Another Meeting Just Might Do It!: Enhancing Volunteer Engagement Using Effective Meetings

ABSTRACT

Volunteers are an essential part of the economy and impact our communities by helping nonprofit organizations provide services to those in need. Finding practical strategies to facilitate engagement within volunteer workforces is one way to address how nonprofit organizations can retain their volunteers. We hypothesize that meetings between volunteers and organizational members (e.g., volunteer resource manager) are an avenue through which exchange relationships between organizations and their volunteers may be generated and strengthened, thereby influencing volunteer engagement. Results suggest high-quality meetings positively influence volunteer engagement and voice. Practical suggestions for human service managers are offered.

KEYWORDS:

• Volunteer management
• meetings
• engagement
• social exchange theory

Practitioner points

●Volunteer meeting organizers need to ensure that their volunteers find their meetings both effective and satisfying.

●Quality of the meetings should be prioritized over frequency of volunteer meetings.

●Nonprofit leaders might consider reflecting on their meetings and identifying best practices to implement for enhancing their effectiveness.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.