How to monitor volunteer assignments

One of the most annoying habits that some volunteer leaders fall into is that of assigning a responsibility to someone and then not leaving them alone to get the work done. Remember the old cliche about not hiring a dog to protect you and then doing the barking yourself?

I recently volunteered to do a particular task for a charity. I made the first phone call and established a relationship with a potential donor. When I made my follow-up call, I was told that the person who asked me to volunteer my services to perform that particular task had decided - without consulting me - to do the follow-up himself. The result: he lost my future volunteer services of course, but more importantly he made our charity's administration look disorganized.

Don't do that. If you doubt that a volunteer is doing the job properly, follow up with that volunteer, not with an outside party.

On the other hand, some volunteers are very delinquent when it comes to telling anyone what they are doing. Some volunteers even refuse pointblack to give progress reports once they have been assigned a task. What to do?

Never become bureaucratic
First of all, do not become bureaucratic and stop using a very good volunteer simply because they aren't good reporters. Very often the most productive volunteers tend to "play their cards" close to the chest.

Secondly, whether you are a paid volunteer leader or a volunteer yourself, always commit any assignments to writing. Such written confirmations need not be legalistic. A simple paragraph will suffice, such as: "I'm really pleased to know that the organizing of the XXX event/campaign is in your hands. I hate asking volunteers to take their time to provide written reports isn't convenient by date XX, when I have to make a report to the Chairman, please give me a call by XXX to tell me how things are going."

Whatever you do, don't fall into the whining trap of, "I'm a volunteer, too, you know, and if I can take the time to make a regular report, so can you." Volunteers are not all built the same way. If your volunteer does not call by the date you set, then put your pride in your pocket and call him. If you don't have the time yourself to do this, or if there are a fair number of volunteers who should be giving in reports, then assign someone to do the phoning on a regular basis.

Obviously, on large money-raising campaigns, financial reporting procedures have to be well in place, but the majority of volunteers are not active fund-raisers. They are workers at various levels of community or group involvement. Get the best out of them.