It’s National Volunteer Week, What’s Your Volunteer Story?

April 23-29 is National Volunteer Week where organizations can recognize and thank volunteers for everything that offer.

Adaptistration People 078I’m curious to hear your stories; take a moment to share something in the comment section and while you’re thinking about that, here are some volunteer oriented topics and resources.

There are a slew of articles at ArtsHacker covering everything from special software you can use to help screen volunteers, hacks on improving organization skills, protecting yourself and your volunteers with the right kinds of waivers, and tools to help determine monetary value for volunteer labor.

There’s also a series of articles here from 2004 that took an exhaustive look at a successful docent program at the Denver Zoo and analyzed the importance of ownership and providing avenues for volunteers to develop a genuine vested interest in the organization and its mission.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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