The VAN Reading, Resource and Leadership Corner, a bi-monthly post to the VAN blog that will keep you informed on the latest thinking, online and local resources, and best or promising practice relevant to effective volunteer engagement and leadership. Do you have any resources you’d like to share? Just e-mail Nikki at nrussell@uwkc.org and I’ll work your resource into the next post.
Do you value the resources, information and news you receive bi-weekly from VAN? Consider engaging with your VAN peers online to share even more resources and discuss volunteer management issues relevant to you. You can join your VAN peers on LinkedIn: We now have 126 group members asking volunteer management questions and sharing volunteer management resources. Join the conversation! You can also follow VAN on Twitter @VAN_NW. It would be great to increase our VAN Twitter following, so if you’re on Twitter, follow us!
Don’t forget to Like the Volunteer Administrators Network (VAN) Northwest on Facebook.
What Are You Reading?
As a volunteer resource manager, I’m always on the lookout for books on Volunteer Engagement, here are just some of the books I have on my bookshelf:
Betty Stallings’ Leading the Way to Successful Volunteer Involvement: Practical Tools for Busy Executives
Susan J. Ellis’ From the Top: The Executive Role in Successful Volunteer Involvement
The Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration’s, Volunteer Administration: Professional Practice
Jonathan McKee and Thomas W. McKee’s The New Breed, Understanding & Equipping the 21st Century Volunteer
Marlene Wilson, Visionary Leadership in Volunteer Programs- Insights and Inspiration from the Speeches of Marlene Wilson.
Ivan H Scheier, Exploring Volunteer Space: The Recruiting of a Nation
What are your favorite reads?
Resources to Share:
I often find myself rummaging through my e-mails, files and notes, trying to find that amazing volunteer resource management resource that someone suggested to me. Just the other day, I found myself looking back through my blog posts to find a resource that I wanted to pass along to others. I have yet to find an efficient way to organize my collection of resources. If anyone has the perfect tool out there, please do share. In this edition of the Reading, Resource and Leadership Corner, I thought it might be useful to revisit some of the resources I’ve suggested in past editions.
- Check out Volunteer Match’s Engaging Volunteers Blog/Resources. You’ll have access to volunteer engagement resources and tips and can check out and sign up for Volunteer Match’s free webinars.
- To calculate the economic value of volunteers to your organization check out the online resource available from the HandsOn Network: Calculating the Economic Value of volunteers. Traditionally volunteer time has been estimated using a single dollar value for all types of volunteering. The Value of Volunteer Time, which is updated annually, is made available by Independent Sector. The current Independent Sector rate is $20.85 per hour (2010).
- For Risk Management resources, visit the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. They have a free online tutorial on managing risk with volunteers
- New to volunteer resource management, check out Toby Johnson’s The New Volunteer Manager: The First 90 Days
- Explore the Free Management Library for resources on Developing and Managing a Volunteer Program. The library has an amazing collection of management resources worth looking through.
- Don’t forget to visit the Resource Library on Energize Inc. You can also follow Susan Ellis’s blog and listen or read her Hot Topics
- Looking for a guidebook on volunteer management data systems? You can access a free copy of The Consumer’s Guide to Volunteer Management Systems from Idealware.org. The guidebook serves as an introduction to volunteer management software: what’s out there, what to expect and how the different solutions compare.
- Subscribe to Nancy MacDuff’s free online journal: Volunteer Today: The Electronic Gazette for Volunteerism.
Where Do You Turn for Leadership Inspiration?
I have a number of leadership development blogs that I read regularly. My absolute favorite to date: the Leadership Freak: helping others reach higher in 300 words or less. Dan Rockwell shares daily insights on leadership that I find invaluable to my own leadership journey. Here are a couple of posts that have both inspired and challenged me as a leader:
· Something Harder than Believing in Yourself
· The Secret to Creating Happiness
· Lessons from the End of the Rope
· How to Find the Heart of Business
Where do you find your leadership inspiration?
Fall Seminar/Workshop Opportunity:
TableTalks & BoardTalks Seminar Series 2012
September – December 2012
$245
Go to http://www.janetboguch.com/tt.html
What are TableTalks Seminars?
Described by participants as ‘creative, stimulating and supportive’, TableTalks Seminars are facilitated, personalized peer-learning groups that are comprised of 10 to 12 participants who meet as a cohort on a monthly basis for three hour sessions. Janet Boguch, Principal of Non-Profit Works and Wide Angle Coaching has facilitated peer groups since 1990! She loves this work because it is practical, impactful and fun. The seminar series is designed to meet the needs of the participants in a collegial and confidential atmosphere. TableTalks is a forum for discussing practical solutions and brainstorming ideas in a safe and comfortable setting.
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