Food for Thought

by Abigail Solazzo

With the holidays behind us, the new year presents an opportunity to re-direct our attention to the year ahead. Now is the time to start prepping your incoming volunteers for the upcoming volunteer year. This will ensure that our new volunteers can hit the ground running in June and the transition among leadership is seamless and easy. While onboarding and orientation are critical to the success of your new chapter leaders, we also want to see our volunteers be held accountable for some of their own education and understanding of their roles and the role of chapters within ANFP. There are many ANFP resources available for our incoming volunteers that they should take advantage of before June.

Online Courses
ANFP offers several volunteer-related online courses that are available in the ANFP Marketplace for a reasonable fee. They cover the roles and responsibilities of chapter leaders, such as the president, treasurer, and secretary. There are also courses that cover meeting planning and a general overview of chapters. Also, please be on the lookout for new chapter-related online courses coming out this year!

Chapter Chats
Each of our chapter chats are recorded and posted on ANFPtv for members to view at any time. Simply log in on the ANFP website and go to ANFPtv. Once in ANFPtv, go to the Video Library and expand on the Member Center and Chapter menus to find all the Chapter Chats. Chapter Chats range in topics from developing leadership skills to setting goals to engaging Millennial members.

Volunteer Leaders
Volunteer Leaders is ANFP’s monthly volunteer-focused newsletter. Each newsletter offers tips or useful information related to chapters or specific roles, as well as important deadlines on other timely information. Archived Volunteer Leaders can be found within the Chapter Volunteer Leader community. Once you are signed into ANFPConnect, go to ‘My Communities’ and look for the Chapter Volunteer Leader community. Volunteer Leaders from 2016, 2017 and 2018 can be found in the library.

Volunteer Handbook
One of the most useful and steadfast pieces of information a new volunteer can use is the Volunteer Handbook. This document provides almost every piece of chapter-related information and is a great reference to have during a volunteer’s term. It is updated at least once annually and lives on ANFPConnect in Volunteer Resources under Volunteer 101.

With these resources, along with an onboarding and orientation session, your new volunteers are bound for success!