Leadership Summit
Developing Strategic Leaders
Using Motivation and Engagement
to Ensure Volunteer Success
Francine Edwards, PhD
Session Overview:
•Understanding Behavioral Styles
•Maximizing Potential Through Motivation
•Top Causes for Disengagement
•How to Build a Volunteer-Centric Culture
•How to Be Responsive to Volunteer Needs
Food for thought…
Think of yourself as a volunteer. What does the following question
mean to you?
As good as they give?
Principles that underpin volunteering
• Volunteering encourages civic participation and demonstrates active
citizenship
• Volunteering is an expression of the individual's freedom to choose
• Volunteering is unwaged and benefits from being a reciprocal gift
relationship that meets the needs of organizations and volunteers
• Volunteering promotes inclusion and should be open to all
• Volunteering enables people and communities to influence and
contribute to social change
• Volunteering works best when it is guided by good practice
MODULE 1: Understanding Behavioral Styles
• While behavioral traits and other individual differences are important,
behavior is jointly determined by the person and the situation
• Certain situations bring out the best in people, and someone who is a
poor performer in one job may turn into a star in a different role
The DiSC Behavioral Assessment: What is behavior?
DiSC is a simple but useful model used to describe human behavior.
1. Behavior is defined as “what do you say and what do you do.”
2. Behavior is observable.
3. Behavior is situational
4. Behavior is our response to the environment
5. Behavior is different from personality –which is relatively unchanging
6. Behavior can be coached…we can learn to adapt our behavior to be
more effective
The DiSC Behavioral Assessment
The DiSC model discusses four
specific reference points:
• Dominance: direct, strong-willed,
and forceful
• Influence: sociable, talkative, and
lively
• Steadiness: gentle,
accommodating, and soft-hearted
• Conscientiousness: private,
analytical, and logical
Management’s Use of the DiSC Behavioral Assessment
The DiSC assessment is important
for managers because it will enable
them to:
• Better orchestrate people to get
work done
• Effectively diminish conflict
• Understand the dynamics of the
styles (which allows you to give
director and support volunteers)
EXERCISE: DiSC Personality Profile
In order to understand those around us…we must first understand ourselves.
Instructions:
1. Choose the setting in which your responses will be made: Work, home,
church, social, etc.
2. Carefully read the four phrases in each box below. Circle the number
adjacent to the phrase MOST descriptive of you in the setting you have
chosen. (The number is irrelevant at this point.)
3. Circle the number adjacent to the phrase that is LEAST descriptive of you
in the setting you have chosen. (The number is irrelevant at this point.)
4. For each box, choose ONLY ONE “Most" and ONLY ONE "Least"
response.
5. This sheet should be completed within SEVEN MINUTES.
DiSC Behavioral Assessment
http://discpersonalitytesting.com/
GROUP EXERCISE: DiSC Behavioral Shopping Spree
For each question on the list, pick someone in this room who you think
would respond affirmatively.
If you get a positive response from a person, ask him or her to sign by the
question, and then go to another question on the list that you think
describes that person well.
Continue until he or she disagrees. If someone disagrees with you, find
someone else in the room who will agree that the question describes him
or her.
Your goal is to get as many signatures as possible.
MODULE 2: Maximizing Potential Through Motivation
“Human nature has been sold short . . . [we all have] a higher nature
which… includes the need for meaningful work, for responsibility, for
creativeness, for being fair and just, for doing what is worthwhile and
for preferring to do it well.”
-Abraham Maslow
Positive expectancy
• What is positive expectancy and how does it differ
from simply having a positive attitude?
– Being merely positive is looking at a given set of circumstances
and finding the good in the situations you are placed.
– Positive expectancy taps into a different kind of power. It takes a
positive attitude to the next level. Positive expectancy is the idea
of expecting the results that you want in life and believing that
you will receive them.
Four guiding principles for motivating others
• Replace criticism with an environment of safety and respect
• Replace coercion with choice
• Replace a demand for compliance with an invitation that evokes
commitment
• Replace crisis management with clear vision
Simply put…
Replace ineffective leadership with effective coaching.
What motivates volunteers
Three basic categories of motivation
(paid or unpaid work)
Additional categories of motivation
(for volunteers)
• Achievement
• Altruistic
– Desire to achieve excellence
• Affiliation
– Desired fit
• Power
– Desire for influence & control
– For the good of community
• Instrumental
– Gain experience/new skills
• Obligation
– Debt to society
Keeping volunteers engaged
VolunteerMatch.com provides the following key points for engaging
Volunteers:
• Respect
• Holding regular meetings
• Be accessible
• Establish reliable go-betweens
• Be accurate and detailed
• Praise and recognize accomplishments
• Build community
• Be flexible
• Lead by example
MODULE 3: Top Causes for Disengagement
Volunteer engagement is the number-one thing you can measure to
help you determine whether your association is healthy or not.
What does this mean?
Why volunteers leave
Sometimes it can be difficult to keep volunteers engaged and
committed. There are ways that you can ensure that volunteer turnover
is low, but the key is to understand and recognize signs of
disengagement.
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Lack of personal attention
Not acknowledging volunteers/no rewards
Not enough team-building time
Limited resources spent on volunteers
Unclear expectations
Lack of engagement
Exploring the things we value in a working environment
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Working conditions
The work itself
Management procedures
Relationships with colleagues
Providing training
A few reasons why organizations should consider training:
• Unusual or highly-skilled volunteer roles may be difficult to fill unless relevant training
is provided.
• Many people volunteer in order to learn and develop new skills and knowledge, thus
they welcome training.
• Training helps ensure that everyone can meet organizational standards of work.
• Funders may expect or demand training for workers involved in the projects they
fund.
• Volunteers may need training in particular organizational procedures.
• Training is an important element in risk management and meeting regulations i.e.
health and safety, data protection.
• Training demonstrates the value placed on the voluntary work being done and the
volunteers who do it.
• Training is vital in the development of quality in an organization.
• Training demonstrates the organization's commitment to providing a high-quality
service to staff, funders, service-users and the wider community.
A volunteer code of practice
• A code of practice is a set of guidelines that lay out how you expect
volunteers involved with your organization to behave in their
volunteer roles
• Along with the volunteer role description, it makes clear each
volunteer’s role and defines the limits of their work and
responsibilities.
• The code of practice should also make clear the consequences of
contravening the standards set.
• Putting these standards in writing makes them explicit and gives
them weight, so that everyone is aware of what is and is not
acceptable.
MODULE 4: How to Build a Volunteer-Centric Culture
Think about the last time you volunteered (or didn’t volunteer!)
• What did you like, what didn’t you like?
• Were they organized?
• Did you feel appreciated?
• Discuss pros and cons
An organization of appreciation
• Organizations that do volunteer management well actually meet the
needs of their volunteers
• Treat volunteers as if they were your most valuable asset
• Design reward programs that influence people to develop their own
potential
• Pay attention to the work environment…is it working (equipment,
furniture, working conditions, etc.)
• Encourage managers to work for their employees (be the type of
manager that is committed to developing talent)
The foundation of a volunteer-centric culture
1. Find ways to measure, communicate and acknowledge the dollar
value that volunteers provide to your organization. This hard data is
also critical to the decision-making process of investing more time
and money into developing volunteer talent.
2. Create a new volunteer packet and/or networking event to
encourage a welcoming and inclusive volunteer culture.
3. Adopt a volunteer philosophy statement on the value volunteers
bring to the organization and the role they play.
4. Develop an organizational climate that places decision-making and
awareness of changing volunteer conditions at the center of
executive decisions.
5. Review volunteer policies and procedures. Without compromising
risk management, determine if organizational safeguards can be
put into place without overwhelming volunteers.
MODULE 5: How to Be Responsive to Volunteer Needs
It’s easier to retain existing volunteers, rather than recruit new ones.
A study commissioned by the UPS Foundation (2012) found that twofifths of volunteers stopped volunteering for an organization at some
time because of one or more poor volunteer management practices.
Be responsive to the needs of those volunteering for you.
Support and supervision
Support has been defined
as “The interest,
understanding and care
which is provided for
volunteers, which keeps
them going all the time and
additionally in times of crisis
and enables them to satisfy
their needs and those of the
organization.”
Supervision, on the other
hand, is described as, “A
way of monitoring a
volunteer’s performance to
help them benefit from their
placement, to make sure they
are carrying out tasks
appropriately, encourage
problem-solving and provide
guidance.”
Support and supervision (continued)
The functions of support activities
are to:
• focus on the person
• set up an environment where
volunteers can express
themselves
• combat isolation which
sometimes accompanies
volunteer roles
• help resolve problems
• help a volunteer feel good about
what they are doing and show
that they are valued
The functions of supervision are:
• monitoring work and work
performance
• evaluating work and work
performance
• clarifying priorities
• identifying training needs
• discussing the volunteering task
and responsibilities;
• improving confidence and
competence in doing the work
• recognizing and dealing with
problems
Supporting the person
Eight broad types of support:
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Offering advice
Giving information
Direct action
Training
Changing systems
Personal support
Facilitating mutual support
Supervisory support
How you provide support
Eight broad types of support:
• One-to-one vs. group support
– Ideally good to combine both
• Manager/supervisor vs. peers
– Volunteers can be encouraged to support each other
– Takes some burden off manager
• In person vs. at a distance
– Remember that communication is vital regardless of which
format
– Choose forms of communication that work best for both parties
• Scheduled vs. on demand
– Encourage volunteers to seek your support and be flexible in
providing it
Avoid overload and volunteer burnout
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Be upfront in the recruiting process
Implement effective project management
Communicate better
Interchange responsibilities
Create better (more inviting) volunteer positions
Keep volunteers integrated…not overwhelmed
To sum it all up…
Organizations that invest in volunteers and high standards of recruiting, training and
supporting volunteers will be able to prove to funders, stakeholders, volunteers and
service users that the contribution of volunteers is valued and that they are wellmanaged.
This is no simple task…to motivate and engage volunteers. It takes resources and an
expressed commitment to supporting the involvement of volunteers. Motivating and
engaging volunteers is a two-way process that benefits volunteers and the
organization.
QUESTIONS?