The Organizational Scientist: Volunteer Program Assessment Consults With Non-Profits Across The Country

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Volunteer Program Assessment Consults With Non-Profits Across The Country

by Katherine Frear

In Fall of 2009, Dr. Steven Rogelberg teamed up with Organizational Science PhD students and Industrial-Organizational Psychology Master’s students to establish VPA – the Volunteer Program Assessment— which is a free consulting service provided to non-profit organizations. This assessment resembles an employee satisfaction survey, but has been adapted to reflect the perspectives of volunteer workers. The survey is administered by graduate students and includes questions related to volunteer satisfaction, engagement, and commitment to the organization.

“The idea came from conversations between myself and Dr. Rogelberg,” said Daniel Bonilla, Organizational Science student and VPA Coordinator. “We worked together on the Shelter Diagnostic Survey, a program that assesses employee perceptions in animal shelters. We saw the success of that and decided that we wanted to do something similar for volunteers.”

During the first pilot of VPA, the team had only two clients. “Early on we decided that the service would be free,” said Bonilla, “This meant we couldn't work with as many volunteer programs as we would have liked.” Since then, however, the VPA team has grown from 8 to 17 members, making it possible to administer the survey to several clients at a time. “We've completed 21 organizations and are currently working with 10 more. We plan on reaching 40 organizations before the end of the Spring semester.” So far the organizations have come from all across the United States to take advantage of VPA.

“The way I see it,” said Bonilla, “VPA is a way of leveraging our skills as Organizational Scientists to benefit the local and national community. I think the next step is to really focus in on the Charlotte area and be a good local citizen."

And so far, the community seems pleased. As one client reflected, “The VPA has allowed me to take a look at our program from the volunteer's perspective and make it work better for them as well as our organization.”

Moreinformation about VPA can be found at their website (www.vpa.uncc.edu).