Many of the questions that were submitted to the fundraising survey that we recently conducted had to do with volunteers. Getting, keeping, inspiring, organizing and other help with volunteers for your group — were all mentioned quite a few times.

Some of the specific questions I’ll plan on answering either individually or with articles in future. But for now I can provide a quick answer to all of the volunteer questions. Well, sort of. I can at least direct you to several resources that may have the help that you need.

First I highly recommend Thomas McKee’s Volunteer Power website. There are many articles archived there about a variety of volunteer issues. He also has a free newsletter and a new book coming out.

Secondly, I have subscribed to the Successful Fund Raising newsletter published by Stevenson Inc. for over a year. I’ve always found highly valuable information well worth the subscription price.

They also publish The Volunteer Management Report and though I have not subscribed to that one, as its not my main area of interest, I expect that it would also be of the same high quality. You can view all of their available monthly newsletters here.

Besides general volunteer questions, another issue that came up frequently in the survey had to do with working with boards. Of course the majority of non profit board of directors serve voluntarily.

There are two books that I’ve been using recently with a board that I am on and they have really been life-savers. Hildy Gottlieb not only “knows her stuff” but also presents it in a concise, easy to implement manner.

If your group is on the hunt for new board members you absolutely must get Board Recruitment & Orientation A Step-by-Step, Common Sense Guide. Really, I can’t imagine recruiting new members without having read this book first.

The second one by Hildy Gottlieb is about how to get your board to take a leadership role in fundraising. I haven’t quite finished reading this one yet, but so far I am again impressed with the information presented in FriendRaising: Community Engagement Strategies for Boards Who Hate Fundraising but Love Making Friends.

While there may be many questions and issues related to volunteer management, I would estimate that a great majority of these questions can be answered by these resources here.

Enjoy!