How to Start Building the Chapter Volunteer Learning Journey for Your Association and Chapters

The pandemic, social injustice, and economic struggles have taken a toll. People are tired and fragile, including your volunteer leaders, especially those at your chapters, many of whom can’t find anyone to step up and take over chapter leadership. Members say they don’t have the bandwidth to volunteer. The ones who do agree to serve don’t want to dedicate that much time to training sessions.

Volunteer training is a tough sell when it’s not aligned with a member’s goals. But training has to be aligned with the association’s goals too, otherwise, volunteers won’t have a sufficient understanding of association operations and governance; committee chairs won’t be prepared to lead a team or facilitate a meeting; and board members won’t have the necessary leadership skills or strategic mindset.

A more sustainable, mutually beneficial volunteer model would help, say Peggy Hoffman, FASAE, CAE, of Mariner Management, and Kristine Metter, MS, CAE, of Crystal Lake Partners. They’ve been working on a volunteer model that offers resilience to busy, stressed out members and staff. By aligning volunteer training with a member’s motivations and aspirations, members feel a sense of progress and accomplishment as they move along the volunteer pathway. This model—the volunteer learning journey—treats volunteers as lifelong learners, fits their busy lifestyle, and helps them fulfill their aspirations.

When Peggy and Kristine introduced the volunteer learning journey model to an advisory group of association executives and component relations professionals (CRPs), the feedback was positive. Because the model encompassed the entire volunteer journey, the group described it as a refreshing and holistic approach to volunteer management. Its design could involve staff teams from across the organization—membership, education, and governance, in addition to CRPs. The advisory group believes this approach takes the volunteer conversation up a couple of notches.

We’d like to thank our advisory group members:

• Michelle Champion, CAE, California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
• Lindsay Currie, CAE, Council on Undergraduate Research
• Ann Dorough, CAE, American Institute of Architects
• Nabil El-Ghoroury, PhD, CAE, California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
• Becky Folger, American Mensa
• David Jennings, CAE, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Community Associations Institute
• Wendy Mann, CAE, CREW Network
• Susan Mosedale, IOM, CAE, ASIS International
• Diana Tucker, CAE, NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association

Introducing the Volunteer Learning Journey—A Mutually Beneficial Chapter Volunteer Management Model

The volunteer learning journey is modeled on the customer journey we explored during the Association Component Exchange (CEX) a few years ago. During CEX, we took that concept and worked together on mapping chapter member journeys. Peggy and Kristine also drew on the learner journey concept for association education programs described on the TopClass LMS by WBT Systems blog.

The volunteer learning journey helps you visualize volunteer and association needs and desires for each level of volunteering—from first-time volunteer to board member. It helps you map out a volunteer training and development program that teaches volunteers the skills they need to succeed in different roles—skills they can use to both serve your association and advance their career or grow their business.

This series of blog posts shows you the entire spectrum of possibilities for designing a volunteer learning journey as a framework for volunteer management, but you can pick which elements you want to use. You may not have the bandwidth or resources to implement all the pieces we describe, and that’s okay. Focus only on a few volunteer roles to start.

Keep in mind the ultimate goals of this learning journey concept: providing volunteer experiences that fulfill a member’s motivations and aspirations and designing a framework for training volunteers and developing their skills so they’re prepared to take the next step in their volunteer and leadership journey.

Envisioning the Volunteer Pathway

Every journey starts with a road or trail. In this case, we’re starting with a pathway through the volunteer experience. In their work over the past decade, Mariner Management has identified five learning and development levels for volunteers:

1. Emerging or new volunteer
2. Learning volunteer
3. New volunteer leader
4. Experienced volunteer leader
5. Strategic volunteer leader

Each level consists of a variety of volunteer roles with their own specific skill requirements. At each level, members have different motivations and needs. Some members proceed through the pathway one level after another, but you can also expect members to start at different levels and to dip in and out of different levels. For example, a member may be new to volunteering with your association or chapter but has many years of volunteer leadership experience elsewhere. Or a member may drop down to a lower level of volunteering because of increased home or work responsibilities.

Volunteer Motivations

Associations usually ask what a volunteer wants to do but not why they want to do it. Knowing the ‘why’ is essential so you can offer a volunteer learning journey that aligns with a member’s motivations and aspirations. Members are more likely to invest the time in training if it helps them achieve their goals. A volunteer who’s motivated to develop their skills is a volunteer who can help your organization achieve its goals now or in the future—that’s a mutually beneficial volunteer relationship.

Members come to volunteering with many different motivations, and these motivations change over time. For example, they may want to:

• Deepen their understanding of the profession or industry.
• Improve their technical skills or professional soft skills.
• Become a leader.
• Gather business intelligence.
• Gain new business.
• Give back to the association or profession/industry.
• Expand their personal/professional network.
• Build their reputation or personal brand.

The key to a mutually beneficial relationship is matching a volunteer’s motivations to the appropriate volunteer role and projecting next steps in their volunteer learning journey. For example, if a volunteer wants to acquire writing and editing experience while building their reputation, they can write an article or two for the chapter or association newsletter. If that works out, the next step could be editing the chapter newsletter for several months. But first, they’re encouraged to watch a series of videos put together by the association’s communications team about editing and publishing newsletters. You’re helping the member achieve their goals while learning valuable new skills that will help the chapter. The member could also use these skills to help other chapters as a newsletter advisor—releasing you from some of your duties.

How to Design a Chapter Volunteer Learning Journey That Empowers Your Members and Association

Here’s a scenario we could live without: chapter volunteer leaders not finding anyone to step up and take over. Members say they don’t have the time or energy to volunteer. The members who do get involved don’t want to spare time for volunteer and leadership training. Without training, how will they be prepared to lead?

In this post, we describe a better scenario—a sustainable, mutually beneficial volunteer management model developed by Peggy Hoffman, FASAE, CAE, of Mariner Management, and Kristine Metter, MS, CAE, of Crystal Lake Partners. This model aligns volunteer training with a member’s motivations and aspirations. As members move along the volunteer pathway, they develop the skills and knowledge that prepares them for the next level of volunteering or volunteer leadership.

Earlier in this series, we described the volunteer pathway and the motivations that propel members along that pathway from new volunteer to strategic volunteer leader. We also introduced the volunteer competencies matrix and the two types of training and development to offer during the volunteer learning journey.

You don’t need to tackle the entire volunteer learning journey in one go. Build a competencies matrix for a few volunteer roles, identify the training and development needed for those roles, and build out your program from there.

Now, here’s a scenario we can live with…one that helps you design the learning journey for your volunteers.

Chapter Volunteer Scenarios

Volunteer scenarios help you visualize what happens when a prospective volunteer comes with a particular set of experiences and motivations. Working with the volunteer competencies matrix, you think about different roles for the volunteer and the training and development they need for those roles. The scenarios also help you discover areas where you need to develop additional training content.

For example, in this scenario, the volunteer:

• Is a mid-career professional with no management experience.
• Has participated in a few ad hoc volunteering opportunities and is now leading a chapter project.
• Is in line to become a chapter vice-chair and then chair.
• Would like to eventually serve on the national board.

Thinking through the scenario, you decide a volunteer like this would need training modules in:

• Chapter rules and operations
• Chapter vice chair and chair responsibilities
• The relationship between the chapter and national/HQ
• Budgeting and reading financial statements

A volunteer like this would also need leadership development modules in:

• National/global strategic planning
• Meeting facilitation
• Consensus building
• Leadership

Like the rest of this project, build out the competencies matrix and volunteer scenarios for a few roles to start—that will give you plenty to work with.

Training Gaps Analysis

In the volunteer competencies matrix, you identified the skills and knowledge required for each volunteer role, and existing training for those competencies. The content gaps in your volunteer learning programs are now obvious. Your next step is to prioritize the content you need to find or develop. The competencies matrix is a handy visualization for making a business case for additional resources to develop these volunteer training and development programs.

Education Delivery Methods

Volunteer and leadership training can’t only be offered once or twice a year. The volunteer learning journey depends upon access to year-round training and development in formats that fit busy lives.

Appeal to a member’s intrinsic motivation. This learning journey is self-directed. They’re in control of their destiny as they gain mastery of the competencies required to advance.

The member may know exactly what they want or may have some sense of it. With the help of visual tools like the volunteer pathway and competencies matrix, staff and chapter leaders can help the member see their way forward and see what they need to do and learn along the way.

Another useful tool is a volunteer self-assessment tool, such as the one developed by AHIMA, American Health Information Management Association. Offer a self-assessment at the beginning of a volunteer journey or whenever a member returns to volunteering. A self-assessment is an exercise in self-awareness—an opportunity to reflect on motivations and aspirations, the real reason they’re volunteering. It includes guiding questions the member tackles on their own or during an interview with staff or a member who’s been trained as a volunteer advisor. You can strongly suggest or encourage this self-assessment as part of volunteer recruitment, orientation, or onboarding.

Your Association’s Next Steps in Building a Volunteer Learning Journey

The mind is willing, but is your association? In their Creating Association ROI Through Volunteer Training toolkit, Peggy and Kristine explain how to determine your association’s readiness level for developing a volunteer learning journey.

First, take a hard look at your association’s volunteer strategy—the organizational mindset on volunteers.

• To what extent does staff understand the importance of volunteers to your association?
• Is there a willingness to invest in volunteers?
• To what extent do you work with volunteers as continuous learners?
• Are you open to acknowledging there are many volunteer pathways through your organization?

Consider whether the status quo is sustainable. Recognize issues for what they are—often symptoms of undiagnosed problems. Here’s a common one in associations and chapters: board members don’t have a strategic mindset. If board members don’t already have a strategic mindset when they show up for board orientation, then you have a problem. The remedy by now is obvious: a volunteer learning journey that prepares them with the skills and knowledge they need for board service.

You may want to design a volunteer learning journey, but what about your colleagues? This effort will gain more traction if CRPs have the cooperation of other departments, such as education/professional development, membership, and governance. The impact of the volunteer learning journey will be felt throughout the organization: more members developing the learning habit, more member engagement and retention, and more volunteers in the leadership pipeline.

• To what extent can each department contribute essential skills and perspectives in developing your volunteer learning modules?
• Are other departments working on their own training and development modules? Can you collaborate?

For example, if your association offers a leadership development program to members or to the market, see if you can pull elements of that program into the volunteer learning journey.

Finally, perhaps the biggest hurdle: capacity and bandwidth. Don’t try to do it all at once. Pick and choose the pieces you can handle now given your resources and priorities—perhaps a few volunteer roles to start. For now, you can purchase licenses to leadership development training from external sources, like LinkedIn Learning or Mindtools, or outsource to experienced association and/or chapter leadership trainers like Mariner Management and Crystal Lake Partners.

The volunteer learning journey lifts and inspires members, and alleviates the stress of chapter leaders and staff who are constantly worrying about the leadership pipeline. It provides a framework for training members and developing their skills so they’re prepared to take the next step in their volunteer and leadership journey.

Learn more about the components of the volunteer learning model in the toolkit put together by Peggy and Kristine. You can also watch the recording from our webinar, Let’s Reboot Volunteer Training.