The Center for People is a dynamic non-profit organization that provides innovative services and programs to the low-income community in Lincoln, Nebraska, addressing basic needs and providing opportunities to achieve economic independence for our clients.
We are currently looking for a Volunteer Engagement Manager. This position is a full-time, 40 hour per week, onsite position.
I. GENERAL FUNCTIONS
The Volunteer Engagement Manager builds, manages, and continuously improves a comprehensive volunteer engagement system that advances Center for People’s mission, strengthens program capacity, deepens community relationships, and creates meaningful pathways from service to long-term support.
This position owns the full volunteer experience: inquiry, welcome, intake, onboarding, training, placement, service-day support, appreciation, impact follow-up, retention, and volunteer-to-donor cultivation. The Manager serves as the primary lead for individual volunteers, structured volunteer groups, learner volunteers, and other organized service cohorts. The role requires a relationship-centered systems builder who can create clear workflows, prepare people well, coordinate across departments, maintain accurate data, and ensure every volunteer, learner, donor, visitor, and partner experiences Center for People as welcoming, organized, mission-centered, and professional.
II. ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Volunteer Strategy and Program Management
- Lead the strategy, structure, and day-to-day management of Center for People’s volunteer engagement program.
- Design and maintain a consistent volunteer experience model that is welcoming, mission-aligned, safe, well-organized, and responsive to program and operational needs.
- Develop and maintain volunteer policies, procedures, role descriptions, onboarding materials, training resources, group itineraries, checklists, communication templates, and service-day workflows.
- Create volunteer pathways that support deeper engagement over time, including recurring service, volunteer leadership, event support, advocacy, ambassador roles, donor engagement, and corporate partnership opportunities.
- Conduct volunteer satisfaction surveys and use feedback, data, and staff input to improve the volunteer experience.
- Support difficult conversations and conflict resolution with volunteers, learners, groups, and partners in a way that promotes accountability, respect, safety, mission-aligned practices, and continued relationship development whenever appropriate.
Recruitment, Onboarding, Training, and Scheduling
- Recruit, onboard, train, schedule, supervise, and support volunteers for programs, events, fundraising activities, food-centered initiatives, learner experiences, recurring shifts, and special projects.
- Serve as the primary contact for volunteer questions, scheduling, logistics, expectations, issue resolution, and general communications.
- Respond to volunteer, donor, and community inquiries within the same business day whenever possible.
- Collaborate with department leads to identify volunteer needs, role expectations, training requirements, schedules, unfilled shifts, and support structures.
- Proactively recruit for unfilled shifts and hard-to-fill volunteer needs, using targeted outreach, follow-up, reminders, and relationship-based recruitment to ensure critical roles are staffed.
- Match volunteers to opportunities based on skills, interests, availability, strengths, accessibility needs, group goals, and organizational fit.
- Maintain accurate volunteer schedules, group commitments, event staffing plans, learner volunteer placements, open shift needs, and a master calendar of volunteer-related activity.
- Prepare spaces, supplies, itineraries, instructions, signage, name tags, service-day materials, and welcome materials for volunteer groups.
- Ensure volunteers understand and follow expectations related to safety, confidentiality, food handling, professional boundaries, trauma-informed conduct, and organizational policies.
Structured Volunteer Group Engagement
- Serve as the lead manager for structured volunteer group experiences, ensuring groups are welcomed, prepared, trained, supervised, appreciated, and connected to Center for People’s mission.
- Coordinate intake, scheduling, onboarding, expectations, training, supervision, communication, and follow-up for structured volunteer groups.
- Create clear service-day flows, including pre-arrival communication, parking instructions, arrival and check-in, welcome remarks, mission connection, task training, reflection, photos when appropriate, thank-you follow-up, and impact reporting.
- Remain with large on-site groups throughout the service experience whenever possible to ensure they are welcomed, oriented, supervised, supported, redirected as needed, and thanked before departure.
- Troubleshoot issues in real time and coordinate with staff to ensure groups are productive, safe, and meaningfully engaged.
- Cultivate structured volunteer groups as long-term partners, donors, sponsors, ambassadors, and recurring service teams in collaboration with Fund Development.
- Track group participation, volunteer hours, organizational affiliations, contacts, interests, follow-up needs, and potential donor opportunities in the CRM system or appropriate volunteer management system.
Learner Volunteer Management and Workforce Skill-Building
- Coordinate structured volunteer assignments for learners as part of workforce readiness, service-learning, and transferable skill development.
- Design learner volunteer roles that build customer service, communication, teamwork, accountability, time management, food handling, hospitality, logistics, leadership, and problem-solving skills.
- Provide coaching, expectations, feedback, and documentation for learners serving in volunteer, service-learning, or work-based learning roles.
- Partner with Education and Training staff to align learner volunteer experiences with career pathway goals, classroom learning, individual development plans, and program expectations.
- Track learner participation, hours, performance, skills demonstrated, growth opportunities, and follow-up needs.
Internal Coordination and Cross-Department Support
- Participate in weekly Education and Operations meetings to understand upcoming volunteer needs, learner opportunities, facility needs, event needs, operational priorities, and cross-department support requests.
- Use meeting information to proactively recruit, schedule, prepare, train, and deploy volunteer support.
- Serve as a connector among volunteers, learners, staff, structured volunteer groups, community partners, donors, and program teams.
- Support leadership in strengthening volunteer systems, improving coordination, and advancing organizational priorities.
Strengths-Based Training and Earned Revenue Support
- Obtain and maintain Gallup Strengths certification, or comparable strengths-based facilitation credentials approved by leadership, to support volunteer engagement, learner development, staff development, and community training opportunities.
- Design and facilitate Strengths-based workshops, coaching sessions, and training courses for learners, volunteers, staff, and structured volunteer groups.
- Partner with leadership, Education and Training, Fund Development, and Marketing and Communications to package Strengths-based training as an external workshop or fee-for-service offering when appropriate.
- Support earned-revenue opportunities by helping develop training descriptions, session outlines, participant materials, pricing recommendations, evaluation tools, and follow-up communication for external Strengths-based training courses.
- Use Strengths-based tools to improve volunteer placement, learner confidence, team communication, customer service, leadership development, and group engagement.
Supervision of Reception Specialist and Front-Line Experience
- Provide supervision, coaching, direction, workflow structure, and accountability for the Reception Specialist.
- Ensure the front-line reception experience is welcoming, professional, trauma-informed, responsive, and aligned with Center for People’s values.
- Support consistent standards for greeting visitors, answering phones, responding to general inquiries, routing communications, managing front-desk flow, and representing the organization with warmth and professionalism.
- Coordinate with the Reception Specialist to support volunteer arrivals, group check-ins, visitor flow, tours, donor visits, community partner visits, and special events.
- Partner with leadership to identify and address front-desk systems, communication gaps, customer service concerns, and process improvements.
Donor Stewardship and Volunteer-to-Donor Cultivation
- Help convert volunteer engagement into mission investment by connecting service experiences to learner stories, program outcomes, impact data, and giving opportunities.
- Send timely, personalized thank-you notes and follow-up messages to volunteers, structured volunteer groups, donors, event supporters, and community partners.
- Work with the Fund Development Manager to identify volunteers and structured volunteer groups with potential for deeper philanthropic engagement, sponsorship, workplace giving, matching gifts, and recurring support.
- Support donor and volunteer communications, including impact updates, stewardship messages, event invitations, volunteer spotlights, recognition materials, and approved photos when appropriate.
- Use the CRM system to track volunteer and donor engagement, communications, giving indicators, stewardship actions, and relationship history.
Volunteer Appreciation, Events, and Special Initiatives
- Lead volunteer appreciation efforts throughout the year, including Volunteer Appreciation Week and Volunteer Appreciation Month.
- Plan and implement recognition strategies for individual volunteers, structured volunteer groups, donors, and recurring volunteer partners.
- Partner with Marketing and Communications to highlight volunteer contributions, group impact, learner engagement, and mission-centered stories.
- Support planning, execution, volunteer coordination, guest experience, learner preparation, and follow-up for the Progressive Luncheon and other special events.
- Participate in the coordination and execution of ImpactFuel boxes, including organization, packing, distribution, tracking, learner coaching, and volunteer engagement.
Data, Systems, Reporting, and Administration
- Implement and maintain the CRM system, volunteer management tools, and related data systems.
- Maintain accurate volunteer records, including applications, waivers, training acknowledgments, background information, photo releases, volunteer hours, group participation, donor activity, communications, and follow-up actions.
- Track volunteer hours, group participation, learner volunteer involvement, donor conversion opportunities, satisfaction data, retention, and engagement trends.
- Prepare regular reports for leadership, management, board members, funders, and community partners on volunteer and donor engagement metrics, trends, outcomes, and impact.
- Provide volunteer group stakeholders with quarterly, semi-annual, or annual volunteer impact reports as appropriate.
- Maintain organized files, calendars, templates, workflows, reports, and communication systems.
Community Engagement and Mission Representation
- Represent Center for People at internal and external volunteer, donor, partner, networking, booth, presentation, and community engagement opportunities.
- Collaborate with Marketing and Communications to promote volunteer opportunities, success stories, fundraising initiatives, learner stories, and community engagement opportunities.
- Communicate effectively with staff, board members, volunteers, donors, and community partners to ensure alignment and support for volunteer and donor initiatives.
- Operate with professionalism, courtesy, tact, sound judgment, confidentiality, and a mission-centered approach.
Compliance, Professionalism, and Other Duties
- Operate in accordance with contracts, government regulations, and Center for People policies and procedures.
- Maintain ethical professional boundaries with volunteers, learners, donors, staff, and community partners.
- Maintain a flexible schedule, including occasional evenings and weekends, to support volunteer groups, donor events, community activities, and Center for People initiatives.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
III. REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES
- Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills with the ability to work effectively with diverse stakeholders.
- Strong customer service orientation and ability to create a warm, welcoming, professional experience.
- Demonstrated leadership, supervision, coaching, facilitation, group management, and accountability skills.
- Strong organizational ability, attention to detail, follow-through, and capacity to manage multiple calendars, projects, deadlines, events, people, and systems.
- Ability to create structure, workflows, checklists, training materials, role descriptions, and repeatable processes.
- Ability to design, facilitate, and evaluate engaging training courses for internal and external audiences.
- Entrepreneurial ability to support fee-for-service training, earned-revenue opportunities, and mission-aligned program growth.
- Ability to build and maintain relationships with volunteers, learners, donors, community partners, staff, board members, schools, organizations, and other stakeholders.
- Ability to coach, encourage, and hold learners and volunteers accountable with professionalism and care.
- Comfort with donor stewardship, volunteer cultivation, and mission-based storytelling.
- Ability to identify volunteer-to-donor engagement opportunities and coordinate appropriate follow-up.
- Ability to work independently, take initiative, solve problems, receive feedback, and remain solution-oriented under pressure.
- Proficiency with Word, Excel, Outlook, SignUpGenius, CRM systems, volunteer management platforms, and the ability to learn new software.
- Willingness and ability to become Gallup Strengths trained and apply strengths-based practices to volunteer engagement, learner development, team assignments, coaching, and recognition.
- High integrity and ability to maintain confidentiality, ethical boundaries, professionalism, courtesy, tact, and sound judgment.
IV. PREFERRED TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE
Post-secondary education preferred, or at least three years of relevant experience in volunteer coordination, nonprofit program coordination, donor relations, customer service, workforce development, event coordination, hospitality, community engagement, education, operations, or a related field.
- Experience managing or coordinating individual volunteers and structured volunteer groups.
- Experience supervising staff or providing day-to-day team leadership.
- Experience supporting donor stewardship, fundraising, community engagement, or relationship management.
- Experience working with learners, trainees, students, or individuals building workforce skills.
- Experience planning events, trainings, service days, group experiences, or community engagement activities.
- Experience facilitating professional development, leadership, customer service, strengths-based, or workforce-readiness training for groups.
- Experience supporting earned-revenue programs, fee-for-service training, corporate training, or external workshop delivery is preferred.
- Experience with a CRM or volunteer management system.
- Gallup Strengths training or willingness to complete training.
- Multilingual ability is a plus.
V. Minimum Qualifications
- High school diploma or equivalent required.
- Valid Nebraska driver’s license and current motor vehicle insurance.
- Legally authorized to work in the United States.
- Ability to pass required background checks, if applicable.
- Ability to work occasional evenings and weekends based on volunteer group, donor, event, and program needs.
V. WORKING CONDITIONS & PHYSICAL EFFORT
The physical demands described here are representative of those required to perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk and hear and frequently required to sit, stand, and walk. Specific vision abilities include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus when operating a computer and working with numbers.
Work is primarily performed indoors. Occasional local travel may be required for networking, volunteer activities, school or community partnerships, donor meetings, and community events. Flexibility to work evenings and weekends is required as needed.
Center for People is an Equal Opportunity Employer
