If your agency or jurisdiction chooses to develop and manage its own volunteer program, it will need at least one person to organize, develop, and manage the program. Regardless of the number of full-time staff involved, a Volunteer Program Coordinator should oversee the entire volunteer program. The coordinator’s responsibilities should include the following tasks:

• Develop a network among emergency management, voluntary organizations, and the community at large
• Plan for volunteer involvement
• Develop volunteer program policy
• Oversee the implementation of the volunteer program policy

This lesson will briefly describe the tasks performed by the Volunteer Program Coordinator. These tasks will be covered in more detail in later lessons.