Volunteer Management

For many nonprofit organizations, volunteers have served a vital purpose in roles ranging from administrative to facility management. With an aging population and the reality of baby boomers entering the next phase of their lives, new ways of recruiting these mature, skilled individuals as volunteers are emerging. Through his research, Dr. Jesse Bolinger presents a compelling case for how their past work experience, educational background, and mental health can play a significant role and be a tool for retaining them in areas that best suit these three basic elements.

When customers are truly thrilled about their experience with your product or service, they can become outspoken "evangelists" for your company. This group of satisfied believers can be converted into a potent marketing force to grow your universe of customers.

Et omnia recta - to make things right. In the late 1800s, a secret society was formed by a captain from Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders with the support of the nation’s leading industrialists and bankers. Over a century later, the tradition continues in the same saloons and boardrooms of New York City, where it all began. In this crime thriller, where history and current events unite, Woodbury Kane, Jacob Riis, and Roosevelt himself fight the tyranny of Tammany Hall in the first mission of the volunteers during the turn of the last century.

It's the height of the prohibition and the Harlem Renaissance and mob kingpin Arnold Rothstein must die. Owney Madden, gangster, and Cotton Club owner, steps up with a plan to take down Rothstein as part of a bigger plot to defeat the tyranny of powerhouse political organization Tammany Hall. Harlem Rhapsody transports you right into the turbulent decade from 1927-1937, from Duke Ellington's debut at the Cotton Club, to the unsolved murder of Rothstein...and the machinations of a secret organization known as The Volunteers.

After writing the first book about why Lean and Six Sigma practitioners should volunteer their skills to help nonprofits, I wanted to give more tangible and real-life examples of how these tools and techniques can be applied. I've reached out to friends and colleagues who are already volunteering their time, and asked them to write a chapter for this first volume, called Lessons Learned from the Gemba.