Supplemental Resources

Guidelines for Volunteer Programs ¹⁷

Volunteers have a special place in our organizations. They can be Board members, tutors, fundraisers or office assistants. Volunteer management is just as important as the management of paid staff. Together, volunteers and staff form the "human resources" component of an organisation.

Volunteers (hopefully) don't just show up and do unpaid work. They need to be recruited, screened, hired, trained, appraised and recognised just like their paid colleagues.

Therefore, any volunteer organization should:

• have in place a clear set of policies addressing the recruitment, preparation, oversight and recognition of volunteer resources;
• give volunteers a clear statement of the tasks and activities that they are to carry out, perhaps including job descriptions or volunteer agreements;
• adopt and adhere to codes of ethical conduct for managers of volunteers and volunteers themselves;
• provide adequate orientation, training and evaluation;
• publicly recognize the contributions of volunteers;
• screen volunteers, particularly if the organization works with vulnerable populations;
• provide direction on how the paid or non-voluntary volunteers are to be integrated into the organization (in unionized environments this means working with the unions to reach agreement); and
• establish explicit expectations about the claiming of expenses.