Student Testimonial Online Volunteer Management Certificate Program What did you gain professionally from this program?   Due to working for several years with Big Brothers Big Sisters, I have professional work experience working directly with volunteers, but I have not taken any educational classes on volunteer management until now.  Professionally, I think VMG helped to confirm my skills in volunteer management and gave me a good start for having an education to back up my experience.  Everything that I learned in this class made a lot of sense to me and I realized quickly how much of the skills and strategies I already have.  There were a lot of parallels I found from my Social Work classes as well as my professional work with a mentoring agency.   What did you gain personally from the program? I worked for Big Brothers Big Sisters for five and half years and loved my position there as a Mentoring Manager.  Unfortunately, I had to make a personal decision to leave the agency for a more financially stable job and an opportunity to better my skills in Social Work; since this was the degree I had.  In looking for jobs I searched for family-oriented positions, foster care, and even mentoring programs as these were the areas. I had the most experience and knowledge in.  I took a position with a grant program in a foster care agency acting as a Clinician.  In the year and 3 months that I have been in this position I have quickly realized how much I don’t enjoy Social Work in regards to being a Clinician or doing any sort of therapeutic work.  It very well may be the population that I am working with, but this current job does not give me a sense of self-fulfillment that BBBS did. I again started thinking about my skills and what I do enjoy doing.  Thinking back to my time at BBBS, one of the areas I did well in and found to be the most rewarding was the recruitment and enrollment process of the volunteers.  Taking this VMG class helped to confirm that I do in fact enjoy the management part of working with volunteers and have many transferrable skills my both my Social Work background and my time at BBBS that I could pursue this career option.  The VMG class gave a great overview of this specific field and captured what I now know I want to work towards.       What was your favorite class and why? I liked the class on Recruitment, Training and Retention.  There was an explanation of Maslows Hierarchy of needs that I learned about in Social Work but never thought to relate it to volunteers.  The break down of each hierarchy really showed how detailed volunteer management is and how much a manager has to keep in mind when working with volunteers.  Thinking about recruiting and working with volunteers using the hierarchy helps to capture all aspects of an individual to give them the best volunteer experience so they will continue to volunteer. This class gave a really great breakdown of the who, what, where, when, and how of recruitment.  I appreciated the conversation on the difference between generations and how recruiting a baby boomer is different than recruiting a millennial.  Again, it goes to show how detailed a volunteer manager position is. The examples of where to recruit was also extremely helpful as some of them I never thought of before. This class brought me back to my position at BBBS as this was exactly what I did there.  It helped again to confirm that this is a field that I want to pursue. If a friend or colleague asked you about taking this program, what would you tell them?   The VMG class works for anyone who is thinking about getting into volunteer management and for anyone already in a volunteer managements position.  It gives a great overview of all aspects of what a volunteer manager is expected to do and breaks each area down with specific details.  There are a lot of great examples used throughout the course and students are provided with wonderful resources to tap into to help them further their professional work.   ~Mary Kate Lowe, Foster Care Clinician   Berkshire Farm Center and Services for Youth, Canaan, NY Volunteer Management Certificate Graduate, March 2019 Student Testimonial Online Volunteer Management Certificate Program What did you gain professionally from this program?   I learned so much from this program! I learned a lot of things that I could get better at, or that I could start doing in general, but a lot of it was more recommendations on tweaks I could make to things that I’m already doing well but could be doing better. What did you gain personally from the program? I feel like I gained quite a bit, personally, from this program. I learned a lot about my management style with the volunteers and how I can better not only the program, but also myself. I feel more confident in my abilities as a volunteer manager; I had always been doing what I guessed was the right things to do and I confirmed that a lot of practices I had been doing were actually good ideas. What was your favorite class and why? I think my favorite class was Leadership Management and Human Resources (week 2). I feel like this was the class that I took away the most new knowledge from. I am excited to better my volunteer job descriptions and find better ways to make sure that all of our staff and stakeholders are appreciated our volunteers like I do. If a friend or colleague asked you about taking this program, what would you tell them?   I would highly recommend this program to any newer volunteer manager. I came into this job knowing absolutely nothing about volunteers and did a lot of OTJ training. I felt like once I was comfortable in my role was the perfect time to take this program to fine-tune my skills and make sure we improve our volunteer program however we can.    ~Bailey Spitznagle, Hospitality Coordinator  City of Westfiled, Indiana Volunteer Management Certificate Graduate, August 2018

Student Testimonial Online Volunteer Management Certificate Program What did you gain professionally from this program?   The training offered me the time and focus on purpose, desired outcomes and the best practices of volunteer management, training, program evaluation and marketing.  It offered a unique lens to review what we do in my office and how we might improve our programming and systems for efficiency and a better volunteer experience. What did you gain personally from the program? In addition to insight, I gained a sense of pride in the work that I do.  At times, with a small office it’s easy to get lost in the list of to do, but speaking to another professional, I got the feeling that we accomplish quite a bit in a small space.. What was your favorite class and why? Recruitment, Training and Retention.  Recruitment is one of our main initiatives in the association this year and this class offered a great deal of structure to pass along to our volunteer board. If a friend or colleague asked you about taking this program, what would you tell them?   I think it’s perfect for anyone in a leadership role in a nonprofit.  ~Colleen Dolak, Alumni Relations Manager   Montgomery College, Rockville, MD Volunteer Management Certificate Graduate, December 2018

Student Testimonial Online Volunteer Management Certificate Program What did you gain professionally from this program?   A certificate! Lots of great tips and techniques to incorporate into my program. New ideas and new ways to look at a problem- different perspectives. I also think it really helped to have examples and anecdotes from organizations that are very different from what I’m used to- arts and cultural organizations. It also was great to have another student in the class, to listen to her successes and where her frustrations or opportunities were.  What did you gain personally from the program? Confidence in what I have been doing well, confidence in how I can go about making changes and taking chances in searching for improvements What was your favorite class and why? The first class Volunteer Program Management overall- one of my favorite things was to form a mission and vision statement for the volunteer program. I found it really helps to have that succinct clarity to focus on the program. Also, really liked in the Effective Communication class developing a 2-minute pitch. That was very helpful- I still need to practice it some more! It’s hard to choose a favorite class, when I got so much out of a lot of the classes.  If a friend or colleague asked you about taking this program, what would you tell them?   I would tell them that the classes are worth the money, I found a lot of helpful information in almost all of the classes. Also discussing experiences with the instructor and other students, brainstorming solutions, these are all valuable. The return is worth the investment.  What else would you like to share and what suggestions do you have? I really liked the webinar format and having a small class, because of the personal interaction with the instructor and students. If it had been a traditional classroom setting with more than a few people, I think I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much and would have missed the interaction.    ~Michelle Peterson, Volunteer Services Manager  Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, Arvada, CO Volunteer Management Certificate Graduate, August 2018