Identifying and mentoring your future leaders is an important part of any volunteer organization, but how do you do it? At the 2009 Volunteer Leaders Workshop, attendees split into small groups and answered the question:

How do you identify new leaders?

All attendees had an opportunity to view the suggestions made by each group and were asked to select their "Top 10" solutions. Suggestions included ideas like:

• TEAMWORK: Work together, not alone. Set goals, Make plan for goals, Implement goals, evaluate goals
• Provide members with copies of officer role descriptions
• Retreat for handoff of officer role - free weekend
• Reach out to the officers of successful chapters
• Attend VLW / mentor for the future
• Encourage member involvement
• Send new leaders to national conference - free: take care of home chores, cook, clean, pet and child care, 2 days off prior and day off after conference, stress-fre eenvironment when returning home
• Define role

 > Download the complete list of solutions from the 2009 VLW Roundtables (Acrobat) (This document is posted in the leadership development resources Resource Library and can also be accessed from the Resources section.)

What additional ideas can you add to this list? Have you tried some of these techniques? What worked best for you or didn't work? Add your comments below.