“[Volunteer time] is even more precious than money. Americans are working more now than anyother country in the world, and the amount of time our members have to volunteer for their associations has never been less.” —Mark Thorsby
because the board and the committee already will be on the same page. Of course, that’s not to say that new initiatives can’t get
funded without board members on the volunteer committee. Rather, “you have to make sure you have done your home- work and politick correctly behind the scenes,” Romello said, “so that it is not a surprise” to non-commit- tee board members.
Money, Time, and Mission Following HRPS’s budget-busting show in Las Vegas, advance communication with volunteer committees about what was and wasn’t financially realistic became a priority. Waldron didn’t want to suppress ideas before they got floated, or to squelch the enthusiasm of her volunteers—but she had to make sure that everything that was beingproposed or enacted by the committee was beingbalanced alongthe way by revenue streams. “Communication at every turn [was important],”Wal-
dron said. “Every couple of weeks there were meetings to dis- cuss, ‘Here are the ideas, here are the actual costs. And here is where we can cover for this in terms of revenue generation.’ That helped the process.” Good communication also is important in terms of get- tingthe most and best ideas out of your volunteers. Initially
“Ultimately, the buck stops with the staff. Once a volunteer committee leaves, your regular employees are the ones that are going to have to clean up the mess and continue with the organization.”
you want to encourage them to contribute their greatest thinking, and to be uninhibited in what they come up with. It’s the staff’s job to rein in ideas due to budgetary concerns. “You want to keep the momentum always up,”Waldron said, “and keep them on a high and keep them prepared to do the work that is ahead of them.” And yet, “Ultimately, the buck stops with
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the staff,”Waldron said. “Once a volunteer committee leaves,…your regular employees are the ones that are going to have to clean up the mess or maintain and continue with the organization.” Besides money, another resource that someone managing volunteer committees
must take care not to waste is time, accordingto SmithBuck- lin’s Mark Thorsby, CAE, vice president of SmithInstitute. “[Volunteer time] is even more precious than money,” Thorsby said. “That is probably never more true than today. Americans are workingmore now than any other country in the world, and the amount of time our members have to vol- unteer for their associations has never been less.” The best way to squander volunteers’ time is to direct
them poorly. What often happens, Thorsby said, is that— out of a desire for committees to be independent and creative —they’re not given any direction. “And hence, as a result, they are sort of like water—they find their own way,” Thorsby said. “But to what end? An awful lot of committees finish their year frustrated with a sense that they have accom- plished nothing. Which should not be surprising given the fact that they did not start out to accomplish anything.” It’s the responsibility of your board and staff to focus the
volunteer committee from the outset on a very specific mis- sion. “Here is what we want to accomplish,” Thorsby said, as an example of what you should say to your committee. “How you guys get that done is really up to you given the time and financial constraints.”
You Better Recognize In the past, NPGA held a one-day summer planningmeeting for its volunteer committee—but all that work packed into continued on page 54