From Management to Momentum: Rethinking Volunteer Leadership

This month, I had the opportunity to speak at the MAVA Conference on a topic that’s been at the center of my work with Better Impact: how leaders of volunteers can move from simply managing programs to strategically leading them. The session was titled From Management to Momentum: Strategic Leadership in the Volunteer Life Cycle and the response was energizing. So, I wanted to take a moment to recap some of the key ideas and share them more broadly.

The Core Idea

Volunteerism doesn’t just need more hands on deck. It needs strategic leadership.

Too often, volunteer coordination becomes an exercise in logistics: filling shifts, tracking hours, handling paperwork. But if we stop there, we’re missing the bigger opportunity. Volunteers are not just task-fillers. They are partners in mission, and they deserve a leadership approach that reflects that.

From Managing to Leading

Here’s how I framed the difference:

• Management is about doing things right.
• Leadership is about making sure we’re doing the right things.

Peter Drucker said it best: "Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things."

Strategic leadership means stepping back to design the volunteer journey not just reacting to it.

The Volunteer Life Cycle as a Strategic Framework

We walked through the volunteer life cycle in three core stages:

1. Recruiting with Intention

Instead of casting a wide net and hoping for the best, we asked: Who are we actually trying to reach? What motivates them? What’s getting in their way?

I introduced the concept of the IVP Ideal Volunteer Profile, borrowed from marketing’s ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). It’s a practical way to define the kind of volunteer you’re looking for not to exclude others, but to design your messaging and outreach more effectively.

2. Engaging with Purpose

Once someone says yes, what happens next? We talked about moving beyond orientation checklists and toward early wins, meaningful relationships, and ownership.

Engagement is the glue between recruitment and retention. And it starts by asking: If I shadowed a new volunteer on their first day, what moment would make them say, 'This is worth my time'?

3. Reporting the Impact

Finally, we looked at how to tell the story of your program. Metrics matter: hours logged, conversion rates, retention but so do stories. When you can pair data with meaningful narratives, you earn the internal buy-in that leads to support, funding, and growth.

As I said during the session: You can’t fund what you can’t explain.

The Thread That Ties It All Together: Strategic Leadership

At the heart of each stage is the mindset of leadership. One grounded in clarity, confidence, and courage:

• Clarity: Knowing where you’re going and why it matters
• Confidence: Using data and insight to guide your decisions
• Courage: Advocating for the role of volunteers in your organization’s mission

This isn’t about perfection or scale. You don’t need a big team but you need a big vision.

A Simple Challenge

To wrap up, I left the room with a simple challenge: Pick one part of your volunteer journey to improve this month. That’s it. You don’t have to fix everything. But momentum starts with a single, intentional step.

If you're interested in using the IVP tool or want to go deeper into this framework, feel free to connect. We’re building out more resources for leaders of volunteers who want to lead with purpose.

Let’s raise the bar together.