Fostering Good Relationships Between Volunteers and Staff

About the Workshop:

Both volunteers and paid staff are crucial to the success of your organization, but how can you create and maintain a culture in which they all feel supported, valued, and part of the mission? This interactive workshop will explore best practices to help foster good working relationships between volunteers and staff. Participants will learn practical techniques for:

• Addressing and overcoming staff resistance to volunteers
• Coaching staff to be effective leaders of volunteers
• Creating a culture of staff/volunteer teamwork
• Helping staff and volunteers interact with mutual respect
• Opening pathways of communication between volunteers and staff
• Mediating staff/volunteer conflicts

Participants will leave the workshop with a comprehensive understanding of best practices for fostering good staff/volunteer relationships and how to apply these techniques to their own organization.

About the Presenter: Julie Strassman

Julie Strassman is an experienced volunteer engagement professional and educator, dedicated to helping organizations build mutually beneficial relationships with volunteers.  She currently works as the Volunteer Coordinator with Bethesda Hospice Care, where she has increased volunteer participation by 92% over two years. Previously, she worked with LifeWise (previously Kingdom House), where she achieved volunteer engagement goals such as a 78% increase in volunteer groups over two years. She passionately believes in utilizing best practices to create and sustain volunteer programs that mutually benefit organizations and volunteers.

Julie  has served on the Board of the Metropolitan Volunteer Management Association (MVMA) as the VP of Programming, and was awarded MVMA's Volunteer Director of the Year in 2019.  She has also served on the Certification Committee for the United Way of Greater St. Louis'  Volunteer Center. She has presented on volunteer engagement best practices for many local and national nonprofit organizations, including MVMA, Lindenwood University, University of Missouri St. Louis, Send Me St. Louis, and the We Raise Foundation (previously Wheat Ridge Ministries).