Using the ‘donut’ to define the role of a volunteer and ensure ongoing clarity

The donut is a tool that assists in clarifying roles and responsibilities. The tool was designed to support people to better understand what was required of them within their role, identifying where they could try new things, how they could use their creativity and judgment and where their responsibilities end.

Within recruitment

Developing a donut can assist in clarifying the type of volunteer you are looking for and what you expect of them. Using the donut as a framework for conversation can support you to carefully consider the role you want a new volunteer to play within the organisation. You can then target recruiting efforts accordingly based on the skills and type of person required for the responsibilities agreed upon.

The donut can be used to support conversations with potential candidates providing both an overview of the position and a more detailed description of the day-to-day tasks.

Transparency around expectations supports a culture of accountability for new volunteers and ensures that the organisation, volunteer and individual have a consistent interpretation of what the role actually is.

The donut is separated into three different sections:

1. Core responsibilities of the role

Core responsibilities are tasks that we expect the person to carry out on a regular basis.

This section falls in line with the vision and values of the organisation and any key policies that they might need to pay attention to.

You can use the capability framework to think through the level of skill required of volunteers depending on the role they will play.

When related to direct service provision, a donut should also contain responsibilities that reflect a balance of what’s important to the individual being supported (i.e. the things that make the person happy, content, that matter to them) and identifies the support they need to be healthy and safe in a way that works for them.

2. Creativity, judgement and innovation

There are elements of volunteer roles where you want to allow for some flexibility and innovation. By providing clarity about where this is okay provides with volunteers freedom to know where they can “try or do something different”. An important part of feeling valued within a role is often linked to being able to have input in how things are done.

Creativity and judgement is often needed in situations where the best way to do something is unknown and will only be discovered through trying various ideas and methods.

3. Not your usual responsibility

This describes the point at which the volunteer is no longer held accountable.

This can be areas where you don’t expect the volunteer to assist or specific tasks that are outside their role.

This area also can clarify what you “don’t want” the volunteer to do.

Within supervision and support

A donut can be used as a starting point to check in with the volunteer to see how they feel about the responsibilities they have, where they are doing well and areas to improve.

If there are issues arising from someone overstepping their role you can use these headings to check what the volunteer thinks their responsibilities are and clarify any misunderstandings with them.

This can also be useful if the volunteer is being asked to do things that they feel are beyond their role. In these situations, the donut can be used with others to define the volunteer’s responsibilities.

 With time the volunteers may become more experienced and feel up to taking on further tasks and responsibilities. Before this happens it’s important to have a common understanding of what this means for them and the organisation, the donut tool can be used to redefine this.