Volunteer Engagement

2013 National Leadership Conference

Bill Murray, Asst. District Director, Southwest Florida

Manasota SCORE

Some background

• Chapter established in 1965, just a year after the National organization, currently around 50 volunteers

• Service area is the Manatee and Sarasota counties of Florida, about 76,000 ‘firms’

Some background

• Early adopter of the Simple Steps workshop program, beta site for the Grow Your Business series, provider of two technology workshops to National

• Relatively advanced technically, web site driven well before the current systems

• Good quality metrics, well above the national averages

Looks like a pretty good picture, doesn’t it?

The 2012 Volunteer Survey - What’s going on?

The Problems

• Only 58% of our volunteers thought their colleagues were willing to go beyond what was expected for the success of SCORE.

• Only 69% thought their colleagues were passionate about providing outstanding client service.

• We had the lowest overall ‘rating’ in our District!

The Problems

• 15 of the statements were rated 10 or more points below the national averages!

• The ratings on the National leadership were half of the national average!

Clearly the volunteers were not as happy as we would have expected -- which was a surprise to the Chapter’s Executive Committee.

The Actions – Developing a Plan• Looking at the statements that were well below the national averages we segmented them into four clusters:• National issues• Organizational issues• Communications issues• Education/resource issues

• At a monthly meeting we divided the volunteers up into three groups to address the Organization, Communications and Resources clusters – the National not being addressed at the time

• Each group was challenged to identify the underlying issues and how we could improve in each area

The Actions – The Plan

• Address the ‘understanding metrics’ issue with some training and enhance the new volunteer orientation

• Make our monthly meetings more interactive – less outside presentations, more volunteer and client involvement

• Have regular training on business technology developments

• Encourage more co-mentoring and even consider an audit function

• Develop a Chapter Volunteer Handbook that includes ‘best practices’

The Actions – Executing the Plan

• We addressed the metrics issue at a monthly meeting and added them and more to our new volunteer orientation.

• We initiated the development of a Chapter Volunteer Handbook to complement the National one.

• Several meetings were devoted to technology trends and volunteers were encouraged to attend our technology workshops.

• Several meetings were focused on volunteer presentations with client participation when applicable.

• We expanded our volunteer recognition program.

Outcomes - Did the Plan Work?

• Had 77% agreement with this statement: I have seen meaningful action taken as a result of last year’s volunteer engagement survey. #3 in the nation!

•Our overall Volunteer Engagement index rose by 8 points.

• With one exception, the statements we focused on rose by double digits and the overall ‘agree rating’ improved by 12 points.

Outcomes - Did the Plan Work?

• Chapter performance metrics also improved.

• We didn’t specifically address the National cluster but all of those statements rose by more than 20 points

Still work to do but it looks a lot better!

What’s the Message?

The volunteer survey is a meaningful organizational diagnostic tool – take a hard look at where you deviate from the ‘norm’ or your expectations. Share it with your Chapter!

If you have a number of areas you consider too low, engage the whole Chapter to find out what the underlying issues are and the potential areas for improvement.

If you make that effort, be sure you act!