Linda
GRAFF
Linda L. Graff
has been working and consulting in the not-for-profit
sector since 1980. She is a voluntary sector and risk
management specialist, an impassioned advocate for
the field of volunteer program management, and a dynamic
and popular trainer.
Linda was the Director of the Volunteer Bureau for
the Social Planning and Research Council in Hamilton,
Ontario for six years, and the Executive Director
of the Voluntary Action Centre in Hamilton from 1986
to 1989. In these positions, Ms. Graff worked extensively
with leadership volunteers, and delivered workshops
and papers on volunteer program management to thousands
of participants with a particular specialty in volunteer/paid
staff/union relations. Linda is the author of Volunteer
- Union Relations: A Discussion Paper.
Linda now works as a private consultant, specializing
in volunteerism and nonprofit management. She was
a certified trainer in the Provincial Training Program
in Volunteer Management and her training and workshop
experience includes presentations to groups ranging
in size from five to five hundred across North America
and into Europe and Asia. Linda's presentations are
consistently practical, substantive, and empowering.
As the author of Volunteer For The Health Of It
, Linda has developed considerable expertise
in the relationship between voluntary action and wellness.
She has extended her work in this field in a number
of subsequent research projects on how to increase
the involvement of persons with disabilities in voluntary
action.
Linda's 1992 publication, By
Definition: Policies for Volunteer Programs ,
became an immediate best-seller. It broke new ground
in the field of policy development and risk management
and has been updated in Linda's AudioWorkshop
T which includes a 95 min. audio tape and 16-page
workbook. It's like being in a workshop with Linda!
A manual called Well-Centred , published
in 1997 by Volunteer Canada, extends Linda's expertise
on policies into the toughest policy questions faced
by Volunteer Centres and other similar matching agencies.
In 1999, Linda released an important new book called
Beyond
Police Checks: A Definitive Guidebook for Screening
Volunteers and Paid Staff . Beyond Police
Checks has also become a must-have resource
on this high-stakes topic for managers of volunteers
everywhere.
After a decade of international training on risk management,
Linda finally published her long-awaited book on the
topic in 2002. Called Better
Safe... Risk Management In Volunteer Programs &
Community Service , this most recent publication
is destined to become another must-have source book
for managers of both volunteer programs and other
forms of community service work everywhere.
Over the years, Linda has produced several other manuals,
audio resources, and countless articles in the field
of volunteer program management. She is an internationally
acclaimed speaker and trainer who specializes in the
"tougher" topics such as risk management, policy development,
screening, discipline and dismissal, board responsibilities
and liabilities, and volunteer-paid staff relations.
Linda brings to her work a more than twenty-year history
of involvement in the feminist movement and in women's
organizations where she has concentrated on issues
of social justice, equity, and advancement of women's
issues. The feminist principles of inclusivity and
respect for diversity pervade all of her work.
Research, facilitation, and consultation round out
Linda's specialty areas and lead her into exciting
projects on topics such as mergers, organizational
development, volunteer program reviews, and outcome
evaluation design for local, provincial, national
and international nonprofit organizations.
Undergraduate (social work) and graduate (sociology)
degrees were earned from McMaster University where
she concentrated her studies in women's issues and
the work of farm women.
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