Mission:
To share the best strategies and models on effectively managing volunteers, and to encourage the replication of them throughout the nonprofit community.

Background:
The UPS Foundation created the Best Practice Toolbox because its research found that individuals who have volunteered in the past but stopped doing so cite poor management of their time and talents by nonprofits as the primary reason. The practices delineated in the toolbox show nonprofits how to better manage their volunteers — one of the sector's most fundamental, yet underutilized, resources.

Outstanding Web Features:
The Best Practice Toolbox contains three publications developed, in part, by the UPS Foundation: A Guide to Investing in Volunteer Resources Management (20 pages, PDF) and Preventing a Disaster Within the Disaster: The Effective Use and Management of Unaffiliated Volunteers (20 pages, PDF), of particular interest since the South Asia tsumani in December 2004, as is Managing Spontaneous Volunteers in Times of Disaster: The Synergy of Structure and Good Intentions. The toolbox also includes volunteer recruitment and training tools produced by organizations funded by the UPS Foundation, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, CityCares' Citizen Academy, Junior Achievement, and the National Park Service.