Moving Toward a Collective Impact Effort: The Volunteer Program Assessment

Abstract

Volunteers are essential to the operation of many nonprofits, but some experience challenges in retaining their volunteer workforce. The Volunteer Program Assessment (VPA) seeks to address this issue by helping organizations to identify strengths, growth areas, and recommendations for improving volunteer experiences. To maximize the effectiveness of VPA's mission, the organization is moving toward a collective impact (CI) approach. Although not developed as a CI effort, the program currently exemplifies many of its characteristics, which have been instrumental in expanding reach to more organizations. We examine VPA's alignment with collective impact and outline how VPA will continue to improve efforts.

Enhancing graduate student education through meaningful volunteer efforts

“…Further, volunteer efforts can provide exciting opportunities for empirical research. VPA consultants have published within scientific journals (e.g., Dunn et al, 2014; Trent et al, 2017) on (or inspired by: see Baran et al, 2012) their work in volunteer organizations. These efforts broaden our science and benefit the academic community.…”