Volunteers in Museums: Are Small Museums Utilizing Volunteer Management Policies?

Volunteers are an asset to any museum. Having written volunteer management policies and procedures for museums can greatly increase the effective use of volunteers within a museum. This paper attempts to answer this question: Do small museums, which are most likely to need volunteers due to lack of paid staff and overall funding, utilize written volunteer management policies and procedures, and are these policies and procedures effective? To answer this question, survey results of four Southern Illinois region museums are analyzed. Two of the museums did have volunteer management policies and procedures, but did not necessarily exhaust all possible topics of volunteer management. The other two museums did not have written volunteer management policies and procedures, and the volunteer coordinators were unclear of the tangible benefits that a written volunteer management plan can have for a museum, its staff, its patrons, and the community it serves