes they are too late to go into
effect
Coaches often “call in sick”
Better communication between the
liaison and coach

12. RECOMMENDATIONS
 Clearly defining the roles of employees
 Hiring additional help
 Exploring internship opportunities
 Attracting more volunteers
 Retaining the right volunteers
 Gauging effectiveness of methods in the form of
feedback

13. CLEARLY DEFINING THE ROLES OF
EMPLOYEES
Separate positions but some overlap
Differentiate job tasks
Explore employing additional staff
member
Adds autonomy
Paves way for a more efficient
organization

14. CLEARLY DEFINING THE ROLES OF
EMPLOYEES
 Take more of a mechanistic approach in
reevaluating job design
 Focus mostly on work simplification,
routinization, and specialization
 Lead to greater efficiency by curbing the
amount of idle time and training time
 Also utilize company resources more
effectively

15. HIRING ADDITIONAL HELP
 Extra part-time employee to specialize in
coordinating programs
 Excellent opportunity to work towards
expansion
 2000 participants last year; hope to grow
30% every year
 Organization needs to expand internally as
well

16. EXPLORING INTERNSHIP
OPPORTUNITIES
 Extra set of hands around the office
 More attractive alternative to paying another
employee
 Duties include finding grants and seeking
out potential sponsorship opportunities
 Increase scope and reach of program
 When making hires in the future, would
already have someone who understands
company culture

17. ATTRACTING VOLUNTEERS
Three-mode incentive scheme
 Utilitarian
 New skills and knowledge equal to paid work
 Affective
 Interpersonal outcomes
 Normative
 Helping others by enhancing their happiness,
health, and welfare
 Solution:
 Update website –short term
 Create a PSA –long term

18. Short-term -Website

19. RETAINING VOLUNTEERS
Need both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
 Both already in place
Outcomes of personal investment
1. Personal growth
2. Life satisfaction
3. Achievement
 Improve extrinsic motivation
Solution: Award Attendance
 GOTR apparel, accessories, gift cards

20. MANAGING VOLUNTEERS THROUGH
FEEDBACK
 Feedback loop
 Relationship between rewards and satisfaction
 Solution: Survey questionnaire
 Different facets of satisfaction that pertain to
volunteers, participants, and coaches
 Both qualitative and quantitative questions
 In-depth and unrestricted results
 At the end of every season
 Improve organizational effectiveness and track growth
and other data trends

21. QUESTIONS?

22. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bussa, S. (2012, January 26). Personal interview.
Chelladurai, P. (1999). Human Resource
Management in Sport and Recreation (2nd ed.).
Columbus, Ohio: Human Kinetics Publishers.
Girls on the Run. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from
Girls on the Run International:
http://girlsontherun.org/theprogram.html