Succession Plans

or, Bringing In Some New Blood

Even the most tireless volunteer gets tired of being in charge all the time. You can make sure you don’t overburden your best advocates (including yourself!) by creating a leadership succession plan.

Succession planning is an ongoing process of systematically identifying, assessing and developing talent to ensure leadership continuity for all key positions in an organization. It is vital to the long-term success of your chapter.

Guidelines for implementing a succession plan fall into three main areas: recruiting new volunteers/leaders, developing and training new volunteers/leaders, and incorporating succession measures into the chapter administrative structure.

We’re not asking you to go door-to-door, but you should always be on the lookout for new chapter leaders or people who could lend their skills to your organization. Here are some easy ways to spot potential recruits:

• Do they show up to events?
• Do they seem interested in getting more involved?
• Do they show Badger spirit and have passion for UW-Madison?
• Do they have time to volunteer?
• Could they add their expertise (e.g., public relations, event planning) to your chapter?

Think about how you might want to use volunteers (see Appendix for table of potential volunteer jobs). Being a chapter officer right off the bat is a bit daunting, but if you get people involved in something that doesn’t require a huge time commitment and is something they enjoy, your volunteers are more likely to become a chapter leader later on. According to research, the most likely groups to become chapter leaders are: recent grads, 55+ alums, and individuals seeking professional development opportunities. Ideas for involving new volunteers include:

• Promote chapter leadership as a professional skills development opportunity.
• Send out a welcome e-mail to each new member with information about your chapter.
• Have a board member speak with new members during their first visit.
• Encourage new members to become active in one or more committees.
• Recognize active members during an annual appreciation event.
• Match skills and strengths with appropriate leadership positions.
• Establish a relationship with potential leader candidates and mentor volunteers early on so they can progress into leadership roles.
• Conduct an annual leadership summit inviting all alumni in the area to a chapter meeting to hear about opportunities.

Now that you’ve identified a potential recruit, how do you make “the ask”? There’s more to it than just barricading the door and making people sign up before they can leave. (Although, that would be a quick way to get names!) You’ll need to be patient and cultivate their interest before approaching them to do work on your behalf:

• Every attendee should be viewed as a potential volunteer, even the wallflowers standing in the corner. So make everyone feel welcome and encourage them to return. Break the ice by asking when they graduated, where they got that snazzy red shirt — anything else to get them talking.
• Although happy hours are easy to plan and can be fun, they might not appeal to people who like to attend gallery openings. Be sure to offer a variety of events and you’ll see a lot of new faces.
• The easiest way to gauge interest is to make people tell you what they like. Encourage people to fill out Interest Inventories before they go. A great way to boost response is to offer a raffle prize if they submit a form.
• Once you have the Interest Inventories, use them! Call the folks who indicated they want to get involved. You can also find out what programs interest alumni through Volunteer Connections.
• Make sure to tell folks about the programs WAA offers, too. They might want to attend one of our events or get involved with a career-mentoring program. Tell people to visit uwalumni.com to learn more.
• Check in regularly with your current volunteers. You may find that they want to expand their role or have something new to offer, and you’ll be rewarded in the long run by their loyalty.
• Once you recruit a new volunteer, be sure to stay in touch with them. You want to ensure that they’re having a positive experience and will stay involved.
• Make sure you know what’s going on at UW-Madison and WAA. As a chapter leader, you’re an ambassador of the university and people will expect you to know things like current student enrollment and whether or not Ogg Hall is still standing.

You can be an ambassador even when you’re off the clock by talking about the UW and WAA in everyday life. It really is a small world and you’d be surprised how many alumni you’ll meet at the grocery store or at a business lunch just because you’re wearing red and white. Many alumni want to stay connected to their alma mater but simply don’t know how. You can show them the way.

As you’ve probably guessed, finding and keeping great volunteers doesn’t happen by accident. Although it takes a bit of effort, the payoff for your chapter will be huge. New volunteers bring with them new ideas and a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed enthusiasm that will spill over into your events.

There’s nothing worse than being thrown into a new job and told “get to it.” Same goes for volunteers. They’re giving you their free time, so be sure to give them a valuable experience in return. Here are some tips for managing volunteer development:

• Have a formal, structured orientation plan for leaders assuming new positions. Use WAA training to further strengthen leadership skills.
• Develop written position descriptions detailing the volunteers’ different levels of commitment.
• Keep important documents for incoming leaders (e.g., notes, timeline, contact people, systems, processes, etc.). Review them with incoming leaders as part of mentoring process.
• Provide opportunities to practice new skills and tasks (event planning, meeting administration, etc.).
• Pair veteran and new leaders to perform specific tasks such as running meetings, giving speeches, delegating and following up on tasks.
• Provide emerging leaders with group or individual feedback and constructive criticism.
• Delegate and allow freedom – let volunteers work creatively to make their job a success. There is more than one “right” way to accomplish something. Also, if no one steps up to the plate, consider whether there is enough interest to hold that event. It might be better to let an event have a one-year hiatus, and if members complain, tell them that you need help to keep the event alive.
• Hold an informal "getting-to-know-you" session for new recruits and current volunteers to allow them to learn more about your chapter before the first major event or board meeting.
• Provide written descriptions of what will be expected of new volunteers. Don't just throw them into the thick of things without an overview of what they will be doing.
• Determine who will hold leadership positions in your group six months or one year in advance. Have those people "shadow" the current leaders for the remainder of their terms.
• Designate one current volunteer to act as a “Badger Buddy” to the new volunteer. The mentor should be in regular contact with the new volunteer and be able to answer questions as they arise. Be conscious of the difference between “mentoring” and “bossing.”
• Lend this Chapter Leader Manual to your volunteers and ask them to review it.

It’s not just the Oval Office that needs a succession plan. If one of your chapter leaders stepped down today, who would fill their shoes? The phrase “Succession Planning” sounds a little intimidating, but you can think of it as a compass for your chapter to follow on a path through the future. Below are some tips to get you started:

• Put your succession plan in writing — it should be a document for future leaders to follow. This could be an addendum to chapter bylaws.
• Use the committee approach to get work done so that the board isn’t solely in charge. Committees also help with identifying and developing future leaders.
• Name committee vice chairs. Vice chairs are the committee chairs the following year, but could fill the position in an emergency.
• Overlap committee assignment terms with board/officer assignments. For example, you could have board/officers on fiscal year terms with committee assignments on calendar year terms.
• Increase your board size to increase pool of potential candidates.
• Establish an emergency plan. Determine in advance what will happen if a current chapter leader must suddenly step down. Who will step in or how will responsibilities be divided? Ask each officer, director and committee chair to designate their successor for emergency situations.
• Develop clear job descriptions and evaluations for different leadership positions so your volunteers know what is expected. Include their mentoring and “back-up” duties should another leader suddenly leave.
• Structure second-line leadership roles with opportunities for growth (e.g., moving from committee co-chairperson to become board member or officer).
• Rotate leadership positions on a regular basis to ensure that new talent has a chance to emerge.
• Have a plan in place for dealing with a board member who does not meet their responsibilities. This could be similar to workplace policies (e.g., meet with board member to address issues, leave with a plan for change, review after agreed-upon period of time, if no improvement on probation for period of time, if no improvement after that time, board member is terminated.) Write this plan into your bylaws.