A Service Enterprise is an organization that fundamentally leverages volunteers and their skills across all levels of the organization to successfully deliver on their social mission.

SEI organizations achieved a $4-6 return for every dollar invested in volunteer capacity.

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Click here for a Service Enterprise overview and the 2015-16 SEI Initiative schedule and details.

Service Enterprise Initiative

​14 Local Organizations are Now Certified!

A Service Enterprise is an organization that fundamentally leverages volunteers and their skills across all levels of the organization to successfully deliver on their social mission.

We are part of a national initiative to help nonprofits increase their mission-based services, expand community outreach and achieve objectives by effectively engaging volunteers.  Administered by Volunteer Milwaukee, a service of the Nonprofit Center, this process prepares organizations to become certified as a Service Enterprise (SE). Each year we recruit a new group to participate. 

Milwaukee was part of the national pilot in 2014, with seven nonprofits successfully completing the process and experiencing increased impact through volunteer engagement. Since then, other nonprofits have joined them. 

Each year a new group of organizations follows this comprehensive organizational change model empowering them to more efficiently engage volunteers and address community needs. Future plans include exploring state-wide expansion.

The model is based on research demonstrating that SE nonprofits outperform peer organizations on all measures of organizational capacity, allowing them to more effectively address community needs and operate at almost half the median budget. The research shows:

• Nonprofits that engaged 50+ volunteers per year AND have strong volunteer management practices outperformed peer organizations in every measure of organizational capacity.  
• These organizations are better led and managed, more adaptable, sustainable and better resourced.
• Organizations with 10-50 volunteers are statistically equally as effective as their counterparts without volunteers on all measures of organizational effectiveness, yet their average annual budgets are almost half of those organizations without volunteers.  
• SEI organizations achieved a $4-6 return for every dollar invested in volunteer capacity.  

Despite the benefits of effective volunteer engagement, less than 15% of nonprofits at the time of the TCC study were operating as Service Enterprises. The Service Enterprise Initiative can help you achieve the results outlined above. 

We are leading the SEI process, which includes:

• A research-based diagnostic assessment of existing practices. 
• Sixteen hours of training based on change management to reimagine and plan a new culture and structure for volunteer engagement.  
• Individualized coaching to address unique organizational opportunities and challenges.  
• A process to seek national certification signifying proficiency in SE characteristics.  

For more information email Bonnie Andrews, Volunteer Milwaukee, Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee, or call 414-273-7887.

These organizations have been certified as Service Enterprises after participating in the process led by the Nonprofit Center:
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Cathedral Center
Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin
Friedens Community Ministries
Guest House of Milwaukee
Independence First
Interfaith Older Adult Programs
LGBT Community Center
Literary Services of Wisconsin
Milwaukee Achiever Literacy Services
Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee
Pathfinders
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Eastern Wisconsin
Urban Ecology Center
UW Extension – SE WI Master Gardeners
Victory Garden Initiative
Vision Forward Association
Wehr Nature Center