These days, it’s important to not only spend time making sure that you’re finding a career that is satisfying to you financially, but personally as well. You’ll want to look into positions that offer good job security, great benefits, excellent pay, and more. One option that is worth considering is becoming a volunteer coordinator.
A volunteer coordinator is a career option with great salary potential, good job growth, and the chance to know that you’re doing your part to help out the public in exciting ways. It’s a job that offers good personal rewards as well as professional ones, and learning more about it is well worth doing. Keep reading to start learning more about what a volunteer coordinator does and how to become one.
What Is a Volunteer Coordinator?
A volunteer coordinator is a professional who specializes in the management of every aspect of volunteering. They may work in an organization or company, for a government agency, or even in a freelance type position. They work to manage volunteers, set up events, and much more.
Some typical work activities of a volunteer coordinator include the following:
- Creating basic volunteer policies and procedures
- Meeting with other departments to help learn more about how they function and how volunteer efforts relate to them.
- Recruit volunteers, then ensure that they are matched with the right volunteer position at any given time
- Organize volunteer related events
- Educate staff on the role of volunteer support
- Develop training and support programs for volunteers
- Organize events that help attract new potential volunteers
- Attend meetings and lectures as needed
- Work to write funding bids and take other steps to help generate income
- Monitor activities of volunteers and evaluate areas that could be improved
- Maintain databases
- Ensure that policies and procedures are followed
- Maintain compliance in all areas that require it
- Manage budgets
- Handle a wide range of other potential administrative duties
Nature of the Work
While volunteer coordinators work primarily in office settings, they have a lot of different responsibilities and every day could bring new challenges and duties. They may spend one day doing nothing except for recruiting, interviewing, and monitoring new volunteers and then spend the next attending a lecture or conference.
Most job duties will involve office and managerial related duties, primarily in organization, management, and monitoring of volunteers and volunteer resources. The specific roles and responsibilities that a coordinator will have will depend upon the type of organization they work for, the specific nature of the volunteers and volunteer program, and much more. As such, the nature of the work can change tremendously from location to location, situation to situation.
Education and Training
In most cases, possessing a bachelor’s degree in a related field will be required. Specific fields could include business management, public relations, and more. Some employers may only require a high school diploma, though in these instances having experience in the field will be important as well. It is rare that an employer will require more than a bachelor’s degree in order to assume a position as a volunteer coordinator.
Training will include a variety of different things including management and human resources management, use of computer systems, statistics, and more. In general, previous experience in the field of volunteer administration will be needed and in some cases experience or training in the specific field of work could be needed – healthcare, for example.
Skills that you’ll need to consider having or honing will include communication skills, multi-tasking, ability to work as a team and a team leader, and more. For many people who choose to enter the field, on the job training is even more important than degrees and school-based education.
Obviously, the methods of entry into this position will vary depending on employer, position, and type of field one works in. With that in mind, it can be well worth it. According to Indeed.com, average salaries for those in the field are about $33,000 per year, but can reach up to $45,000 depending on employer, experience, and position. Those entering the field will also enjoy benefit packages and knowing that they’re making a difference in the community. And with demand for these professionals expected to increase by about 14% over the next decade, job growth is very strong.
