Training Materials

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
Demographic Trends Shaping America and Service
Beth Steinhorn of VQ Strategies takes 2018 Pew Research results and extrapolates them for volunteer engagement professionals by addressing the… more
Capacity BuildingMillennials 2018
Gaining Staff Buy-In for Volunteer Engagement
This chart created by Carla Lehn identifies the common reasons that staff are resistant to the idea of engaging volunteers in their work, and… more
Capacity BuildingStaff Training staff buy-in 2018
Checklist to Minimize the Most Common Volunteer Risks
A good basic list of issues to consider and how to approach them.
Capacity BuildingStaff Training Risk Management 2016
Nonprofit Volunteers: Minimizing the Risk
Minimizing legal exposure is important because volunteers’ acts are generally imputed to the nonprofit organization. Specific, written volunteer… more
Capacity BuildingStaff Training Risk Management 2013
Volunteer Background Checks: Giving Back without Giving Up on Privacy
How do nonprofit organizations screen volunteers? There are several options. The choices depend largely on the volunteer job involved and the… more
Volunteer Screening / InterviewingCapacity BuildingStaff Training background checks, screening 2018
Three Things We Know About Engaging Millennials in Your Cause
A quick read on what Millennials are interested in to help you in your recruitment efforts.
Millennials Millennials 2018
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 BuildingEngaging Staff and Unions 2019
Can We Reject a Volunteer?
What do you do when someone applies to volunteer and you realize they will not work out? How can we justify rejecting anyone who steps forward and… more
Interviewing VolunteersStaff Training Fire, reject, complaints 2018
You Can't Fire Me, I'm a Volunteer!
This quick read from Blue Avocado focuses on addressing volunteer dissatisfaction points to the right way to handle disgruntled volunteers.
Staff Training Fire, disgruntled 2018
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
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 BuildingEngaging High Impact Volunteers online booksales, Book sale 2019
Rethinking Volunteer Recognition
This 2018 archived Webinar from Verified Volunteers presents research shows that there is a disconnect between what volunteers are seeking in terms… more
Capacity BuildingEngaging High Impact Volunteers recognition 2018
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
Why Should We Pay Attention to Volunteer Trends?
If we could see the coming volunteering trends, we could prepare for them, right? Thirty years ago, were there signs that volunteers wanted more… more
Capacity BuildingEngaging High Impact Volunteers trends, corporate 2018
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
The Essential Guide to Managing Volunteers at Your Nonprofit
A free comprehensive overview for volunteer management from VolunteerPro.
Capacity Building 2018
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 BuildingStaff Training supervision 2019
Connecting with Today's Volunteers to Transform the Friends of the Library
This one hour webinar was presented in September 2019 by Carla Lehn for the Friends of Libraries section of the New York Library Association.… more
Engaging High Impact VolunteersCapacity BuildingStaff Training Friends of the Library
Teen Summer Volunteer Orientation - Riverside County CA
Sample Teen Volunteer Summer Reading Program orientation agenda
Volunteer OrientationMillennials teen volunteers, Teens