Your volunteer engagement program can be measured by more than just the hours a volunteer gives your organization. What other kinds of information should you keep track of, and how do you know if you're doing a good job with your volunteer engagement program? This webinar will help you think through both the quantitative and qualitative information you can use to evaluate your program.

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How to Strategically
Assess your Program
Jennifer Bennett @JenBennettCVA
CVA, Senior Manager, Education & Training
Matt Wallace @ItsMattWallace
Senior Associate, Nonprofit Relations

3. Agenda
• What kind of information is out there?
• What are you measuring now?
• What could you measure?
• Why does it matter to your program? Organization?
Volunteers?
• How can you find this information?
• What do your volunteers say?
• Now that you have this – Share It!
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4. What kind of information is out there?
• Quantitative – can be measured or counted with
numbers
– Hours given, trees planted, meals served
• Qualitative – descriptive, can be observed but
not counted or measured
– Compassionate, friendly, outgoing, skilled
Both can be used to describe volunteers and the
work they do, and the impact on your community
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5. What are you measuring now?
The usual stuff
• Number of volunteers
• Hours given per volunteer and an estimated
dollar value
• Amount of trees, meals, etc.
• Money donated
• Cost per volunteer to run your program
– not always a good measure of how successful your
program is or how engaged your volunteers are
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6. What could you measure?
It starts to get a little tricky…
• The Scarce Resources Model – ROI for
Volunteers
– Tony Goodrow, Better Impact
http://www.betterimpact.com/roi2/
• The actual value of the work
– Move beyond an average $ amount
• The impact on the community
– What difference does that tree, sandwich, etc. make?
• The impact on your volunteers
– Increased health, sense of contributing, place in the
community
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7. Why does it matter?
• What questions do you want to answer?
• What kind of information is persuasive?
• Who wants or needs this information?
– You, organization leaders? Funders? The
community? Volunteers?
• What story do you want to tell?
• What do you want others to know about the work
volunteers do in your organization?
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8. How can you find this information?
Quantitative Information
• What are you tracking now?
– Where is it, and is it easy to get it out? Reports,
queries, etc.
• Can you answer the questions you need to
answer?
– If not, why are you tracking that information?
• What other questions do you need/want to
answer?
– Where is that information? If you’re not tracking it
now, can you? And can you report on it effectively?
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9. How can you find this information?
Qualitative Information
• Surveys
– Clients, visitors, members. Volunteers – past and
present. Paid staff – program managers, those that
do/don’t work with volunteers
• Interviews
– As a volunteer what kind of change do you see in
your clients after they are comfortable reading?
• Evaluating impact from a different perspective
– Not just numbers. Volunteers planted 250 trees –
Why does that matter? What does that change?
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10. How do you find this information?
• Work with volunteers!
– Track the quantitative information effectively.
Database volunteer, best practices for data entry.
– Reports that work! SQL volunteers, database
administrator, applications engineer
– Ask the right questions. Surveys written and
conducted by volunteers, evaluated by volunteers.
– Ask your volunteers – Qualitative information about
their experience, the differences they observe in
clients, visitors, the community.
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11. What do your volunteers say?
It can be scary to ask, but what are you afraid of?
If you don’t ask, you wont know, and you can’t
change the problems.
• Evaluate the satisfaction level of volunteers
• How long do volunteers stay? Why and when do
they leave?
• How would volunteer rate their effectiveness in
the organization? The community?
• What would they change?
• What do they wish you would/wouldn’t do?
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12. Share this!
• Remember the questions and remember who
wants the information.
– Annual reports, funders, organizational leaders,
volunteers, paid staff
• Think outside the usual channels
– Blog or newsletter articles, town hall meetings – the
state of volunteering, promote to your constituents,
use social media.
• Solicit feedback
– What else could you do? What other questions can
or should be answered? Follow up – year over year
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13. Remember
• Figure out what you want to answer and then find
that information.
• Challenge yourself to find some of the tricky
information – don’t just do the usual stuff
• As volunteering changes measuring impact should
change as well
• You don’t have to answer all the questions at
once, but know where you’re going
• Get Help! Skills based volunteers, volunteer input
• Spread the word – you did the work, now share it
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Resources
Learning Center
Find upcoming webinar dates, how-to videos and more
http://learn.volunteermatch.org
VolunteerMatch Community
Ask and answer questions after the webinar – use keywords Volunteer Management,
Measuring Success
http://community.volunteermatch.org/volunteer
Upcoming Related Webinar Topics:
•Best Practices for Recruiting Online
•Creating a Comprehensive and Engaging Volunteer Training Program
•Where do I go from here? Evolving your program for more involvement

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Thanks for attending!Join us online:
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Follow us on Twitter: @VolunteerMatch
Visit Engaging Volunteers, our nonprofit blog:
blogs.volunteermatch.org/engagingvolunteers/
For any questions contact:
Jennifer Bennett
(415) 321-3639
@JenBennettCVA
jbennett@volunteermatch.org