When meeting others, we are often asked “What do you do for a living?” For most people the answer is clear. There are so many positions that make sense, but I find I hesitate before answering this question. Am I a Manager of Volunteers, or a Volunteer Manager, or an Administrator of Volunteers? There are so many titles that are used to describe essentially the same role, but the one clear follow-up question I get is oh…do you get paid for this…

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked that, I would not need to get paid for doing this role. Could that be one of the problems? Is the value of managing volunteers still viewed simply as “making a difference” or should there be a monetary value for managing a volunteer program at a certain point?

Let me first say that volunteer programs have a long history of forming through groups of like-minded individuals who banded together to help a cause. To this day, this is still the foundation of volunteerism, but at what point do we go from volunteers managing volunteers to paid professionals managing volunteer programs? Volunteer management is a profession that has courses, certificates, networks, associations and accountabilities across Canada and around the world. Are enough of us as professionals using these resources to add value, visibility and professional credibility to our work?

I find it interesting that, for all we do, our work is so unrecognizable in the workforce. We have the privilege of building a career on making others happy and making a difference in our communities. We are the “matchmakers” of the nonprofit world. Is it not our responsibility to build the profile of our profession beyond our own networks? We are the architects of our own careers and we must continue to chip away so that our stakeholders know what we do, how we do it and the impact that we make in our communities. It is our responsibility to make sure that we train others to build the professionalism and that we “sell” our field to senior management so that they are aware of all that we do.

When I think about the many jobs that we hold it practically takes my breath away.

We are human resource experts, fundraisers, special events coordinators, policy developers, strategy developers, coaches, mentors, program developers, supervisors, database managers, sales agents, advocates, and my all time favourite: matchmakers.

I am sure that if you sat down and made a list of all the hats that you wear, your list would be large, too.

We are responsible for making sure that volunteers who come into our organizations are placed based on their skills and expectations. We are responsible for making sure that volunteers enhance the work that we do as an organization.

We spend a lot of time matching the needs of our customers both internal (staff and clients) and external (volunteers and communities). We look at what is being asked of us and we go out and find it. When we find the right match we know right away (usually). In between our “matchmaking duties” we are using our creative side to create new opportunities, support tools, recognition events and evaluation programs to further our primary endeavour, which is to find the right volunteer(s) for the right position(s) and get some good work done.

A few years back I connected with a university student who had been taking courses on presentation skills to help with his career in sales. Though he had been working with a group to fine-tune his communication skills, he did not have any actual experience. He came to me asking to volunteer, but not specifically to build on his skill sets.

Through the interview process, which included many open-ended questions to find out about his expectations, we came up with some ideas of where he had a passion to learn and where we had some gaps in support.

Next steps included connecting him with a program where he could share his knowledge and gain some experience. He built a whole “volunteer career path” with his volunteer position to the point where he joined the board of directors in his third year as a volunteer.

As volunteerism continues to be a critical bridge towards career growth and experience enhancing activities, it would seem that our leadership in helping to build career experience through volunteerism would be one driving factor in recognizing the importance of our field.

It is our responsibility as Managers of Volunteers to recognize opportunities, strengths and weaknesses, both within our organizations and our communities, and to try and bridge those gaps. We are asked to use our unique skill set to model best practices and translate what the community at large is saying, so that we can adapt our programs to include volunteers.

On top of all this, we are always trying to help others. I am sure that each one of you has a story of going above and beyond duty, those little moments when you know that you have done something that has made an impact on someone else. Those are the moments that reinforce that we are leaders in our field and we must continue to advocate for volunteer management.

Now if we can just figure out what to call ourselves.

Lori Gotlieb is the Manager of Community Engagement for The Arthritis Society, Toronto Region and the founder of Lori Gotlieb Consulting. Lori is an internationally published author and workshop facilitator. Lori can be reached at lori.gotlieb@rogers.com.