Smarter Impact Starts Here
Building Leadership Support through Good Goals and Meaningful Metrics
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organizations to rethink how they do business, including how volunteers serve. These new practices don’t necessarily fit into traditional methods of measuring the impact of volunteer involvement – yet they are impactful. New...
Planning for the New 3 Rs of Engagement: COVID-19 Recovery, Reopening, and Return
As organizations begin to recover, reopen, and return to more normalized operations after the pandemic, developing a plan for how to safely and strategically engage volunteers will help ensure that volunteers can be partners in driving impact and achieving mission....
Finding the Right Volunteer Opportunity
Have you seen the latest issue of Civic Life Today magazine? April's issue focuses on -- you guessed it -- volunteering! VQ Volunteer Strategies contributed a checklist to help individuals find the "Right Opportunity" for volunteering. How will your organization stack...
New eToolkit on Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers Amid Uncertainty
Volunteer engagement has been evolving for years, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations were forced to accelerate change at an unprecedented rate. With only a few exceptions, organizations either chose to adapt or temporarily shut down their volunteer...
Navigating the Murky Waters of Delegation
In the last week, I’ve interviewed three different volunteer engagement professionals about volunteer retention as their organizations are in various stages of reopening and recovery from the pandemic-related restrictions on volunteer engagement. Interestingly, they all shared one strategy: All are engaging volunteers as leaders in new ways.
Days of Service – Let’s Evolve the Vision
In anticipation of today, the 2021 Martin Luther King Jr. Day, designated as a National Day of Service, I was interviewed by Meghan McCarty Carino for National Public Radio about how organizations have adjusted their MLK Day of Service plans given the pandemic. As is...
A Grateful Note to End 2020
The end of the calendar year is traditionally a time of reflection – looking back on the year’s achievements, challenges, joys, and losses. While 2020 is no different in that regard, our reflections are paired with an urgent desire to put this difficult year behind...
The Power of Plans, Peers, and Pivots
At the start of 2020, we at VQ Volunteer Strategies were training and coaching four different cohorts of organizations. While each was designed to help organizations engage volunteers to deliver on mission, the focus of each cohort varied significantly, including one...
Redefining Leadership: Finding Balance in Recovery and Renewal
In our recent blog, we explored the importance of making the case for volunteer engagement as a strategy to sustain your organization. An important part of making the case is demonstrating how engaging volunteers (and doing that well) can continue to support and...
Leveraging Engagement to Sustain Our Organizations
The most common topic of discussion in meetings lately and the theme of many sessions during this unusual fall conference season is the need to advocate for volunteer engagement as a strategy to help sustain organizations during these challenging times. While...
