VCRI Outcomes
VCRI is dedicated to providing high-quality, relevant products and services to our customers – both agencies and volunteers. What does that mean to us? It means we strive to identify the products and services most wanted by our customers, we look to find the most efficient delivery mechanisms for these products and services, and we monitor our success by periodically taking the “pulse” of our customers – How Are We Doing? We call these Outcomes!

How do we measure our success?
We recognize the best way to ensure a customer-focused organization is to ASK VCRI has had an on-going Outcomes program for several years. Each year, we survey agencies and volunteers alike to measure our effectiveness and to solicit ideas on what we can do better. We use the results to identify improvement opportunities and as input into developing new products and services.

Other uses of Outcomes
Our Outcomes program helps us to focus our attention on the most appropriate allocation of our limited resources. We also compile the results of our surveys into Outcomes reports so that we can publish the results to you, our stakeholders. The links below can be used to view our full report for the past two years.

2004 Highlights

What Agencies Had to Say

Methods Used to Recruit Volunteers
We asked you about the types and effectiveness of various volunteer recruitment mechanisms. About 82% of you rated VCRI as “helpful” or “very helpful” as a means to recruit volunteers followed by your own agency resources (81% helpful or very helpful), and word of mouth (75% helpful or very helpful).

Types and Volume of Opportunities Available

We collected information on the following key factors:

• Number of volunteer opportunities made available through VCRI website
• Number of total volunteer opportunities available at their agency
• Number of volunteers contacted as a result of VCRI services
• Number of new volunteers supporting the agency because of VCRI
• Number of total volunteers (new / existing) supporting the agency because of VCRI

After analyzing the results, we found that agencies with a higher number of available opportunities have more success in attracting volunteers through VCRI services than those with limited needs. This can be attributed in part to the size of the agencies and the experience these agencies have with dealing with volunteers. More experienced agencies tend to provide better volunteer descriptions and are better able to follow through with potential volunteers.

When volunteers were asked the type of opportunities of interest (episodic, short term or long term), about the same number of respondents selected each of these categories.

We found that 67 % of you have episodic opportunities, 66 % of you have short-term opportunities, and 88 % of you have recurring needs. Approximately 54 % of you had all types of opportunities (episodic, short term, and recurring). About 23 % only had recurring opportunities (no episodic or short term opportunities).

Satisfaction With VCRI Services
About 71 % of you felt that VCRI’s services have helped to effectively recruit volunteers. Approximately 58 % of you agreed or strongly agreed that VCRI services helped to be more effective in meeting your organization’s mission. About 67 % of you agreed or strongly agreed that VCRI services have had an overall beneficial impact on your organization’s volunteer program.

Many of you stated you felt VCRI provided a valuable resource while at the same time many of you recognize internal constraints that prevent you from fully utilizing these resources (lack of staff, lack of automation, and inadequate infrastructure for using volunteers).

What Volunteers Had to Say
The philosophy of VCRI’s Volunteer Referral program is to match a volunteer’s interests, skills, and availability with the needs of a particular organization. We have found in the past that if an appropriate referral is made, both the organization and the volunteer will be more satisfied with the experience. Therefore, we thought we’d share with you some of our findings from volunteers as well.

Forty five percent of the volunteers responding to our survey indicated they volunteered for opportunities after learning of an opportunity through VCRI’s website. Of these, about 30 % volunteered for one opportunity, 14 % volunteered for 2 – 3 opportunities, and about 3 % volunteered for 4 or more opportunities. Respondents typically search for more than one opportunity on our website. Forty-nine percent indicated they looked for between 1 and 5 opportunities when searching for volunteer opportunities; 25 % indicated they looked for 6 – 10 opportunities.

We also asked about volunteer availability and time commitments. Not surprisingly, very few respondents selected weekday daytime. The majority of family volunteer groups identified Saturday or Sunday daytime as the most convenient time, followed by weekday evenings. This finding is consistent with individual volunteers as well. Most respondents indicated that they would like to volunteer between 1 and 4 hours at a time, with only a few willing to commit more than 4 hours at a time.

Volunteers provided the following insight into the factors that influence their decision to volunteer:

Specific volunteer opportunity available: 69%
Time of day or week that volunteers can participate: 64%
Respect for or ability to relate to agency mission: 63%
Meet new people: 44%
Extra time available: 32%
Desire to learn new skills: 33%
Desire to teach family members positive values: 20%
Need to fulfill community service requirement: 10%

By far the biggest obstacle to volunteering was lack of time. A corollary reason was scheduling issues. Nevertheless, the number of hours devoted to volunteering was impressive. About 45 % of volunteers indicate they volunteer 4 or more hours a month: 16% volunteer an average of 4 – 6 hours, 11 % volunteer 6 – 10 hours a month, and 18% volunteer 11 or more hours a month.

Family Volunteer Program Year-end Report - April 2005

This report offers a summary of the outcomes of the first year of the Volunteer Center of RI Family Volunteer Program implemented in March of 2004.