Gaining buy-in for volunteering: how volunteer managers can lead and influence
In short
Volunteer managers can lead and win support for volunteering whatever their job title. Show senior leaders how volunteers help deliver the strategy and what not investing risks, build a shared vision with colleagues, and adapt your message to each stakeholder. Charlotte Witteridge’s advice: focus on what you can influence, and your influence grows over time.
In this Lunch and Learn, Charlotte Witteridge, a trainer, facilitator and consultant who has involved volunteers for over 19 years, shared how volunteer managers can lead, influence and win support for volunteering, whatever their job title.
Key points
Anyone can lead volunteering in their organisation, whatever their role or title.
Show senior leaders how volunteering helps deliver the strategy, and what it risks without investment.
A vision for volunteering, built with colleagues, earns their buy-in and helps you choose where to spend your time.
Different stakeholders respond to different things, so adapt how you talk to each one.
Focusing on what you can influence, not what you can’t, widens your influence over time.
Watch the full session below, including Charlotte’s own story of moving from frustration to securing real investment for volunteering. Under the video, we’ve summarised the key takeaways.
You can lead volunteering without a leadership title
On a leadership course, Charlotte realised that although she was a team of one with “manager” in her title, she was really the leader of volunteering across her organisation. She used a leader’s map to plan the journey, working through areas such as strategy, vision, stakeholders, risks and values.
Link volunteering to your organisation’s strategy
Chief executives focus on delivering the charity’s mission, so spell out how volunteers help make that happen. For example:
the value volunteers add for the people you support;
how volunteers help you reach more people;
new volunteering roles you could develop.
Then show the flip side. When recruitment is hard, keeping the volunteers you have matters more, and a good volunteer experience needs resources and skills. The risk of not investing can be just as persuasive.
Build a vision for volunteering
Charlotte asked two questions: what is our big aspiration for volunteering, and what change do we want to see because we involve volunteers? Developing the vision with people across the organisation helped them buy into it. It then became her guiding star for balancing operational and strategic work.
How to influence different stakeholders
Map who your stakeholders are, what interests them, who is already an ally and who you need to engage more. Then adapt your approach:
People who love stories: share your big ideas and the difference volunteers make.
People focused on governance and process: reassure them your programme is safe, inclusive and well run.
People who want facts and figures: share volunteer numbers, how many people volunteers support and your return on investment.
Then plan how you’ll work with each group.
Focus on what you can influence
Charlotte’s biggest turning point came from Stephen Covey’s circle of concern and circle of influence, from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The outer circle holds things you can do little about, such as the economy. The inner circle holds what you can act on. Focus there and your influence grows. Dwell on the outer circle and you drain your energy and can come across as negative.
More tips for gaining buy-in for volunteering
Know yourself: your strengths, limits and values, and how they align with your organisation’s.
Adapt when something isn’t working, rather than ploughing on.
Understand power structures. The person to influence isn’t always the most senior one, but the people around them.
Raise the profile of volunteering, inside through team meetings, the staff induction, training and sharing successes, and outside through networking, events and social media.
Build a support network across the sector, especially if you’re a team of one.
Have a clear action plan so you can measure and share progress.
Invest in yourself as a leader, not just in volunteering best practice.
Showing the difference volunteers make
Volunteero’s real-time dashboards and mission reports give you the facts and figures some senior colleagues look for, with data you can export to Excel. Book a demo to see how it works.
Related reading
About Charlotte
Charlotte Witteridge is a trainer, facilitator and consultant with over 19 years’ experience involving volunteers, including senior roles at Sense, The Myton Hospices and Macmillan Cancer Support. She’s vice chair of trustees at Bliss and a non-executive director of the Association of Volunteer Managers.
Contact Charlotte at charlotte@charlottewitteridgeconsultancy.co.uk.
Written by
Co-founder and CEO
Ashley Staines is the co-founder and CEO of Volunteero. After seven years in investment banking, he started it to make volunteering easier to organise.
