This week I’ve been co-ordinating volunteers for the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show’s economic impact study. The survey itself warrants a whole post, but I’m waiting for the results! I’ve been interested in the willingness and enthusiasm of locals in Sisters and Bend, which is about 20 miles away, to volunteer their time at the Quilt Show.
The Quilt Show is entirely volunteer-driven , with a handful of paid staff and approximately 500 volunteers. Initially, I wondered how an organization could run effectively with that type of ratio of staff to volunteers. I’m beginning to see that the Quilt Show has such a presence in the community that people simply want to be involved. They like having the chance to give back to the community and be a part of something important. This is also the same concept that I found in my research on symphony boards.
For an idea of the multitude of tasks accomplished by volunteers, here is a quick job description for a volunteer coordinator for the Austin Film Festival:
Features & Description:
- Recruit Volunteers: This involves radio announcements, finding a venue, publicizing, and hosting a volunteer party, postings on websites, recruiting at Festival events, and a general publicity for the volunteer options at the festival
- Assessing Volunteer Needs: This involves checking with every single department at the festival and constantly updating and recording their possible volunteer needs.
- Scheduling Volunteers: One of the larger portions of the job, this involved working around both staff and volunteer needs to create schedules for the entire festival, and then contact each volunteer to confirm and let them know their schedule.
- Managing Volunteers at the festival: Confirming with volunteers their placement and commitment on the day before their involvement, checking that all volunteers have arrived, calling in back up volunteers, and general co-ordination of lunch for volunteers and other arrangements. Salary: $2,000 – $3,000 (for entire period)Job Requirements
- Highly organized and efficient- Must be personable and enjoy working with many different people- Must have open availability from early August through the end of October- Must be computer literate
This is a laundry list of duties. With the economy and current struggle of nonprofit (and for-profit) organizations, it behoves managers to consider structuring volunteer positions to benefit both the volunteers and the organization.
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