Jack Henry, President-Elect of NCAVA, says he has benefited immensely from the professional development and leadership opportunities NCAVA offers. In this article, he highlights the importance of the relationship between a volunteer administrator and a CEO or executive director.
Approaching your leadership about the positive organizational outcomes of investing in your professional development may seem scary, but it doesn’t have to be.
Let’s say you would like to be more involved in NCAVA and its affiliates, go to conference, get certified, or be on the board, but have yet to have The Conversation with your supervisor or top leadership. Before you can advocate for yourself effectively, it may be helpful to see things from the CEO’s perspective.
The conversation below with Paul Vest, president and CEO of the YMCA of Western North Carolina, may provide insight into how senior leadership views investments in volunteerism. Volunteers serve the YMCA of WNC in myriad ways, including mentoring youth in afterschool programs, distributing healthy fruits and vegetables in food deserts, staffing events, coaching youth sports coaches, and more. For more than three decades, Vest has collaborated with volunteers to create policies, programs, and facilities that exemplify the Y’s commitment to support youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility. His remarks have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Jack Henry: Can you talk about the relationship between allocating resources to your volunteer program and volunteer program success?
Paul Vest: As it pertains to the quality of the experience, when you start thinking about risk management and the things that go into a good volunteer-driven program, the organization has an obligation to make sure our volunteers are trained, engaged, and background checked. Having an advocate for volunteers who also understands the necessity of administrative support is critically important. To build a good volunteer program, the organization has to start with somebody who's going to look at the risk side of volunteer development.
Jack: How important is it to you that your leadership pursues industry-specific certifications or are involved in professional development organizations and networks?
Paul: For any size nonprofit, it’s critical to have an organization or a group like NCAVA and LOSAVA give leadership and be a resource in the community. There has to be a standard that nonprofits follow to make sure we're taking care of the organization via our use of volunteers, and treating those volunteers correctly. I know that groups like NCAVA are working on some of the higher standards of those expectations and what that looks like across the board. So even if a nonprofit offers its own certification for working with volunteers, it’s important to have an outside resource that is locally led.
Jack: Some volunteer coordinators don't always know how to ask whether membership dues or certifications should come out of their own pocket, or maybe they're not accustomed to having these things paid for by their organizations. Do you know specifically how professionals in your organization are seeking approval to pay for some of these memberships or conferences?
Paul: Part of that is learning to beat your own drum and be an advocate for this work. I personally believe if we're asking staff to do things that require a certification or training, even just training to be efficient and be better at the job that we've asked them to do, then that's on us as an organization. However, the focus of volunteer management is relatively new, so it's not like going out and getting a lifeguard certification. This takes some education. My hope is that we have volunteer coordinators who understand if there's a training gap, have that discussion with their supervisor, and it gets built into the budget so that it is planned for, just like any other certification a staff member would require.
Jack: It’s $50 for the annual NCAVA statewide membership and around $250 for a two-day conference. Do those investments sound reasonable or comparable to other professional development organizations for the enrichment and sustainability of your leaders?
Paul: Very reasonable. And depending on where the conference is, the costs associated with room and board, and if there truly are some take-home opportunities there, we should be supporting that kind of cost easily.
Jack: What other advice would you give to CEOs and executive directors for whom volunteerism is, or could be, a vital element to organizational success?
Paul: Part of it is just working hard at making it part of the conversation. At the Y, we get so busy, it's easy to not lift this up and let it be something that gets some time and energy and some focus. And partly it’s CEOs or executive directors remembering to put it on an agenda at a staff meeting and making sure that there's a good representation of talking about the value of supporting volunteer administration. And ultimately, when budgets are tight, it's important that CEOs and executive directors get behind this. It also helps if there is a volunteer coordinator who can talk about the bottom-line value of volunteerism first and foremost, but also about the added benefits that don't necessarily directly contribute to the bottom line. I know the more we do with volunteers, the better advocates we have. You don't necessarily see that in the bottom line, but you might see it in your donations going up. You might see it in your advocacy in the community going up.
So, I do think it's critically important to have a conversation with your leadership. Also, I think you're going to see more and more CEOs or executive directors from smaller-sized nonprofits doing volunteer management themselves. And so any resources and support they can get from NCAVA will be hugely valuable to them.
End of Interview
See, that wasn’t so bad. As Paul reinforced, developing a relationship with our leadership, as well as talking about the needs of our program and how investing in it will produce tangible success, are all essential to a sustainable volunteer program. Be on the lookout for further resources from the NCAVA board to help make the case for your organization investing in you.
Now, we’d love to hear from you. CEOs, executive directors, or volunteer directors: How have certified volunteer administrators and volunteer supervisors using industry best practices influenced the success of your organizational mission? Please comment below and get the conversation started!
To learn more about what Jack does as President-Elect click here!
To see the document Jack drafted to help his CEO understand the value he has found in professional development click here.
This NCAVA Times Article and Interview was written by:
Jack Henry
Director of People Operations
YMCA of Western North Carolina
(Your name could be here! submit article ideas to ncavacommunicationsteam@gmail.com )