Playing for keeps: Recruiting and retaining volunteer staff in volunteer-run organizations

Volunteers face many challenges in organizing a successful nonprofit group. Balancing the growth and demands of an organization with family, career, and a personal life can be incredibly difficult. According to Tina Patterson, president of the Fraser Valley FiT Network,...

Volunteer screening: More than just a police records check

Volunteerism. It’s a wonderful activity that offers rewards for all involved. Sadly, there is a segment of the population, albeit slight, that sometimes targets nonprofits for criminal activity. A recent example is the revelation by Scouts Canada in 2011 of...

Have students, will achieve

For a year now, Vicky Mah and Jillian Walsh, both second-year medical students at the University of Calgary, have been volunteering their time running the student-run medical clinic at the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre in the city's downtown core....

The top ten places to find volunteers

This article is my ode to David Letterman. Let's call it the list article. Where are the top 10 places to find volunteers? I will make it more interesting and give you the top ten most common sources to search...

Challenges to volunteering for newcomers

Is your volunteer program successfully welcoming and integrating new Canadians? According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, between 240,000 and 260,000 new immigrants will arrive in Canada in 2011. Our country continues to be a major recipient of new immigrants worldwide...

Screening volunteers for attitude

Involving volunteers only to get work done or to save money are ideas that have long ago jumped the shark. The modern volunteer manager involves volunteers for much better reasons — to involve the community in the work of the...

Eight tips for recruiting and retaining volunteers in tough times

How does a financial crisis affect volunteering? Will volunteering go up or down, or change in other ways as the global economy worsens? One thing is certain: Because volunteers are real people living in real communities, tight budgets will have...

How to conduct volunteer screening

In order to ensure healthy and safe organizations, we should develop an overall risk management strategy that covers all aspects of how we operate. "Screening" is just one element in a risk management program that puts the focus on volunteers....

Facing today’s volunteer recruitment challenges

One of the biggest challenges facing nonprofits that I hear about is "recruitment" of volunteers. We all know that the competition for volunteers has increased, as has demand since there are more organizations needing help. We also know that about...