5 Findings to help you Prepare for 2017 – What Volunteer Experts are Saying About their Programs
Posted Thursday, January 5th, 2017 by Sterling Volunteers Staff
1. Volunteer Numbers Are Growing
Retiring Baby Boomers with time on their hands began to swell the volunteer market a decade or so ago. That fact, coupled with a new generation of socially conscious Millennials, has brought new emphasis to volunteerism in recent years. Although staffing is a perpetual challenge for nonprofits and helping organizations, the organizations that use volunteers are using more of them.
2. Training Programs for Volunteers Are on the Rise
As the range and complexity of volunteer opportunities increases, training becomes important to a wider range of volunteer positions. Formal training has benefits beyond the obvious; it establishes standards of competency; brands the organization as not only caring but capable; and quickly lets new volunteers know what will be required of them.
3. More Organizations Are Serving Vulnerable Populations
Vulnerable populations include the economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic minorities, children from low-income families, the elderly, the homeless, the uninsured, and those with chronic health conditions, including severe mental illness.
4. Challenges in Volunteer Screening Are Changing
Despite the fact that organizations are spending more on individual volunteer background checks, such checks are not their biggest expense. Rather, staffing—recruiting and retaining qualified staff in an economy in which there is a “war for talent”—has replaced background screening as the most costly item for most organizations.
5. More Organizations Expect to do More Volunteer Background Checks
More than ever, organizations that serve the public, and especially a vulnerable public, want to know and have confidence in their volunteers. In most cases, none are decreasing the number of checks they perform, and far fewer organizations are “staying the same” in terms of checks.