Connecting with Internal and External Stakeholders to Support Your Volunteer Program

No volunteer program stands alone. While many leaders of volunteers seem to singlehandedly juggle a wide variety of day-to-day tasks, it takes an incredible amount of support from stakeholders at all levels to keep a program growing and evolving. How you as a volunteer manager connect to and communicate with these stakeholders impacts your ability to get the support you need to operate today and to grow your organization and volunteer program in the future.

Spend your day at the 2016 LIV Conference learning how to best work with both internal and external supporters. You will hear from a diverse group of stakeholders about how you can directly target your communications to increase their understanding of and support for your volunteer program, learn how to better incorporate volunteers in fundraising for your organization, and discover tools and techniques to effectively market your volunteer story in the community.

8:30am – Registration and Continental Breakfast*

9:00am – Morning Panel/Workshop Session

A “Need to Know” Basis: Communicating with Diverse Stakeholders

Getting buy-in for your volunteer program requires talking with many different stakeholders. Knowing what they need to hear and how they best receive information is critical to successfully supporting the work you and your volunteers do. This panel presentation will feature conversations with area Executive Directors, Board members, and volunteers. We’ll explore what is important to each group and learn what helps them better understand the impact of volunteers on the organization’s mission.

After the panel discussion, community volunteer and ICVS Commissioner Mike Pearson will lead an interactive workshop to help attendees craft their messages to best communicate their program’s success, challenges, and unique opportunities to their diverse stakeholders.

12:00pm – Lunch*

1:00pm – Educational Session

Partners in the Ask: Effectively Utilizing Volunteers in Fundraising

Volunteers should be a key component of your organization’s fundraising strategy. Whether they are providing hands-on help with large events, serving on fundraising committees, or opening the doors to meet new donors, volunteers can expand your capacity to grow the financial support you need to deliver on your organization’s mission. Josh Jasper, Director at Resources Unite in Dubuque, will share his extensive knowledge on fund development and leveraging volunteers to meet fundraising goals. He’ll talk about the use and importance of volunteers in fund development and outline tools and systems to effectively work with fundraising volunteers.

2:15 – Break*

2:30pm – Educational Session

Crafting the Message: Marketing for Volunteer Engagement

Whether you are managing volunteers and handling marketing for your small nonprofit or you’re working with a team of marketing professionals in a larger organization, you need to know how to best communicate your volunteer story to the community. With so many different opportunities to choose from, volunteers want to know who you are, how you serve the community, and what their role might be – before they even fill out an application! Sharing the right message using the right tool can help you build a brand that demonstrates successful, impactful volunteer engagement. Presenter Sondy Daggett will outline how to shape a clear marketing message that you can share with the community or with your marketing team. Sondy has worked in the nonprofit, corporate, health care, and consultant arenas for decades and joined Horizons, A Family Service Alliance as the Chief Development Officer/VP in 2015

3:45pm – Conference Wrap Up

*A continental breakfast and lunch are included in the full day registration. Half day registrations include breakfast in the morning or break snacks in the afternoon.

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