Voluntary Sector Publications

The Volunteer Manager’s Handbook

With the governments plans for a ‘big society’, unemployment putting a focus on volunteering and funding cuts meaning less opportunity to afford paid staff for voluntary groups, effective management of volunteers is more important than ever.

With so many volunteering opportunities available, today’s volunteer manager needs to be armed with a working knowledge of how to recruit, train, motivate and retain volunteers to ensure the survival of your organisation.

A word from the Handbook’s author:

I remember my first week in my new role as a volunteer manager for a national charity.  I’d been appointed to the job, but didn’t really know what managing volunteers was all about.  I managed to get on a training course in London, but to be honest that left me even more confused.

I decided I couldn’t be the only person who was uncertain.  So over the coming years I spent time researching the role, learning more and more about managing volunteers.  I discovered a that there were lots of things I should have been doing, and some that I shouldn’t have!

The Volunteer Managers Handbook is the culmination of those years of research, and I hope will save you some time in getting to grips with managing volunteers; by learning from my mistakes.

The Volunteer Managers Handbook: Reviews

“This book is a one-stop shop for understanding and overcoming the issues relating to the recruitment and management of volunteers.  It is invaluable for anyone just starting out in volunteer management and is equally useful as a reference guide for people who have been working in the sector for years.  Interesting, accessible and comprehensive.”

Sarah Hodgetts, East Sussex Volunteer Centre

“The Volunteer Managers Handbook does exactly what it says on the cover.  The chapter headings take the reader through the entire life-cycle of the volunteer and the idea is that the text can be used by the beginner as a step-by-step guide or can be consulted by the more experienced, whether they be volunteers themselves or paid hands.”

Mike Owen, The Leisure Review