02/14/2023

Why Volunteering Needs a Transformation

A disconnect exists between what association volunteers do and the value they deliver

Association CEOs lead their staffs, their members, and to a substantial extent their boards. And though it’s not talked about as much, they also run their association’s volunteer model. That model often can be creaky and dysfunctional, though, which may be why it’s not talked about as much.

A new publication by the ASAE Research Foundation, A Holistic Approach to Holistic Volunteer Management, is based on survey research that attempts to show where the cracks in the model are. Among the findings is a stark disconnect between how useful volunteers feel they’re being, and how useful staff feels the volunteers’ work is. Forty-six percent of volunteers describe their work as “highly effective”; only 29 percent of association staffers say the same about volunteer work.

A likely key cause of that disconnect, as I discussed in a recent Deep Dive article on the report, is that there’s a lack of measurement and goal-setting around volunteering. According to the report, 40 percent of association staffs have no formal volunteer assessment in place.

Please select this link to read the full article from Associations Now.