Lori Gotlieb presents “Building Block for Strategic Planning for Volunteers” at the 2016 VECTor Conference on March 9, 2016. Register now to choose her workshop, and check out some great tips below!

I find it interesting that when you look at the volunteer management cycle and all the components, that there is not much on strategic planning.

Are volunteer programs seen more as a support program that is focussed on responding to need or are volunteer programs moving to leadership programs where we engage volunteers in ways that may drive organizational business?

For example, what if a volunteer who had many years of project management experience offers to share their skills with the organization? Where could that fit in?

We need to start looking at strategic planning for volunteerism in a new and meaningful way.

To start, we need to understand:

• Who our stakeholders are and what they need through stakeholder analysis;

• The risks in volunteer management and the tools to minimize those risks to staff, clients and volunteers through a risk assessment;

• Our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats with regards to volunteer engagement through SWOT and PEST analysis;

• The trends in the field through research and networking;

Once you’ve considered the above, you can then move to the next step by:

• Engaging volunteers in the process;

• Developing priorities; goals and objectives to keep on track through project management.

• Determining an ideal end result and outcome of the process

• Get started!

On March 9^th join me at VECTor 2016 as we will be discussing all these points and more at my workshop on Building Blocks for Strategic Planning for Volunteerism.