Professional Volunteers

Sometimes, the experts are the professional volunteers. It is fall and that means, for so many organizations, a final push to raise money for their non-profit works.  In schools, often there is a vendor who supplies the school with the “item” or “items” that the school’s PTA/PTO will sell through the children to parents, teachers and the rest of the community.

This post is a shout out to all of the volunteers – the parents, the teachers and the administration staff that help make these fund raisers happen. They distribute order forms, compile orders and verify that funds were correctly collected. Then, when the orders arrive, they check and sort the goods for the end recipients. It’s a ton of work. More than you think.

Why isn’t the vendor doing this for them? I know that there is only so much profit in the line and sometimes paid or commissioned sales people don’t make enough to cover the hours and hours needed to make the sale happen. That’s understandable. The sales rep however, is the only tie the organization has to the company providing products. They better do everything they can to make this sale as successful for the organization as possible. There usually is not a contract from year to year, you may have new officers in the organization who have never done this sale before.

You are the expert… but if you don’t do enough, then you are leaving it up to the organization to become experts at your role. And if that happens… well, the reality is that they won’t rely on you, your company or your products any more. If you are supposed to be the expert – step up, do the right thing. Help the volunteers! They need it and they deserve it. After all, they aren’t being paid for this work…but I bet they could be if they asked to be “you” next year.

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl

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