Show Me the Volunteerism (And I'll Show You the Money)

The people who must raise funds often have little idea about the volunteer management aspect of their own agencies. Development staff and Coordinators of Volunteers frequently know little about the financial assets of volunteers active with the organization and rarely ask these volunteers to make financial contributions. Coordinators of Volunteers are happy to remain ignorant of the financial concerns of the agency and could not even imagine asking for money from those who already offer their time. Development staff are also unaware that funders may see data on volunteer involvement as a measure of how effectively an agency will manage their human and financial resources. Development staff also fail to recognize that there are funders who would be willing to fund projects to improve an agency's effectiveness through better management of its own volunteers.