How Not to Manage Volunteers
I love Twitter! It's such a great place to stay on top of the latest trends, news, and also to find some talented bloggers. Today I found a link to this blog post about a PTO wannabe. If the post wasn't so infuriating it would be funny!
Lindsey Ferrier writes about her desire to be a valued member of her school's PTO. Sounds like a good and attainable goal. So here's someone -- as far as I can tell from her blog -- who is bright, capable and has a good sense of humor. Sign her up, right? Wrong. This woman volunteered not once, not twice, but three times... without even an email acknowledging her offers! Ouch. Now that's what I call frustrating.
Please don't let this happen in your group! We are several months into the school year. Make it someone on your board's charter to go through your forms and emails and match the volunteer offers up to volunteer opportunities. Lots of good articles on our site on how to attract and keep volunteers -take few minutes to read them. Do you have a system for managing your volunteers? If yes, tell us how you don't let people like Lyndsey fall through the cracks. If no, perhaps you'd like to check out our Finance Manager software.
Find a way to let those who volunteers help out. If you can't use them right away, at least email them back and thank them for their offer and tell them you'll call them when the next volunteer job comes up. Communication is key. Despite the lack of communication and validation from her PTO, Lindsey hasn't given up. But most people most certainly will!
Oh, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/ptotoday.
Image: Andy Newson / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
