Interpersonal Challenges in Volunteer Management

Volunteers are crucial to your nonprofit organization’s success, supporting your mission with their time, resources, connections, and more. But working with volunteers can also pose some serious interpersonal challenges. In this interactive workshop, we will learn best practices for managing the most difficult interpersonal challenges that volunteer coordinators often face, including:

• Creating and enforcing clear expectations for volunteer behavior
• Designing a corrective action plan for volunteers
• When and how to fire or retire a volunteer
• Myths about “problem” volunteers
• How to address divisions/cliques among volunteers
• How to address conflicts between volunteers
• How to manage specific difficult volunteer behaviors such as:
  • Volunteers who take too much ownership or are territorial
  • Volunteers who “know better” than everyone else about how things should be done
  • Volunteers who resist change and/or authority
  • Volunteers who sabotage, gossip, or undermine
  • Volunteers who consider themselves above the rules
  • Volunteers who are consistently negative and drain enthusiasm
  • Volunteers who harass, bully, or intimidate others
  • Volunteers who have issues with boundaries/appropriate behavior
  • Volunteers who overload themselves to the point of burnout

If you want to address the real interpersonal challenges of volunteer management, this workshop is for you!
About the Presenter: Julie Strassman, M.Div.
Julie Strassman is an experienced volunteer engagement professional and educator, dedicated to helping organizations build mutually beneficial relationships with volunteers. She currently works as the Volunteer Coordinator with Bethesda Hospice Care, where she has increased volunteer participation by 66% since 2018. Previously, she worked with Kingdom House, where she achieved volunteer engagement goals such as a 78% increase in volunteer groups over 2 years. She passionately believes in engaging volunteers for the improvement of nonprofit organizations and the communities they serve.
Julie currently volunteers as the VP of Programming for the Metropolitan Volunteer Management Association (MVMA), and previously served two consecutive terms on the Certification Committee for the United Way of Greater St. Louis’ Volunteer Center. She has presented workshops and webinars on volunteer engagement best practices for many nonprofit organizations, including Network for Strong Communities, We Raise Foundation (previously Wheat Ridge Ministries), Cover Missouri Coalition, Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Community Service Public Relations Council, Send Me St. Louis/Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis, and the St. Louis Episcopal Service Corps. Julie has a Master’s of Divinity from Eden Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing her doctorate.