Book or article recs on how to structure volunteer organization?

November 1, 2023 10:42 AM

I run an organization that runs a medium-sized annual event (~3k attendees) and is made possible by a staff of about 200 volunteers (about 20-30 of which do things year-round). We are technically an LLC, but this is everyone's part-time, volunteer passion. I'm looking for books, articles, or recommendations for how to re-structure the year-round volunteers to enable better delegation.

Current structure is a "board" of 5 people who manage the org plus a bunch of "department" leads of various topics (scheduling, logistics, merch, marketing, etc.). I know how I would structure things if this were an actual full-time job, but we're struggling with how to be effective when everyone is a volunteer with variable levels of time, availability, experience, and commitment. A small group of folks end up shouldering the vast majority of the work and we're having difficulty creating the right structures and processes to successfully delegate more of the workload while maintaining some awareness or accountability that things aren't getting dropped.

Any book, article, or just life recommendations about how to successfully run volunteer-based orgs?

posted by Kolath to Work & Money (4 answers total)

One way I have seen this done successfully in church settings is to assign a board member to each department. The board member is the "board liaison" for their departments, and it's their responsibility to check in with their departments before and after the monthly board meetings. The department leads are told that this is so the board can support them with more resources (such as more volunteers or more money or whatever). If this is implemented gently, it does feel like a collaborative, supportive environment The problem is if it is implemented abruptly, it can feel micro-managey.
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:36 AM on November 1, 2023

It won't all be applicable to you but I liked Dean Spade's series on capacity building in mutual aid. Here's the most relevant video, but it's a series: https://youtu.be/WfNV87_bJIY?si=wP1Yyl7EGJUUHFGr
posted by ambulanceambiance at 11:43 AM on November 1, 2023

The 20-30 people who work year-round need to have specific roles and responsibilities. That doesn't mean there can't be people who pitch in with other duties when necessary, of course, but it means everyone knows what they need to do. Also, define a very clear schedule, even if you know there will need to be some flexibility.

So you have a person in charge of marketing. Define those duties. Maybe the person in charge sets the schedule, but then someone else is writing the press releases, which then go to the person who is sending out the email blasts and the person updating the website. Those are all distinct roles and everyone knows who is responsible for each thing.

This won't mean things won't get dropped but if everyone knows what they need to be doing and when, it will help fend off some problems.
posted by edencosmic at 11:52 AM on November 1, 2023

"How Organizations Develop Activists" might be interesting to you.
posted by wowenthusiast at 12:50 PM on November 1, 2023 [1 favorite]