*** The 2013 Minnesota Conference on Volunteer Administration will feature multiple sessions on engaging new generations of volunteers. Visit www.MAVANetwork.org/confschedule for more information!

While there has been extensive research into the 'Baby Boomer' generation and the changes in how today's volunteers wish to be contributing, there is little concrete information about how volunteer leaders within organizations can be catalysts for changes internally to successfully connect with these potential volunteers, and recruit, retain and engage them in meaningful roles. MAVA addressed this by:

Holding two symposiums for leaders of volunteers to build the base of hands-on knowledge for engaging and retaining Boomers as volunteers.
Turning the information from the symposiums and a review of the research into a curriculum for training of leaders of volunteers statewide.

MAVA has offered workshops at 10+ locations throughout Minnesota, reaching 500+ leaders of volunteers through training and an additional 3,000+ nonprofit leaders through electronic distribution of materials.

View highlights from the first two years of this initiative.

Boomergistics: Engaging Boomers and Future Generations of Volunteers

Watch for Upcoming Trainings

Attend MAVA's full day workshop to:

Learn and practice techniques for re-inventing volunteerism for today's volunteers
Explore how these methods can be used to tap into the potential wealth of volunteer resources offered by the Boomer generation
Gain knowledge from recent research on Boomers and civic engagement

You will leave the training with an action plan to re-tool your volunteer program!

Tips, Tools and Resources to Take and Use

Key Resources on engaging Boomers as volunteers

Volunteers in Leadership Roles: To Delegate, or Not to Delegate

Framework for 21st Century Volunteerism

Tools and resources developed by participants at MAVA workshops:

Tips from the field for engaging Boomers

Powerful words for position descriptions

Getting From There to Here: What the Experts Say About Organizational Change: PowerPoint Presentation

Recognition ideas for Boomers and across generations

Communication tips for Boomers and across generations

Six ways to restructure volunteer opportunities to appeal to volunteers seeking more flexible and shorter term opportunities

12 Best Practices for Engaging Boomers and New Generations of Volunteers

Understand volunteers’ deep-seated need to have impact and use that understanding in all facets of how you involve them as volunteers.
Focus the volunteer interview on learning the prospective volunteer’s passions, mutually designing his/her volunteer role and helping the volunteer determine if your organization is the right place to realize the impact he/she wants to have.
Offer a wide choice of volunteer opportunities in all aspects of the organization’s operations.
Include some short term and seasonal volunteer positions to align with current volunteer availability.
Offer skills-based volunteer opportunities to maximize what volunteers can bring to the organization.
Develop volunteer position descriptions that are engaging and show impact.
Move volunteers into project leadership roles. Be open to project ideas that volunteers propose.
Develop appealing volunteer recruitment messages, working through your organization’s networks. Cultivate prospects and be highly visible on the web.
Re-frame traditional volunteer supervision to leading volunteers and offering collegial support. Identify high potential volunteers and cultivate them to take on additional responsibility.
Also re-frame volunteer recognition to respond to the value current volunteers place on having impact and on being life-long learners.
Be an instigator for these organizational changes. Identify your champions for change. Start small in a part of the organization open to innovation and then market the success with colleagues in other parts of the organization.
Create systems to monitor changes in volunteer expectations and become a learning organization that adapts to changing needs of volunteers.

Why Change is Needed

Best Practices: Just for Boomers or for All of Today's Volunteers?

Thank you

Thank you for funding for this initiative to the F.R. Bigelow, Initiative, Otto Bremer, Morgan Family, St. Paul and Stevens Square Foundations.

Thank you to the MAVA Task Force on Engaging Boomers as Volunteers for work to develop the content of this initiative.