Planning: Policies and Procedures

What do you do to prevent things from going wrong and how to respond if it does? (Policies and Procedures):

Policies tell you what is to be done and why. Procedures tell you when, how and who. Both ensure you have consistency and direction in handling situations. How do you create them for your organization?

• Develop policies and procedures that clearly outline how you manage volunteers from first contact to their exit and everything in between.
  
  
• Decide if a policy applies to all volunteers or is specific to certain roles.
  
  
• Write your policies and procedures in plain language so they can be easily shared with and understood by a volunteer.
  
  
• Clarify the purpose of a policy and clearly outline the procedures that go with it.
  
  • For example, if a police information check comes back with an offense on it, your organization needs to decide if the policy says it is it an automatic “no” in this situation, or if there are procedures you can follow to explore whether you can accept that volunteer or not.

"When someone wants to skip a step or go about things a different way, it's not just me saying no, it's against the policies which makes it out of my hands. I struggle saying no to volunteers sometimes since they give so much, so being able to refer to the policies makes it a lot easier." - CALP Practitioner