Anyone who works with volunteers realizes that their contributions of time and energy are anything but free! Recruiting, screening, training, and supervising volunteers take a substantial amount of time and effort. Appropriate management of volunteers is essential. Volunteer policies help with volunteer management by guiding, directing, and clarifying an organization’s relations with its volunteers. Volunteer policies also communicate to employees that volunteers should be taken seriously. Like personnel policies, volunteer policies provide a mechanism to ensure that all staff, board members, and volunteers know and understand the role of volunteers in an organization. Nonprofits should be careful in developing volunteer policies. Any policy should be user-friendly, easy to implement, and easy to enforce. Policies must be imposed both fairly and consistently to ensure their effectiveness. Did you know? The Standards for Excellence® program’s educational resource packet, “Volunteer Policies” includes model and sample volunteer policies and procedures. The packet is free and available to Standards for Excellence Institute® members. It is available through the members only section of our website. Hard copies are also available upon request. Log in to access this educational resource packet. Not a member? Join now!