Volunteer Impact Ripples: Showing How Volunteerism Matters

“I have all these volunteer impact ripples. Now what?”

Shelli Beck, CVA, Director of Volunteer Services at Lyngblomsten, had invited staff who engage volunteers to identify the “ripples” of impact that volunteers make. Everyone recorded their observations on stickie notes and arranged them on a display board with a picture of ripples. It didn’t take long for the display to fill up.

Some of the volunteer impact ripples included:

• how residents’ faces lit up when a volunteer and therapy bunny visited each week,
• how many residents benefited from the bunny visits,
• the human connection cultivated by volunteers interacting with residents,
• eight current residents who had come to live at the organization’s senior housing after serving as volunteers,
• at least five employees who had started as volunteers before applying for a staff role,
• several family members who had begun volunteering after their loved one passed away,
• laughter,
• helping everything at the organization run more smoothly,
• joy,
• donations from volunteers totaling $21,500,
• volunteers being the “hands and feet of God” (Lyngblomsten is faith-based).

Now, Shelli had a pile of inspiration and data but was not sure where to go next.

Expanding Current Reporting about Volunteer Impact

New data points do not always require new reporting methods. There are often opportunities to build them into existing reporting. I asked Shelli where there might be options to integrate new data. She quickly came up with a few ideas.

For example, department heads gathered on a weekly basis. The meeting provided a valuable setting to highlight volunteer contributions to various departments. Typically, Shelli was the lone voice talking about volunteers. Now that the staff had generated volunteer impact ripples, however, Shelli could invite the department heads to take turns sharing their insights about what volunteers meant to their teams. Doing so would help demonstrate how essential volunteers are to the organization. It also could help position volunteer engagement as a strategy for delivering programs, operations, and values.

Shelli was also in the throes of volunteer appreciation month where part of the theme was giving the royal treatment. We talked about symbols of royalty, including diamonds. The many ripples of volunteer impact translated well to the facets of a diamond. Instead of just thanking volunteers in generic ways, she could use the ripple data to help volunteers see and value their contributions more specifically.

There also was a chance to use the volunteer impact ripples for organizational communication purposes. The team could combine individual ripples with photos for social media posts. These posts could showcase diverse programs and volunteer roles as well as the ways volunteers were making a difference. It would offer a way to recognize current volunteers while also supporting recruitment of new volunteers.

New Ways to Report Volunteer Impact

These ideas were a good start, but Shelli wanted to explore new ways of reporting volunteer impact, too. Most of the volunteer reporting focused on volunteer numbers and hours. The stickie notes went a step further by articulating what those volunteers and their hours achieved for residents and the organization. It was not about just having a volunteer team but about what the volunteers accomplished with the staff. That struck us as a far more powerful story to tell about volunteers and the staff who teamed up with them. We brainstormed about what that might look like in practice.

For starters, Shelli could check out Lyngblomsten’s strategic plan. Having a strategic plan handy helps Volunteer Directors link volunteer contributions to organizational and community goals. That can shift volunteers from “nice to have” to essential to the mission and community. It justifies the investments of time, expertise, and money in volunteer engagement.  

Another strategy would be to make volunteer engagement more visible throughout the organization. Shelli already reported on volunteer engagement to staff leadership. However, she did not give regular reports to the board or foundation. She saw an opportunity to advocate for the inclusion of volunteer engagement reports in these meetings. It could educate leadership about volunteer engagement and highlight its many contributions to organizational goals.

Her team also could report volunteer ripples in a variety of formats. The organization annual report currently included only volunteer numbers and hours. Adding volunteer impact would strengthen that part of the report. In addition, one of the volunteer team members was inspired by the idea of volunteer contributions as ripples. She wanted to experiment with different reporting approaches in Canva to better reflect the dynamic nature of volunteerism that can get lost when statistics are reported as a spreadsheet or list of numbers.

Making It Feasible

The best part of this process was that it was feasible. Shelli used an existing staff meeting to generate new data. We developed a whole list of ideas about what to do with the data in less than an hour. It will take time, of course, to implement the ideas, but Shelli’s team does not require a complicated system to move forward.

This experience shows what can happen when a leader takes small steps to demonstrate volunteer impact. It did not require an elaborate evaluation, deep research expertise, or a multi-year timeline. Shelli started close in, with the people and time she could influence.

Your Turn to Reveal Volunteer Impact Ripples

Shelli used a straightforward method to capture ripples of volunteer impact. All it took was some meeting time, facilitation preparation, stickie notes, pens, and a display board. There are more involved versions, called Ripple Effect Mapping, that can provide even more detailed outcomes. Vision for Volunteering in the U.K. offers a training video and other resources that apply the method to volunteerism. If you want to take an even deeper dive, check out A Field Guide to Ripple Effect Mapping by Scott Chazdon, Mary Emery, Debra Hansen, Lorie Higgins, and Rebecca Sero.

Thanks to Shelli Beck for sharing her experience of tracking volunteer ripples.

Photo credit: qimono from Pixabay