Training Materials | Get Involved! Resource Clearinghouse

Learn more about best practices in volunteer recruitment and engagement, and how to get the results you need.

NOTE: These are examples from public libraries and should be reviewed and modified to ensure fit with local policies and culture.

Title	Keyword	Tags	Year
Fun Volunteer Teambuilding Activities That Will Keep Your Remote Team Engaged This article from Tobi Johnson about Volunteer Team Building activities includes instructions for both in-person and virtual activities.	Capacity Building, Engaging High Impact Volunteers	team building	2022
Survey Design: The Top 10 Best Practices to Maximize Your Results Survey design is extremely important as it can make or break your survey's completion rate. This article reviews some survey design fundamentals, and… more	Capacity Building, Staff Training	surveys	2022
Sticky Situations: Applying Ethics to Your Work with Volunteers We all encounter ethical dilemmas in our daily work. But rarely do organizations focus on ethics related to volunteer engagement. This… more	Staff Training	Ethics	2022
Changing the Frame: Civic Engagement Through A Racial Equity Lens Since Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital came out in 2000, policymakers, nonprofit funders, and pundits have sent… more	Capacity Building, Staff Training	diversity, equity, inclusion	2022
Preparing Co-Workers to Lead Volunteers Online and On Land Ideas for training staff to engage with volunteers.	Staff Training, Capacity Building	Staff Resistance, staff buy-in, staff training	2022
Research and Case Studies Regarding Virtual Volunteering Research on virtual volunteering compiled and updated in March 2022 by Jayne Cravens of Coyote Communications.	Capacity Building, Engaging High Impact Volunteers	virtual, virtual volunteer	2022
Privilege, Bias and Microaggressions On Aug 25, 2022 Points of Light and the Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration led a conversation exploring identity, privilege, bias and… more	Capacity Building, Staff Training	privilege, bias, microaggression, diversity, equity, inclusion	2022
Recruiting Local Volunteers to Increase Diversity Among the Ranks This blog post by Jayne Cravens provides some ideas for expanding diversity among your volunteers. Includes a number of links to related topics as… more	Staff Training	diversity, equity, inclusion, Recruitment	2022
First Day Volunteer Orientation Checklist - Kitchener Public Library This checklist is used by the Kitchener Public Library for a volunteer's first day of orientation/training.	Volunteer Orientation	checklist, orientation, Training	2022
QuickStart Guide for New Volunteers Not a library, but a lovely example to get ideas from.	Volunteer Orientation	orientation, handbook	2022
Virtual Volunteers: Keys to Success and Sustainability More and more organizations rely on a hybrid workforce – with staff and volunteers working on-site and on-line. More recently, engaging volunteers… more	Staff Training, Capacity Building	virtual volunteer	2022
Library Express - Frequently Asked Questions - Indianapolis IN Prepared by the Indianapolis Public Library for their home delivery program, Library Express.	Job Specific Volunteer Training	Homebound, Home delivery, delivery	2022
How to Write Volunteer Recruitment Messaging that Converts Strategies to enhance your volunteer recruitment.	Capacity Building	Recruitment, Volunteer Recruitment	2021
Co-Creating Racial Equity in Volunteer Engagement - MAVA The Minnesota Alliance for Volunteer Advancement has been conducting research and education on race equity in volunteerism for 5 years. This is the… more	Staff Training	diversity, equity, inclusion	2021
22 Simple Tips for Managing Virtual Volunteers Help with planning for, implementing and managing volunteers who work remotely.	Engaging High Impact Volunteers, Staff Training	virtual, virtual volunteer, remote	2021
Insights & Impact 2020: Measuring the Social Impact of Volunteerism This report describes new ways to calculate the value of volunteer time. These approaches rely on data from Independent Sector and from the U.S.… more	Capacity Building	ROI, Reporting, annual report	2021
Getting it Right! Nine Areas Managers of Volunteers Sometimes Get Wrong A terrific brief article by Martin Cowling to help us find our way.	Capacity Building		2021
Closed Captioning Volunteer Job List - Cedar Rapids IA When the library started sharing programs online they wanted to ensure they are accessible to those who utilize closed captions. This volunteer… more	Job Specific Volunteer Training, Capacity Building	virtual, virtual volunteer, remote, closed captioning, COVID-19	2021
Book to Action - Palo Alto City Library (CA) Palo Alto's Book to Action page	Staff Training	Book to action	2021
Strategies for Attracting Today's Volunteers - DOVIA Sacramento Webinar This archived webinar was presented by Carla Lehn for DOVIA Sacramento in February 2021. Learning Objectives for the session: Participants in this… more	Staff Training, On-line Volunteer Recruitment, Engaging High Impact Volunteers	Recruitment, online recruitment, Volunteer Job Description, Webinar	2021