Strategic management is becoming increasingly important in the associative sector. Depending on the associative sector of activity or the associative policy as well as the number of volunteers present within the association, will make the management of the associative management even more advantageous for the monitoring of human resources management!
Through this article we will address the 5 best practices of management in the associative world:
- Communicate your interest in project management
- Determine each role in your nonprofit group
- Increase the number of associative contributors
- Establish an associative dynamic, feedback and social cohesion
- Offer your members support for their success
Communicate your interest in project management
At the heart of your project: volunteers
Active associations are formed through associative missions. Overall, for the organization’s administrators, this is what motivates them to carry out associative actions.
This interest that pushes managers (employment in France) is intended to be disseminated with all members. From a simplistic point of view, the arrival of a volunteer in your associative structure could mean that they are really committed to associative practices and therefore that they do not need motivation.
However, volunteers are pillars of your structure, so team management and resource management must be essential.
For example, federations that bring together and support associations and that employ employees within the associative system. Indeed, sports associations with the support of volunteers are the raison d’être of a sports federation.
Regardless of the size of the associative organization, small local organization or national association, it is essential to implement the management of organizations that accompanies associations.
Motivating actors with daily work
The supervisor of the association or the coordinator of volunteers, has the role of strengthening motivation and associative links. You must share, spread your passion, the values of the association as well as state the associative mobilization.
Once you are involved in community life, time is your ally, for example by really integrating them by ensuring their follow-up. The first root of motivation for 42% of members is to observe testimonials from previous members.
Determine each role in your nonprofit group
Tasks adapted to each volunteer
For the realization of an associative project, it is important to have concrete foundations. Project management is true for any type of organization, association, or company.
You will have to determine the role of your members in each division, to ensure project management. The distribution of roles must be done in an impartial way, each volunteer of the association must have a defined, specific task, defined by the project manager.
If the jobs are not really defined, collaboration between employees and volunteers could lead to difficulties.
As a result, overall, if your associative practice achieves excellent associative management, the cohesion between employees and volunteers will obviously be better.
In a previous article, we give you advice on how to carry out missions ideal volunteering opportunities. You can find these tips in this article:
How do you carry out an ideal volunteer mission?
Increase the number of associative contributors
The formation of associations promotes long-term relationships
Members make themselves available to an association in order to give their time to one or more causes that are important to them.
Initially, they commit themselves for a short period of time in order to find out if they feel that the association brings them something.
In order to retain them in the long term, your structure must provide them with something such as acquiring skills, social ties, pedagogy, etc. In addition, representatives of the associative world have a necessary role to play in these contributions.
The management will allow the association managers to be aware of the expectations of their volunteers and then propose an associative offer that suits them. The right way to do this would be to offer members the opportunity to obtain training according to their needs and actions they carry out.
Indeed, the first desire to engage members in an associative model would be training according to the study “Volunteering in France in 2019” carried out by Recherches et Solidarités.
With this information, you know what remains to be done to support and retain your members.
In order to monitor your members in their training, associations can benefit from several tips.
Internal Member Progress
For a member, obtaining new associative actions is necessarily an asset for progress. On this new mission, he can prove and highlight his skills.
The principle of associative volunteering is to constantly evolve with the actions carried out. Of course, the evolution of the volunteer will be carried out over the long term.
Of course, your role as a representative is to support, you must define together with the member the tasks entrusted to you. Managerial skills are therefore required, he must show leadership by accompanying, but also by leaving autonomy. If you lack managerial skills, management courses exist to learn the fundamentals of management. A good number of associations lack managerial skills and can benefit from initial training.
It is therefore up to you to define the right measures for your supervision.
Training with peer groups
It is very likely that many members want to deepen notions and therefore be trained on this subject, but also that one of your volunteers has these skills, so you can create an exchange of exchanges.
This discussion can take the form of training to develop skills.
Here’s how this type of training has advantages:
- This creates a harmony of knowledge between volunteers quickly and easily for any interested person,
- The competent member who has these notions and is able to teach them will feel valued,
- These training-type discussions will unite the links between all your members.
The fund for the development of associative life in order to help volunteers progress
The FDVA or the fund for the development of associative life was created in 1985 by the French State, it is beneficial for associations, because they can carry out training plans.
To carry out a training course and be subsidised each year, calls for projects are launched. To then distribute this aid, a jury will make its selection.
The training courses offered are obliged to be consistent with the main orientations defined by the State, with the risk of having their training rejected.
The FDVA allows the organization of nearly 20,000 training days each year beneficial to more than 160,000 volunteers.
The CEC: the citizen engagement account
This system would need to obtain more notoriety!
What for? The CEC or the citizen engagement account offers the possibility of modifying the training hours of volunteers in the cumulative CPF hours.
However, several conditions must be met to benefit from the EQF.
Such as the roles of the volunteer in the organization, the accumulation of volunteer hours and also the field of action of the association.
Of course, if the structure will benefit from the CEC disseminated information to your members, they will be able to benefit from it!
Establish an associative dynamic, feedback and social cohesion
What is feedback?
It is defined as a return that an individual evokes to another person in order to improve him/herself.
There are two types of feedback:
- Positive feedback to consolidate an action carried out,
- Constructive feedback to make a correction or modification of actions in the future.
How do you get feedback?
First of all, feedback is built using five phases:
- Define the situation impartially, without judgment, by retaining only the facts,
- To make the consequences of the situation known in an emotional way, what sensations did we feel?
- To look for the need, a sensation indicates to us a need satisfied or not, and communicate it,
- Probe a solution to solve the difficulty, to consolidate the situation during positive feedback and to refrain from constructive feedback,
- To reconcile on tangible solutions.
To go further, we give you four additional tips:
- Take your time in your preparation, otherwise you increase the risk of clumsiness and altered feedback,
- Clearly define your expectations, your goals to build your speech.
- Ask permission, an individual may not want to receive feedback,
- Communicate accurately and don’t use “it seems to me that”, your speech should be personal, not speak for others.
How do I collect feedback?
Collect positive feedback
In general, this feedback is more pleasant. It is still important to remember the objective of this return to understand its usefulness.
This feedback is not just a praise to please.
The individual who makes this return recognizes an asset, an action in order to strengthen him/her.
It is important to be aware of what the individual is talking about us. It must therefore be accepted and integrated in order to strengthen it in the future.
Collect constructive feedback
It may be more complex to receive, but it will allow you to really improve. This feedback is benevolent so take it into account.
To do this, respect its rules:
- Admitting the return should not be minimized,
- Prove that this feedback will be useful to you by explaining why with a few words,
- In case of misunderstanding, ask for specific examples to contextualize,
- Manage the benefits and discuss what the return has brought you.
How to encourage feedback in your association?
This feedback requires a commitment to associations on the part of your associations, you cannot force it.
You can organize either meetings or training on this type of communication. If the meeting has succeeded in getting your members interested, you can therefore set up appropriate training.
Especially when newcomers arrive to encourage them to make them do so from the beginning.
Offer your members support for their success
Characterize the points of improvement
Management for associative development is not limited to defining tasks and provisional objectives. To do this, associations can benefit from tools for carrying out their activities.
It is very often necessary to take a step back and define possible areas for improvement.
With your management, you organize regular meetings to keep you informed.
So you observe the frustrating elements.
If you have any issues with the resources that are in place, you need to look at the necessary expectations.
It is important that you think about which tool to choose and not just take the most popular tool.
Choose the option that best suits your business
After specifying your needs, you will need to look for the best and most appropriate solution.
This solution differs according to your expectations and can be a new organization, the deployment of a new management tool, etc. You are free to make your own choices!
In order to be clear, we illustrate with an example: you notice that the person who takes care of the accounting works on Excel and loses time as a result, he loses satisfaction and motivation.
You are looking for solutions and think that an accounting tool could help it.
If the statement of requirements has been correctly carried out, automatically, you will have a defined vision in the choice of future accounting software.
Let’s say that by talking to your accountant, you have defined a number of criteria, namely:
- improve time management during data entry,
- mechanize the relationship between donations and accounting,
- allow for quick management of tax receipts,
- Smooth out cheque management,
- To give visibility on accounting for the whole office.
This precision list will allow you to quickly choose the right software for your needs.
Overall, members who are integrated and appeased in this associative environment, benefiting from tools that help them on a daily basis, are more likely to stay for a long time to support the association. Indeed nowadays it is difficult to recruit members, so don’t deprive yourself of it!
To conclude
We were able to see the particularities of management in associations.
Volunteer management is necessary and singularly advantageous. It is also necessary to reconcile the relations between employees and members.
So what are the measures to be taken?
The association’s representatives must communicate your enthusiasm for associative projects, clarify roles, provide help for your volunteers, highlight the associative culture with feedback and promote volunteering.
So thanks to this article, you have in hand the 5 management phases to manage an association.
Of course, we do not claim to obtain miracle solutions for all structures in terms of management.
However, we hope that our article gives you key elements of success for your association in order to attract and keep your members. The objective is for your structure to make a decision according to the elements stated and adapt them to its organization.
Indeed, you know your association better than anyone and you know what needs to be put in place, now it’s up to you to put it in place and support the internal management team!
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