Charities Must Learn to Better Manage Volunteers, Study Finds

Sixty-two percent of charities that use volunteers employ a paid staff member to manage them, according to a new study by the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington.

However, the survey also found that those employees spend a median of only 30 percent of their time on volunteer management — meaning that half of those surveyed spend less time on that task, and half spend more.

Along with the lack of staff time devoted to managing volunteers, a report on the study’s findings said that few charities do as much as they should to make sure volunteers are used effectively.

The study, which was based on data from 1,753 charities and 544 religious congregations, was paid for by the UPS Foundation, in Atlanta, and the Corporation for National and Community Service and the USA Freedom Corps, both in Washington.

The study was a follow-up to a 1998 study sponsored by UPS, which found that many volunteers say that charities don’t always make the most of their skills and interests.

The new survey found that 81 percent of charities use volunteers, and 34 percent of congregations rely on volunteers to help run their social-service programs. Both charities and congregations that use volunteers reported that they could currently take on additional helpers — with the typical charity reporting that it could take on 20 more volunteers.

But finding and managing additional volunteers is a challenge to organizations due to multiple demands on coordinators of volunteers, lack of funds, and time conflicts.

Managers of volunteers at the organizations surveyed often have other duties, the report found.

Of charities with a paid manager of volunteers, only 12.5 percent have staff members who devote 100 percent of their time to volunteer management, and only one congregation out of 544 surveyed had a full-time coordinator for its social-service-program volunteers.

About 37 percent of congregations that use volunteers said they employ a paid staff member who has some responsibility for supervising those volunteers.

‘Professionalization’ Grows

Most coordinators of volunteers have at least a minimum level of training, according to the survey. Of paid managers of charity volunteers, 66 percent reported having had training such as coursework, workshops, or attendance at volunteer-management conferences. A greater proportion of managers of volunteers at religious social-service programs — 72 percent — reported having had at least the same amount of training.

The “professionalization” of volunteer management appears to lag behind the professionalization of fund raising. While the UPS survey showed that 39 percent of charities employ paid staff members who spend at least half their time managing volunteers, a 2002 study by the Urban Institute and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, in Indianapolis, found that 55 percent of U.S. charities employ a staff member or consultant whose primary responsibility is fund development.

The new study also found that less than half of charities and congregations have adopted volunteer-management practices that experts have advocated. For instance, it said only about one-third of charities have adopted formal efforts to acknowledge the work of their volunteers.

When asked about problems in recruiting and managing volunteers, respondents in the UPS survey said their biggest challenges included finding volunteers who are available during the workday, lack of money to supervise volunteers, and difficulties attracting a sufficient number of volunteers. Slightly more than one out of five respondents said a lack of paid staff time to train and supervise volunteers was also a big problem.

The organizations surveyed said they supported a range of options for improving the recruitment and management of volunteers, including increased financial support to cover the expenses of volunteer involvement, more volunteer-management training, and more information about people willing to volunteer.

Copies of the report, “Volunteer Management Capacity in America’s Charities and Congregations: A Briefing Report,” are available free at http://www.urban.org, http://www.usafreedomcorps.gov, and http://www.nationalservice.org.