Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi There,

I'm a Board member in a newly restructured 501(c)3 nonprofit, volunteer run animal rescue organization that focuses primarily on adopting/fostering dogs. Our organization is structured such that the Board is intended to be steering the organization in a broad sense, working on strategic planning, etc, yet most of the Board members have needed to fill operational roles as well, as we have such a hard time finding Officers and other volunteer leaders.

How does you organization find leaders?  We've asked our volunteers and asked them to use their networks, but we've not been successful enough.  I've asked other local volunteer organizations, and they've told me they have the same problem.

Do you have any advice on how we might find volunteer leaders for our nonprofit?  Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

From my personal experience, this is to be expected with most nonprofit organizations in the beginning. I worked for a nonprofit spay neuter clinic and when we first opened, the board members were literally painting the walls of the clinic. In the beginning, it seems a volunteer board is very much "other duties as assigned." I have recently started another nonprofit organization and I made this clear to the other members of the board in the beginning: You're going to be doing stuff until everything is up and running and we can pass it on to other people that we trust. I think recruiting people who are passionate about helping first is the key, and then leaders will naturally rise to the occasion. 

Hi There,

I'm a Board member in a newly restructured 501(c)3 nonprofit, volunteer run animal rescue organization that focuses primarily on adopting/fostering dogs. Our organization is structured such that the Board is intended to be steering the organization in a broad sense, working on strategic planning, etc, yet most of the Board members have needed to fill operational roles as well, as we have such a hard time finding Officers and other volunteer leaders.

How does you organization find leaders?  We've asked our volunteers and asked them to use their networks, but we've not been successful enough.  I've asked other local volunteer organizations, and they've told me they have the same problem.

Do you have any advice on how we might find volunteer leaders for our nonprofit?  Thank you in advance for your thoughts!