Biggest Challenges Faced By A Manager of Volunteer Programs At Adler Planetarium
Grace's biggest challenge as Manager of Volunteer Programs at Adler Planetarium is convincing staff to embrace change and expand volunteer roles beyond established practices; this involves overcoming the inherent resistance to altering existing systems, despite the potential for increased efficiency and community engagement that a new volunteer program could offer.
Project Management, Communication, Teamwork, Overcoming Challenges, Leadership
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Grace Souza
Manager of Volunteer Programs
Adler Planetarium
Loyola Marymount University
N/A
English, Writing & Education
Nonprofit, Foundations & Grantmaking
Human Resources (HR)
Took Out Loans
Video Highlights
1. Working with established organizations to implement new ideas and processes can be challenging but rewarding.
2. Convincing staff to adapt to change and adopt new methods requires strong communication and persuasion skills.
3. Creating and implementing new volunteer roles can significantly reduce workload in the long run, despite initial time investment.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
This is organization-specific. Within a large nonprofit that has existed for a long time and done things the same way, it can be challenging to work with staff members, departments, or the organization as a whole. The goal is to help them understand how things can be done differently.
We can expand our volunteer presence, perhaps into roles that have never had volunteers before. That kind of change can be daunting because if something works, why change it?
But if we can make something better, more interesting, propel our organization forward, and engage our community in a different way, I think we should try. Even though it might be a lot of work and take away from existing tasks to create a new volunteer role or program, it's a top-heavy endeavor initially.
Once it's in place, it actually takes away from your workload because you've offloaded it to others who are happy to do it. Challenging people to change the way they do things and spend time at the start, realizing it might not pay off for six months, can be difficult.
Often, I'm pretty good at convincing people that it's worth it. However, it does take some convincing, and that would be the most challenging part of my role.
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