Episode 119: The Difference Between Volunteer-Based and Volunteer-Led Organizations and Why It Makes a Difference
How do Funders view volunteer-based and volunteer-led nonprofits? It may not be what you think? Funders are concerned with accountability, continuity, and consistency. Learn how to make your funder feel comfortable with funding your organization if it is volunteer-driven.
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🔦 NONPROFIT SPOTLIGHT 🙌🏿
THERAPEUTIC PLAY FOUNDATION Pt. 3
👉🏿https://www.therapeuticplayfoundation.org/
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🚀 RESOURCES TO HELP YOU RUN A SUCCESSFUL NONPROFIT
The Nonprofit Volunteer Program https://drive.google.com/file/d/167QWgqONlOIcqizbUD5OeGZ6mgGZrq60/view?usp=drive_link
90 Days to a Profitable Nonprofit https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ofgeHJ2CTVS0t8STMiNqfveaVpWfaK7o/view?usp=sharing
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Learn more about my success with helping nonprofits
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Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to On Air with Amber Wynn, where nonprofit leaders learn to fuse passion and commitment with proven business strategies to create long-term funding impact and sustainability. And now here's your host and resident, Philanthrepreneur Amber Wynn.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Good morning fam. It's your girl, Amber Wynn. And today we are going to be talking about a very important topic in particular for nonprofits who have not figured out how to generate consistent revenue, and so they focus or they tend to deliver their programs using volunteers. Today's topic is the difference between volunteer-based and volunteer-led organizations and why it makes a difference and it makes a difference to funders. As I said, when most nonprofits start their nonprofits, they don't realize that it's a business that they're starting, and so they get into the space of, oh gosh, how am I going to fund it? And it ends up being driven by volunteers, right? Your friends and your family or people from the community who support your cause and your mission, and so you end up delivering programs based off of your volunteer base that could potentially impact you when it comes time for funding.
(01:36):
When we get back, we're going to dive into the difference between volunteer-based and volunteer-led organizations and why it matters to a funder. If you're just starting out and have limited resources, you may be tempted to use a volunteer-based model for your nonprofit funders prefer paid staff because there's more accountability and consistency, but if you want your proposal to be competitive, then having more than just volunteers who come and go is essential. Check out my building and effective nonprofit volunteer program toolkit. It provides all the essential elements of an effective nonprofit volunteer program, things that demonstrate standardization, consistency and continuity. Learn how to develop a nonprofit volunteer program funders feel comfortable with funding. Order your copy today. Welcome back. You're on air with Amber Wynn, Philanthrepreneur, and today's topic is the difference between volunteer-based and volunteer-led organizations and why it matters. It matters because it comes down to accountability.
(02:45):
Volunteer-based means that your organization leverages volunteers to help deliver programs and services. Volunteer-led means that there are no paid staff on your organization. Why does this matter? I'd like for you to look at it this way. Most people think, well, I would think a funder would be happy. They're not spending all this money on salaries and people are coming in and doing the work from the goodness of their heart. I want you to look at this from the funder's perspective. You want me to give you $250,000, but there is no one there who is accountable. How do they define accountable? Accountable means that there is someone who is responsible for something and what makes them responsible is they get a check for it every month, right? What a volunteer is a person who gives their time freely, willingly without pay. It also means that they don't have to show up when you have individuals, even if it's one in your organization that's getting a paycheck.
(03:51):
Then the idea from the funder's perspective is there is someone accountable. There is someone that I can call. If your organization is volunteer-led, that means everyone who's a part of the organization can show up today or maybe not tomorrow. And I have people say, oh, we've had volunteers who've been volunteering for 20 years. It's because they make the choice. They can also make the choice not to, right? So I'm saying all of this to say that it is important that your organization evolves into an organization where it has paid staff, because what it says to a funder is that you have accountability. It also says that there's continuity and consistency in the deliverance of your program, right?
(04:44):
If your staff, your employees are getting paid, then there's a higher likelihood that they're getting trained, and so there's consistency in the way the program is delivered. If it is volunteer-based, that means that you have probably different people coming in, delivering the programs in different ways, delivering the programs based off of their style, their curriculum. And so it's just a challenge when you have an organization that has paid individuals who probably have standardized curriculum and delivery methods versus an organization where people come, good hearts, good intentions, but the programs are delivered differently. How do you measure impact? You can measure impact with a standardized program because it's delivered the same way. When you have different people delivering programs out of the goodness of their heart, it's hard to say that consistently you're going to get the same outcomes. So it's just important to understand that. Now, people say to me, well, what am I supposed to do?
(05:52):
I have to run my programs, and so my volunteers have been doing it. Here's what I have to say to you. Absolutely. You are where you are and you can only do with what you can do. In order to have a funder look at your organization, your volunteer-based organization with some level of competition or some level of confidence, you want to create a standardized volunteer program. That means that when you bring in your nonprofits, there is a process, there is a standardized process. First of all, you have an outreach where you go and you recruit your volunteers. Secondly, you have a training, maybe it's the third Thursday of every month at seven o'clock where you orient your potential volunteers. Then you train them, this is how we do deliver our curriculum. Here are the forms. Here's step one, step two, step three, so that it is standardized.
(06:58):
No matter which volunteer is delivering the program, you've trained them such that everybody's delivering the program the same way. You want to be able to make sure that the program can be evaluated. So there's sign-in sheets and evaluations, and they've been trained on how to do this the same way. Regardless, if you've been here two days or you've been here two weeks, all of your volunteers go through a training process. You also want to demonstrate that you've gotten them fingerprinted and that you've done background checks. This all happens in a standardized volunteer program. If a funder sees, oh, okay, yeah, they may have volunteers, but because it is a standardized program, I feel comfortable that there's continuity in the program because you train them to deliver the program the same. You also have things like sexual harassment training and what to do in an emergency.
(08:03):
So these are the things that will make your funder comfortable because you just don't have Cousin Lisa coming in one week and roommate Tony coming in the next week, and so your programs are just all over the board. If you have a volunteer-based organization, you want to demonstrate to your funder that yes, it's volunteer-based, but we have structure in place and that structure is going to allow us to deliver the programs the same. They're going to allow us to evaluate the programs, and we have a whole structure in place to manage our volunteers, including Acknowledging and thanking them for their service, including how they are a part of our events. So that's what I'm saying. There is a difference. There's a difference between being volunteer-based, volunteer-led, and demonstrating to the funder that there's consistency in standardization. So if you are a volunteer-based organization, meaning you have paid staff, but the majority of your programs are delivered by volunteers, you just want to have a standardized program.
(09:21):
If you are a volunteer-led organization, m going to encourage you to have at least one person that is on payroll, even if that is a volunteer coordinator, because then a funder will say, well, who am I reaching out to? And you can put a person's name on there, but when they are paid, then there's this sense of accountability. Alright, so I hope that helps, and I hope that clarifies the difference between volunteer-based and volunteer-led and what you need to do to ensure that a funder views your proposal, views your organization as competitive and viable. Alright, so that's all we have for that. We're going to go into a quick commercial and we come back. I'm going to take your question on Ask Amber, are you struggling to fund your programs? Can't get a grant to save your life? Most consultants will share the what of how to start a nonprofit or how to fundraise.
(10:24):
They may even share the why, but they don't share the how because that's where they make their money. Now, I'm not hating, I'm a businesswoman too, but I've been where you are trying to make the world a better place, struggling to keep the doors open up to the wee hours of the night writing grants and doing whatever needed to be done. And because I've walked in your shoes, I'm not here to make you spin your wheel, waste your time or your hard earned money. We ain't got time for that. The world needs you. I'm here to show you how to transform that pit. You keep dumping your hard earned money into a profitable nonprofit. I take my 30 years of nonprofit experience as a founder, executive director, program developer, grant writer and funder, giving out over $7 million annually in grants, and I save you literally thousands of dollars in hundreds of hours.
(11:19):
I walk you through setting up your nonprofit organization so that you can be generating enough revenue to cover your monthly expenses in just 90 days. How would that feel? Not paying bills from your personal bank account. I share my insider secrets, tips, tricks of the trade, and provide you with a step-by-step roadmap on how to turn your bootstrap organization into a profitable nonprofit. Within six months, you could be generating enough revenue to pay your salary or fully fund your programs. The choice is yours, but you have to get the blueprint, and it took me three years to develop it, but it's here and it's going to change your life. Join my other successful clients who are just like you full of passion and determination, but they had no idea all that it takes to run and fund a successful nonprofits. Now they're winning grants and drawing a salary and they know what it is that they're supposed to be doing to run a successful nonprofit.
(12:20):
They're no longer making it up as they go. They have the roadmap and they're clear about next steps, and I want that for you too. So what do you get in this course? You'll walk away with knowledge, products, processes, and systems, not just a bunch of promises, but exactly what you need to turn your organization into a profitable nonprofit. I promise you don't need grants. What you need is a solid infrastructure, and this course is going to give you all of that and more. And what's more, it comes with a money back guarantee. So go ahead, click the link below to register for this course. Welcome back to On Air with Amber Wynn. Thank you for spending your time with me. You could be anywhere, but you're here and I always, always appreciate the fact that you've taken time to spend with me. Today we've been talking about the difference between volunteer-based and volunteer-led organizations, and now it is your opportunity to ask me your burning questions with Ask Amber.
(13:24):
Today's question comes from Sharon. Sharon hit me up on Instagram, and her question is Amber. I recently met with the student loan forgiveness company about getting my student loans forgiven and they recommended that I start a nonprofit in order to get my loans forgiven. What's your opinion on this? So Sharon, you're referring to the public service loan forgiveness program, and it's where a borrower who works in public service applies for forgiveness. If you've worked in public service, so that's federal, state, local government, or a nonprofit organization for at least 10 years or more, even if that's not consecutive, you may be eligible to have all of your student debt canceled. My answer is no. You should not start a nonprofit so that you can get your student loans forgiven. And this is the reason why when you start a nonprofit, you start a business. This is not something that you just have on paper.
(14:31):
You have to prove to the IRS every year that you are functioning as a viable nonprofit. That means you've got to deliver programs and services, which then means someone has to deliver them. If you are ill-equipped to start a nonprofit, then you are going to be taking on more than a headache because you have to recruit a board and you've got to work with them. You've got to deliver programs, which means you've got to create curriculum, you've got to do the outreach, you've got to bring people in, you've got to fund these programs. In my opinion, you'd probably end up spending more money on running this program for 10 years than you would on paying back your loans. I don't know how much your loans are, but let's just say if you start a nonprofit, technically the budget for your regular run of the mill nonprofit should be somewhere around $250,000.
(15:32):
So are you going to spend your time and energy raising money to fund your nonprofit? So time and energy raising $250,000 to cover your nonprofit because you've got salaries you have to cover. You've got workers' comp insurance, you've got payroll insurance, you've got program expenses. Depending on who you're working with, you've got background checks. All of these are expenses. So would you expend your energy on doing the work that it takes to run a nonprofit or you just going to pay off your loans, just pay off your loans? You know what I mean? You're going to start a business to get your loans forgiven, but you've got all of this debt from running a nonprofit. If this is not something that you're passionate about and that you want to do, I'm going to say no. Just No. Don't do it. All right, thank you, Sharon, for your question.
(16:32):
I get these types of questions all the time. It's like a nonprofit is not this little thing. It's a business. It's not something that's on paper. It's not something that you can just put in place to get your personal needs met or it's not. It is sanctioned by the IRS and it comes with rules and responsibilities. So great question. If you have a question, you can reach out to me on any of my social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, you can hit me up on my website or you can email me. Email me at amber@amberwynn.net and I'd be happy to answer your questions. They're really good questions. All right, so now we are on episode three of our conversation with Nikia Fields of Therapeutic Play Foundation. It's during this time of the episode that I put a spotlight on my nonprofits in the community doing the work, and on episode three, we're talking with Nikia from Therapeutic Play Foundation. So let's continue the conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Confidence is key. I think a lot of times when we go into stakeholder, it's easy to be overwhelmed by all the minutiae and the terms and the language of the systems that are being thrown around. And a lot of the people in those meetings, they're used to each other and they all talk to each other frequently, and they're using acronyms that most new leaders are not aware of,
(18:11):
And then they won't raise their hand and say, what did you mean by that? What was that? Because they're afraid of coming off as being ignorant of something, like they're new, but they are new. So I'm focusing on confidence because if you're new, be about that life. I'm new. I'm brand new to this space. Let me introduce myself, welcome to me because I'm here and this is how I'm showing up in this space. So I showed up in most spaces during that pandemic. As an expert in mental health, I was, use your voice. You know what you're talking about, about what's going on with you, especially with your organization. So when it comes to relationship building and networking, the ability to speak your truth is super powerful because what it does is people notice you and they hear what you're saying, and the thing that happens is people will come into meetings, nonprofit leaders will come into meetings and speak their truth. And I have witnessed this in colleagues who have come to me afterwards and said, how come you got this? And I didn't, and they weren't coming to me like in a negative space.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
They were like, I'm in that same meeting with you. How did that happen? And they wanted to ask, and I was like, what'd you do after the meeting? This was a real conversation. I said, what'd you do after the meeting? They're like, what do you mean? I said, so all the people that talked to you and in the chat said something to you? I saw it, right? I saw they'd said it to both me and you. Oh, we want to connect later. Here's my email. What did you do after the meeting? Did they? They're like, well, I don't know what you mean. They gave you your email, they chatted with you. You could actually go to the Zoom and see who they are. Go research to organization. Do you know what I do? Soon as anybody does anything in the chat, I say the whole chat, the whole thing, everybody gets an email from me. I'm Nikia from Therapeutic Play Foundation. These are the services I do. I'm looking for partners to impact change. Are you on board with this? I schedule a meeting. We talk about it, we move forward. I send out an MOU agreement. I have my protocols of what I want to happen. They don't get to lead. I'm the one who started it, right? I sent the email, so you're in charge.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Welcome back. You're on air with Amber Wynn. That was episode three of our conversation with Nakia Field of Therapeutic Play Foundation. If you'd like to have your nonprofit featured in my nonprofit spotlight, hit me up on my socials, I'd be happy to highlight you so that we can get you the visibility that you need so people know about your services in your community, but most importantly, so funders can see that you're out there doing the work. All right? That's all I have this week. If you are a nonprofit that is volunteer-based or a volunteer-led, I'm going to encourage you to go to my website and look for a book that I wrote. It's called the Nonprofit Volunteer Program, and it gives you everything that you need for standardizing your volunteer program. It talks to you about how to set it up, the training, the follow-up, the infrastructure, the policies, the procedures, the templates, everything that you need is in that book.
(21:52):
But what I am going to encourage you to do, even if you don't check out the book, is to put something in place so that funders know that you don't just have random volunteers coming in who are not trained. You want them to understand that your program is standardized. In the book, I even give you language on what to put on your grants to let your funders know that you have this standardized practice going on in your organization. All right? If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to share it with a colleague, like subscribe and join me again next week because I'll be here. So we'll see you then, and until then, please take care of yourself the same way that you take care of your community. See you next time.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a review on iTunes. Head over to www.amberwynn.net/podcast for the links and resources mentioned in today's podcast. See you next time.
