Volunteer Management 

and Leadership Skills

Image: EA Philippines 

This guide was compiled from resources from The Life You Can Save, LEAN, and the experience of several group organisers.

Organising a local group requires leadership skills. This section provides helpful tips on people skills in the context of building and maintaining a community, and delegating tasks.

Remember to continue building your career

Before launching into specific leadership skills, remember: while leading a group can be a very highly impactful role, don’t neglect your own mid to long-term career building. You will probably do community-building for only a few years, so make sure you are developing skills that are valuable in other roles as well. If you don’t already have your career planned out, go through 80,000 Hours’ content yourself. Write your own ABZ career plan, talk it through with other people, and modify it regularly.

Delegation

Don’t worry about asking for help or dividing responsibilities! People are often looking for ways to help and will be happy to do so.

Volunteers would also benefit from the role:

Here are some tips on being a good delegator:

Handing over leadership

The best leaders help upskill people to the point where they can take over the leadership role. Advice on making a smooth leadership transition is in the Handing Over Leadership section.

Reading recommendations

These books have been recommended by group organisers:

Here are other relevant resources: