Volunteers In Nonprofit Organizations

Introduction
Volunteers can be found at many different types of organizations and are an important part of the work that is done by many nonprofit organizations (NPO). When working with volunteers there are many different aspects that have to be looked at for the volunteers and the organization to be successful. An organization like a NPO that utilizes volunteers has to make sure that they are aware of the liabilities that come with using volunteers. This is very important since every year there are over ninety million Americans that donate their time to organizations as volunteers (Grossman & Furano, 2000). This is one reason that an organization needs to make sure that they have a successful volunteer manager or volunteer management team in place. Volunteers do not only need a successful volunteer management team, but a successful volunteer recruitment and retention team is needed so that those volunteers that are an asset to an organization are given a reason to continue to volunteer for that organization. Without the retention team, volunteers are not going to want to continue to give their time to the organization.
Key components to retain volunteers include recognition, training and professional development, along with screening the volunteers to ensure they are a proper fit for the organization (Hager & Brudney, 2004). This may require some extra work from the volunteer management staff, but in the end it is crucial to ensure that volunteers are getting what is needed for them to be successful with the organization. Beyond the items that are listed NPO can do other things to ensure retention of volunteers which includes providing a culture that is welcoming to the volunteers, making sure to allocate the resources needed to support the volunteers, and give them the power to enlist other volunteers for the organization (Hager & Brudney,