Assess Your Readiness to Host a Volunteer
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Decide if you’re ready to host a volunteer.
- Identify alternatives when pro bono isn’t a good fit.
When Should You Engage a Volunteer?
In the last unit, we discussed what pro bono is and how it can benefit your organization. Now let’s dive into how to evaluate your readiness to bring in a volunteer to help you.
The most important thing to remember about working with skilled volunteers is the solid time commitment required from you and key stakeholders at your organization. Volunteers make an impact if you and your team set aside time to adequately support them. What do we mean by solid time commitment? This includes:
- Onboarding a volunteer to bring them up to speed on your organizational processes and share additional background on the problem you’re trying to solve.
- Scheduling time on a regular basis to answer questions and provide feedback for the volunteer.
Be Honest with Yourself
Is this a good time of year for you to fully engage in the project? If you think you might be stretched too thin to maintain regular communications, you might want to postpone this project until you have the bandwidth to work with the volunteer.
Make the Most of the Time
If you decide to move forward with a volunteer, you’ll want to make the most of your time together. Make sure the volunteer not only shows you the progress they make but also how they make it so you can do it yourself next time. Taking ownership and ensuring you have the right stakeholder buy-in is crucial for the long-term success of your volunteer’s work after they’ve handed it off to you.
Articulate Your Goals
Clarity of project scope is key to getting effective pro bono support. Before you engage a volunteer, be sure you can clearly articulate your goals and define what success looks like for you. It’s so important to know how to explain what areas you want to focus on—that way, you can take full advantage of a volunteer’s time. We cover more about scoping in the next unit, so stay with us for that.
Sometimes, when you look closely at the scope of your potential projects, you might find this isn’t the time for a pro bono volunteer. In that case, you should reconsider whether pro bono is the best option for you.
Remember, as we covered in the last unit, we recommend you engage a volunteer only if your needs fit within these guidelines:
- Clearly defined project scope with specific goals
- Realistic time commitment from a volunteer (target 20 hours or less)
- Project that isn’t time-sensitive or mission-critical
If Pro Bono Is Not for You
There are a few scenarios where you should think twice before engaging a volunteer. If you find yourself in any of these situations, we recommend hiring a Salesforce.org consulting partner or bringing on a part-time or full-time system administrator.
- Your organization is brand new to Salesforce and is just getting started.
- You need a system administrator to provide ongoing support to users.
- You need guaranteed support—perhaps in advance of a major fundraiser or strategic initiative happening soon.
- You don’t have the bandwidth to manage a volunteer.
The Salesforce.org Consulting Partner Network has more than 230 partners that specialize in implementation of Salesforce for nonprofit and education programs. Many partners have starter packages and managed service support offerings.
Self-awareness is critical, so be honest and open with your team and gauge if you are in a good place to initiate a pro bono project. In the next unit, we’ll cover some details on preparation for a volunteer’s arrival.