United Way is pleased to announce the selection of 32 health and human services organizations to participate in the United Way Volunteer Impact Partnership’s two feature programs, VIP 360 and VIP Manager Corps. Funded by United Way, the Volunteer Impact Partnership programs are delivered to King County organizations in partnership with 501 Commons.

Why VIP? Today many nonprofit organizations are struggling with an increased demand for their services, but significantly reduced resources. Continuing to deliver on their mission requires…

United Way of King County’s Free Tax Preparation Campaign helps families around King County file their taxes and get the refunds that they are eligible for.  With these refunds, families are able to meet basic needs that they might not otherwise be able to maintain.

Last tax season, volunteers completed more than 14,000 tax returns, getting more than $20 million in tax credits and refunds returned to members of our community.

Get involved! Sign up to be a tax return preparer at…

We all recognize the contribution of volunteers – in youth sports, health promotion, emergency services, faith communities, social services and the environment.  We know that volunteers are involved in just about every aspect of service delivery in all walks of life.  But, we sometimes forget to acknowledge that volunteers don’t “just happen”.  Behind this army of volunteers there exists an equally dedicated group of individuals and agencies who are responsible for the coordination, support, training, administration and recruitment of the world’s volunteers.  They are skilled professionals…

United Way of King County’s Day of Caring was a day devoted to harnessing the power of volunteers!  Over 11,000 volunteers from business and community groups fanned out throughout King County to work with hundreds of nonprofits on 400 + projects.  The accomplishments of this army of volunteers were remarkable.  Seeing so many volunteers at work on behalf of the community was truly inspirational.  To access some of these amazing volunteer stories check out the September 28^th blog post Great work – great stories.…

Are you a leader of volunteer engagement (AKA volunteer program manager/ coordinator) in your organization?  Are you looking to connect with your peers?  Then mark you calendar for June 22^nd and join VAN for a day of peer networking and learning at the Annual Conference for volunteer administration professionals.

The primary objective of the conference is to support and promote a powerful community of volunteer administration professionals, support best practice in the field, and enhance the vitality of the volunteer sector.

As a volunteer administrative…

As a leader of volunteer involvement (aka volunteer manager or volunteer coordinator), I am always looking for opportunities to connect and network with my peers.  In the Greater Seattle Metropolitan area, there is no better place to network with peers than the Volunteer Administrator’s Network Northwest. 

VAN is a vibrant professional network that advocates for the profession and empowers volunteer managers.

The Volunteer Administrators Network provides opportunities for:

And VAN Northwest has a new website!  Check…

These governance and volunteer management trainings are open to all nonprofit organizations and volunteers.
For cost and descriptions of each of our workshops, click on each link below.
Please bookmark our training calendar as we will add future trainings.

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Zero.  Volunteer program managers don’t screw in light bulbs, they recruit and train others to do it.  As a volunteer program administrator, I can laugh at this joke.  I do think it’s funny.  But it also gives me pause.  I think there are often too many tasks or metaphorical “light bulbs” that we could recruit and train volunteers to take on, but we don’t.  We end up doing an overwhelming amount of volunteer management work ourselves.  I don’t think sharing work is a problem unique…

Teen Feed is a Seattle-based organization that works with the community to offer support to meet basic needs, build strong relationships, and ally with homeless youth as they meet their future off the streets.

Teen Feed recently went through the Volunteer Impact Program (VIP) to strengthen their volunteer engagement capacity. Teen Feed has used volunteers to run an evening meal program for homeless teens in the U-district for a long time. Through VIP, Teen Feed realized they could be doing more with these volunteers so they developed

Why do you engage volunteers? I ask this question at every workshop I deliver on effective volunteer management.  It is an important question to ask.  As volunteer managers, we are in the business of engaging people with our organizations.  But why?  The most common answers I hear: we don’t have enough money to pay for staff; to get work done; to educate the community; to build community connections; and to raise money.  There is one answer that encompasses all of the rest. We involve volunteers…