Innovative Volunteer Strategies E-newsletter

The new calendar year is traditionally a very busy time for forecasters, prognosticators, and all of us who are planners at heart. For years, we at JFFixler & Associates have enjoyed reviewing such years-in-review and coming year predictions as both an exercise in nostalgia and preparation for the coming year - and we shared a few of our own thoughts about this new year in our recent blog posting. One notable development is that volunteer engagement has made the list of major trends explicitly and implicitly in unprecedented ways. In this newsletter, we would like to share a few of these published trends and our suggestions for strategic actions to incorporate into your 2010 plans.

Everyone familiar with our work knows that we strongly encourage all nonprofits to begin organizational change with small steps rather than wholesale change, and that we firmly favor pilots over organization-wide roll-outs. Pilots enable both staff and volunteers to innovate new programs, increase risk tolerance, practice new skills, learn from mistakes, and share successes in ways that inspire others. Pilots are a key strategy in successful organizational change – but what else can tilt the scales towards success? Read this case study of one organization that successfully tipped the scales towards volunteer engagement: The Lone Star Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

It's an interesting time to be so optimistic about the future. While we approach the one year mark of a challenging economy, the headlines rarely lead with stories of abundance. Nonetheless, we see growth every day in our work with clients, in our travels, and through our research. JFFixler & Associates is dedicated to re-inventing, re-engineering, and re-energizing organizations and their volunteer programs, and so our eagerness to work with them to design the next step in their volunteer engagement initiatives continues to grow. Read what we're hearing in the field and share your stories in the new JFFixler Blog. You will receive the latest research and tips to help you and your organization build capacity through innovative volunteer engagement strategies.

Headlines are full of grim news about the economy, but these challenging times have inspired an extraordinary influx of volunteers into nonprofits. While many publications focus on the economic downturn, our clients report significant “upturns” in their volunteer pools. Now, along with reduced budgets and increased demand for services, nonprofits face the unexpected challenge of responding to this incoming tide of volunteers. We know that this convergence of economic constraints and abundant volunteers is, in fact, an unprecedented opportunity to transform the place of volunteers across the nonprofit sector.

We have been hearing a lot of buzz in the media about the impact of Web 2.0 on nonprofits.  Many nonprofits are starting to incorporate social networking and social media into the work they do.  However, we have also found that many nonprofit leaders feel overwhelmed and confused by this new trend and are having trouble imagining how it will enhance the work that they do.  It can seem like a large and chaotic wilderness; it is difficult to find the path to incorporating the social web into their work.

The current economic reality demands more strategic stewardship of volunteer resources. Need for nonprofit services - and for the social and economic impact and safety net they create - is on the rise, even as donations decline.

I am delighted to announce the release of my newest book, Boomer Volunteer Engagement: Collaborate Today, Thrive Tomorrow, published by VolunteerMatch and Author House and written by Jill Friedman Fixler, Sandie Eichberg, with Gail Lorenz.

Assessment is a process for developing indicators, measures, and benchmarks that provide opportunities to identify needed improvements and create plans that increase board and organizational effectiveness.

Volunteer recognition and retention are inextricably intertwined if you approach both strategically.

If you share our drive to strengthen non-profit organizations, you probably also share a sense that your organization's volunteers and staff members are "doing good work. " But how do you know the differences your programs, services, and volunteers make?