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.

Keyword

Title	Keyword	Tags	Year
Building Capacity: Strategic Volunteer Engagement In this Points of Light blog post, the point is made that organizations that build a culture of volunteerism, and purposefully embed volunteerism… more	Capacity Building, Staff Training	Strategic	2018
Recruitment Success Story - Flagstaff Arizona In this 4 minute video, Claudine from the Flagstaff library talks about her successes in finding a volunteer to serve as her assistant volunteer… more	Capacity Building, Engaging High Impact Volunteers	online booksales, Book sale	2019
Volunteer Appreciation Guide is Volunteer Appreciation Guide is a free resource developed by Wild Apricot to offer tips and advice for volunteer programs just getting started… more	Capacity Building	recognition	2019
Want to Write a Volunteer Program Annual Report? Here's How to Start VolunteerMatch blog guest post by Elisa Kosarin. This post originally appeared on Twenty Hats. Your volunteers tell a compelling story. It’s time to… more	Capacity Building		2019
How to Write a Strong Reference Letter for a Volunteer A reference letter showcases a volunteer’s achievements and the skills they’ve gained through volunteering. It can help a volunteer who is looking… more	Staff Training	recognition, reference letter	2019
Playing by the Rules: Creating an Effective Volunteer Handbook. This one hour archived webinar was presented by Jennifer Bennett of VolunteerMatch in conjunction with the 4 state Get Involved: Powered by Your… more	Volunteer Handbooks	policies, handbook	2019
How to Build a Successful Volunteer Program This brief guidebook was created by the International City/County Management Association.	Capacity Building, Staff Training	toolkit	2019
NextGen Nexus: A Peek Inside the Millennial Mind What if you could have a young person authentically share their viewpoint about your social issue and cause? What would they say, and how can you… more	Millennials		2019
Do's and Don'ts of Supervising Library Volunteers This July 2019 article from Public Libraries Online provides an excellent overview of working with volunteers in large and small libraries.	Capacity Building, Staff Training	supervision	2019
Beware of These 6 Trends Lurking in Your Volunteer Program This brief article from November 2019 delineates troubling trends about volunteer engagement programs gleaned from the most recent Volunteer… more	Capacity Building		2019
Could Volunteers Replace Paid Staff?? Have No Fear! An organization’s decision to bring in volunteers may spark fears that volunteers could eventually replace staff. After all, volunteers can do many… more	Staff Training, Engaging Staff and Unions	Staff Resistance, staff buy-in	2019
Arizona's Buckeye Library Shares it's Experience with Get Involved In this 6 minute video, Krista Cornish, Buckeye Library's (AZ) Volunteer Engagement Coordinator shares her library's experience and best… more	Capacity Building, Engaging Staff and Unions		2019
How to Prioritize When Everything Feels Important There's never enough time to do everything you want to do. It's a universal problem. And we all accept that fact and live with its reality until the… more	Staff Training	prioritize, priorities, planning	2019
Shelving with Dewey - Illinois This 1 hour self-paced course from LibraryU, a program of the Illinois State Library and the regional library systems is archived by WebJunction. It… more	Job Specific Volunteer Training	shelve, book shelving, shelver	2019
Planning for Including People with Intellectual Disabilities in Volunteer Programs A tip sheet created by The Arc to help you to include people with intellectual disabilities in your volunteer program.	Staff Training	disabilities, diversity, equity, inclusion	2019
Engaging Pro Bono & Skills-Based Volunteers Webinar This one hour webinar was presented for a library audience by Jennifer Bennett, CVA, Senior Manager of Education and Training at VolunteerMatch on… more	Engaging High Impact Volunteers	Skilled Volunteers, Pro Bono, Webinar	2020
Fighting Racism Through Diverse and Inclusive Volunteer Engagement Programming (Part 2 of 2) Part 2 of thoughts on how to audit your own diversity, equity and inclusion strategy (DEI) in how you engage volunteers from Jerome Tennille, CVA,… more	Staff Training, Capacity Building	racism, inclusive, diversity, Recruitment	2020
COVID-19 Action Levels for Volunteers - Indianapolis IN When the Indianapolis Public Library started bringing volunteers back during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, they were prepared with this document for… more	Staff Training	COVID-19	2020
Developing a Successful Intern Program Interns can be a godsend to any nonprofit. Depending on their background, they may be as valuable as paid staff and their main goals are typically… more	Staff Training, Capacity Building	intern, internship	2020
Engagement as a Path to Inclusion and Justice This brief article from Beth Steinhorn at VQ Strategies outlines 4 questions we can all ask ourselves for developing and implementing a plan that… more	Capacity Building, Staff Training	inclusive, racism, diversity	2020