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Volunteer Program Audits and Assessments

SNTI consultants utilize ustomized in-person and/or phone interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups with staff, volunteers, board of directors, and other stakeholders of your organization to conduct program assessments, identify core issues, and make recommendations. Since many organizational factors can affect the success of a volunteer program, our assessments often include various departments and groups within the organization, as well as a review of policies and procedures and other relevant materials.

Volunteer program audits are designed to explore the effectiveness of your program in all aspects: recruitment, screening, pre-service and in-service training, supervision, and retention. "Effectiveness" is measured in relation to best practices in the field and relative to objectives and standards defined by staff, volunteers, and others.

Case Study

A large non-profit known in the community for its voluntee-based meal delivery and grocery center programs asked SNTI to work with staff and volunteers to determine why volunteer retention had been steadily declining. There were a number of important questions on the table, including whether the organization should continue to engage volunteers at all. SNTI conducted extensive interviews with current and past volunteers and a broad range of agency staff, including program directors and staff who interact with volunteers.

Taking an organization-wide approach produced unexpected results: most of the problems with retention were not originating in the volunteer program. Many staff, especially those new to the agency, felt that with changes in client demographics and other factors, volunteers were no longer viable; they could not be counted on to make theire delivery shifts; and staff was becoming resentful at having to fill in. These attitudes were clearly affecting how staff treated volunteers, how policies were developed, and how funds were allocated. SNTI recommended ways of addressing these core issues, including staff training, stronger executive and director-level leadership, changes in on-call staffing of delivery routes, and other strategies.




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