Riverdale Y, a community center based in the Bronx, NY, is a century-old organization devoted to the well-being of the whole community through educational, wellness, and service programs for all. Volunteers have been engaged in varied ways over the years, but the organization had never formalized its commitment to a volunteer engagement strategy through a full-time, dedicated volunteer coordinator until circumstances changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to 2020, one of Riverdale Y’s flagship programs was the Senior Center, which, in addition to its educational and support services, served lunch in the Y’s dining room, providing nutrition and social connection to seniors Monday through Friday. When COVID hit and the Senior Center along with most of Riverdale Y closed down, leadership knew that they had to find a way to sustain this vital service—which is where volunteers came in. Volunteers were engaged to help to package and deliver 200 meals a day—for 18 months.

Taking note of this pivot, UJA Federation of New York approached Riverdale Y with the opportunity to apply for funding for a volunteer coordinator through financial support for the salary, food for the deliveries to homebound seniors, and coaching, provided by VQ Volunteer Strategies.

By February 2021, Alexandra Nyashina was hired as the first full time Director of Volunteer Services. Alexandra brought deep experience in customer service and project management from years in the luxury hospitality industry but was new to volunteer engagement specifically. VQ Volunteer Strategies was there to support her and the rest of the staff as they navigated this transition and built a strategy for volunteer engagement across the organization. Alexandra’s professional experience, desire to apply her skills to mission-driven work, and commitment to learning made Alexandra a great partner for coaching.

For two years, VQ Volunteer Strategies’ President Beth Steinhorn had monthly virtual calls with Alexandra and, at times, other staff from Riverdale Y. In the first year, calls focused on establishing practices and tools for efficient engagement—and Riverdale Y developed position descriptions, policies and handbooks, recruitment plans, and communications plans. Together, Beth and Alexandra also developed strategies to build support across departments and develop an organization-wide vision for volunteer engagement. Regarding that first year, Alexandra noted, “Having no experience working with volunteers, I was excited to receive needed guidance, structure, and support and I got all of that.”

By the second year, the focus expanded to equipping other staff for success, nurturing the community partnerships to enhance recruitment, and more advanced professional development for Alexandra.

When asked about the tangible outcomes from this coaching experience, Alexandra shared:

• I have an extremely professional program here. From first point of contact through a volunteer’s point of departure, they are treated with utmost respect and they feel that they are making a difference.
• We also have a full set of documented processes, from position descriptions and orientations to beyond, this coaching taught me about these building blocks.
• Thanks to all this support, we have grown from four volunteers’ names written on a little scrap of paper when I first walked in here to now, when we have over 100 committed volunteers. We have a database and sustainability.
• Most importantly, when we reopened for in-house service, we served 30 people, but now, thanks to our reliable corps of volunte
• ers ranging in age from 16 to 80, we regularly serve 70 meals daily (and once a month, serve 200 meals to celebrate birthdays and other special events).

Additionally, as a testament to her professional growth, Alexandra is now leading a volunteer engagement focused community of practice for the JCC Association of North America, the first of its kind, as far as we know.

Through VQ Volunteer Strategies’ coaching, Alexandra and others like her gain new skills and hone others, more effectively champion organizational change and serve as an internal resource on volunteer engagement best practices, and recognize that the organization is investing in and supporting them towards success. As such, they are more likely to be satisfied in their role.

When San Diego Humane Society’s Director of Volunteer Engagement reached out to us at VQ Volunteer Strategies (then known as JFFixler Group) in late 2014, she described San Diego Humane Society as an organization experiencing “epic growth.” Three mergers in the span of just a few years expanded the type of services, increased the organization’s geographic reach, and nearly doubled the volunteer corps (from 2,850 to over 5,000 volunteers) encompassing what had previously been four independent volunteer programs.

Throughout its 125-year history, San Diego Humane Society has been dedicated to strengthening the human-animal bond, preventing cruelty/neglect, educating the community on humane treatment of animals, and providing community education and safety net services to pet families needing assistance. Volunteers have actively helped to deliver on this mission since the Society’s inception, and the role and scope of their work had evolved along with the organization. Now, on the heels of three mergers and the adoption of a new strategic plan calling for increased community engagement, the need to once again adapt the volunteer engagement strategy was clear – and the Humane Society reached out to us for guidance.

Specifically, senior leadership sought help in answering these questions:

• How should we structure the volunteer engagement department to best support multiple campuses and programs?
• How can we best unify these programs, maximize our resources, and leverage volunteer talent to support the organization’s overall priorities?

To address these questions, San Diego Humane Society engaged us to assess their current state of engagement, recommend a staffing structure to support volunteer involvement, develop an engagement strategic plan to map their future actions, and write a guide to direct daily engagement practices across all campuses and programs. Together, these four efforts helped achieve the overall goal of an organization-wide transformation from considering volunteers as a program to instead embracing volunteer engagement as a strategy.

Over the course of a year, we partnered with San Diego Humane Society on all four of these efforts.

• During the Assessment, we reviewed documents, policies, and procedures, conducted a site visit, interviewed more than 30 staff and volunteers, and developed a customized online survey. We synthesized the data into a report with data highlights and recommendations. This assessment helped the Humane Society understand its current strengths and challenges – none of which were surprising to executive leadership, but having the data to confirm their experience paired with our specific recommendations for action proved valuable.
• In conjunction with the assessment, we reviewed the current Staffing Structure for supporting volunteers and developed recommendations for realigning human resources to engage more volunteers in the Society’s mission-critical work. Our report included recommended adjustments to the organizational structure, position descriptions, and competencies for hiring volunteer engagement staff.
• The Strategic Planning process built upon the assessment results but shifted the focus from the Society’s current state to its desired future. After consulting on the formation of a planning task force, we facilitated a cross divisional planning retreat which marked the first time that all divisions were represented in planning for volunteer engagement. The high-energy day resulted in a new, unified vision for engagement and a draft plan with priority issues, goals, and objectives designed to achieve that vision over the subsequent three years. We continued to support teams of staff and volunteers in finalizing the plan and coached leadership on sharing the plan across the agency.
• Finally, to address two of the pressing issues that arose through the planning process – Nurturing connectivity and consistency across all campuses and programs and establishing practices that are pillars of our desired volunteer engagement culture – we developed a Volunteer Engagement Guide to outline the processes and procedures for engaging volunteers that all campuses and programs of the Humane Society should follow.

Throughout this work, we also provided coaching to volunteer engagement leadership on implementing the plan and the realignment of HR resources. In fact, we have continued to coach the team through their final year of implementing the plan and prepare for their next planning cycle.

Since the development of this first strategic plan for volunteer engagement, San Diego Humane Society experienced a dramatic shift in perspective across the organization. The plan and its subsequent updates continue to guide their work. The Director of Volunteer Engagement meets regularly with executive leadership to report on progress and the plan gives her stronger ability to advocate for needed resources – as well as to say “no” to requests that would not advance their overall vision for volunteer engagement. They have a staffing structure that makes sense for their priorities. Additionally, the volunteer engagement plan is on everyone’s radar and, as a result, they have cross-divisional communication in a way that didn’t previously exist. Most importantly, they have been able to to scale volunteer involvement and impact as the organization continues to grow and evolve.

To learn more about our work with San Diego Humane Society, read our article in e-Volunteerism Journal, “Moving Beyond Program: Developing a Volunteer Engagement Strategic Plan.”

In 2020, when volunteer efforts in many cities across the nation ground to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of Fort Collins – a municipality of about 175,000 residents located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Northern Colorado – recognized that volunteers could play a pivotal role in responding to this crisis; it was immediately clear that many residents would be isolated in their homes and need assistance with errands, groceries, and neighborly support. While the City’s recreation centers, arts centers, and many indoor public programs were temporarily shuttered, Fort Collins pivoted its volunteer engagement to meet the new needs for neighbor-to-neighbor support. But this story of tapping volunteers for response began long before COVID-19.

About Fort Collins

Since 1985, volunteers have played a  vital role in the City’s mission of “exceptional service for an exceptional community,” with more than 10,000 volunteers serving each year.

Beginning in 2015, the City streamlined its approach across initiatives, departments, and programs by integrating all facets of engagement into one cohesive strategy. These efforts, along with training and coaching provided by VQ Volunteer Strategies in partnership with Spark the Change Colorado,  Fort Collins achieved Service Enterprise certification. More importantly, the focus on strategy, along with the associated time, funds, and human capital, positioned Fort Collins to effectively combat the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Strategy

 Innovations in City Volunteering

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, the City’s Office of Emergency Management quickly turned to the Volunteer Services Program to extend its resources. Within days of the first COVID-related quarantines and shutdowns, the City’s volunteer engagement team reached out to partners including VQ Volunteer Strategies to plan the creation and launch of a virtual COVID response center that leaned on existing technology to onboard new volunteers and pair them with neighbors needing help.

Responding to facility closings, staff members revamped the existing Adopt a Neighbor program – which initially paired volunteers with a neighbor in need of support for daily tasks – to help those most severely impacted by COVID-19 isolation. With leadership support, guidance from VQ Volunteer Strategies, and assistance from the Spark the Change Colorado volunteer center, the redesign and pivot were accomplished in just five business days, featuring opportunities like Adopt A Neighbor and, shortly after, a Virtu Visit program to connect isolated community members with volunteers through technology.

The Next Steps to Strategy

Adopt A Neighbor, Virtu Visit, and other programs demonstrated the power and potential of engaging volunteers in response to crisis, but the city also recognized that, by planning ahead, the community could be even more responsive. In 2021, the City partnered again with VQ Volunteer Strategies to develop a citywide volunteer engagement plan.

The planning process kicked off with Discovery and Assessment.

Discovery and Assessment was designed to get a snapshot of current volunteer engagement practices and attitudes and identify needs that could be addressed by engaging volunteers in new roles. The assessment included:

• A review of all existing volunteer-related policies, procedures, documents, and survey results
• Interviews with staff and volunteers across the city
• A customized survey

VQ Volunteer Strategies analyzed the data and developed a report with recommendations for action, including ensuring leadership sees and fully understands the value and impact of volunteer involvement, conducting research to better understand barriers to volunteering in the city in order to enhance the accessibility and diversity of the volunteer corps, and piloting new roles to build capacity of City programs. The discovery also surfaced training opportunities for staff and volunteers as well as recruitment strategies.

The Citywide Volunteer Engagement Strategy was developed collaboratively by VQ Volunteer Strategies and a cross-divisional planning task force. Through virtual retreats, we facilitated the refinement of the city’s vision for volunteer engagement and the drafting of strategy with priorities, goals, and objectives to achieve that vision.

Through this work, the City of Fort Collins now has:

• A city-wide vision and appreciation of volunteer engagement as a strategy to help all departments achieve their goals
• A more unified system for recruitment, onboarding, and recognition
• Metrics for the impact of volunteer involvement
• A plan to guide their work for years to come