I work for a rather large non-profit and we do not offer formal orientation or training for our new leaders whether they are committee chairs or working group/task force leaders. I know this is an injustice to the volunteers and staff alike, but I'm wondering how to approach leadership with the ask to take what is informally happening at the staff level and making it formal so that each volunteer leader is receiving similar information.
What type of training do you or your organization provide to its new leadership?
Although we've done board training for along time, we recently formalized training for our committee leadership. 2010 was our second year of committee leadership training, and it's safe to say that it has significantly improved the working relationships between our volunteers and our staff. During the training, we take the time to set clear expectations about roles, discuss organizational policies and procedure, legal issues, etc., and we spend a lot of time answering questions. Generally, we request that our leadership attend when they are chairs-elect, and then again at the start of their chair year.
We also created a webcast that leaders who are unable to attend the training can watch. Here's a link to it, in case you're interested: http://tiny.cc/qs4qh.
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