Getting Volunteer Engagement on the Agenda

You’ve worked hard to capture the value of volunteer engagement.

Maybe you’ve moved beyond counting volunteers and hours to documenting how volunteers extend your organization’s reach, strengthen services, build staff capacity, or deepen connections to the community. You have compelling stories. You have data. You can see the impact.

But how do you get the people with decision-making power to hear about it?

For many volunteer engagement professionals, that’s the next challenge. Senior leaders and board members are busy, agendas are crowded, and volunteer engagement is too often viewed as an operational topic rather than a strategic one.

So, how do you get volunteer engagement onto the agenda?

Find the Doorway Already on the Agenda

You may not need to ask for a special presentation on volunteer engagement. Instead, look at the issues leaders and boards are already discussing.

Is your organization focused on expanding services? Addressing employee burnout? Strengthening community trust? Diversifying revenue? Reaching new populations? Planning for growth? Volunteer engagement has something to contribute to each of those conversations.

The goal is not to say, “We need to talk about volunteers.” It’s to say, “As we consider this strategic priority, here is how volunteer engagement can help us address it.”

Build an Internal Champion

If you don’t regularly have access to the boardroom or leadership table, who does?

Identify a senior leader, CEO, board member, or other influential colleague who understands—or could come to understand—the strategic value of volunteer engagement. Equip that person with the evidence, stories, and language needed to carry the conversation forward.

Don’t simply hand over a report. Help your champion understand the connection between volunteer engagement and the decisions leaders are being asked to make.

Bring a Strategic Question, Not a Data Dump

Data matters. Stories matter. But neither is likely to change a conversation if leaders don’t know what to do with them.

Instead of presenting everything you know about volunteer impact, use the evidence to raise a strategic question:

     What could we accomplish if we invested more intentionally in the people who choose to give their time and skills to our mission?

Or:

     Where could volunteers help us extend our capacity to meet this priority?

A good strategic question invites leaders into the conversation rather than asking them simply to receive information.

Change the Report Before Asking for More Airtime

If the only information leaders receive about volunteers is an annual count of people and hours, they will likely continue to see volunteer engagement as an activity to report on rather than a strategy to invest in.

Start changing the story now.

Supplement those traditional metrics with evidence of mission impact, staff capacity, financial value, and community connection. Even a short dashboard or a few well-framed questions can begin to shift how leaders think about the role of volunteers.

Give Leaders a Role to Play

Finally, don’t just tell leaders that volunteer engagement matters. Help them see where their leadership matters.

Is there a policy decision to make? An investment to consider? A strategic priority that could benefit from volunteer capacity? A community connection that a board member could help open?

People are more likely to pay attention when there is a meaningful role for them to play.

Getting volunteer engagement onto the agenda isn’t about asking leaders to care more about volunteers. It’s about helping them see that volunteer engagement is connected to the issues they already care about—and the decisions they are responsible for making.

And once you have their attention, the next question is: How do you communicate volunteer value in language that resonates with decision-makers? Check out our recent guest post on Better Impact, in which we explore four ways to frame the conversation around the priorities boards care about most: finances, mission, employee engagement, and public trust.

Capturing volunteer value is essential. Making sure that value reaches the people who can act on it is an act of leadership.