GrowMe – Map your skills, choose where to grow

GrowMe is a skills matrix for anyone who manages, leads or coordinates volunteers.

Whether you are paid or unpaid, support five volunteers or five hundred, work in a small community group or a national organisation, GrowMe helps you understand where you are now and what your next step could be.

View GrowMe PDF
GrowMe – Map your skills, choose where to grow

GrowMe is a development tool, not a test. It helps you recognise your strengths, identify opportunities for growth, and plan your professional development. It provides a four-stage professional development pathway:

  1. 1
    Base Knowledge – Starting Out
  2. 2
    Base Knowledge Applied – Practising with Confidence
  3. 3
    Adaptive Leadership – Leading and Adapting
  4. 4
    Strategic Leadership – Strategic and Sector

Why GrowMe?

Many people who manage or lead volunteers arrive in the role by chance. They learn through experience, mentoring and practice, often with few professional development resources designed specifically for volunteer leadership.

GrowMe was developed to provide a practical skills pathway for volunteer managers and leaders at every stage of their journey.

View GrowMe PDF

It helps answer four simple questions:

  1. 1
    Where am I now?
  2. 2
    What does the next level look like?
  3. 3
    What skills should I develop next?
  4. 4
    What does progression from coordinator to sector leader look like?

If you lead others, you can use GrowMe to develop your team and plan for succession. It also helps define volunteer management as a career.

A professional development pathway

GrowMe describes how skills develop over time across four stages:

  1. 1

    Base Knowledge

    Starting Out

    You understand the basics and are building confidence in the role.

  2. 2

    Base Knowledge Applied

    Practising with Confidence

    You apply your skills consistently and independently.

  3. 3

    Adaptive Leadership

    Leading and Adapting

    You improve and adapt practice to meet changing needs.

  4. 4

    Strategic Leadership

    Strategic and Sector

    You influence volunteering across your organisation, community and the wider sector.

You may be at different stages for different skills. Most people are strong in some areas and still developing in others. That's exactly how GrowMe is intended to be used.

What GrowMe covers

GrowMe includes 16 skills organised across four themes:

Managing and leading volunteers

Recruiting, onboarding, supporting, developing and recognising volunteers.

Managing within the organisation

Systems, reporting, policy, and resourcing.

Leadership within the organisation

Vision, influence, and culture.

Leadership of volunteering in the sector and community

Advocacy, sector leadership and community connections.

Five capabilities underpin every theme:

  1. Communication
  2. Cultural capability
  3. Te Tiriti and Māori capability
  4. Self-management and wellbeing
  5. Digital and future capability

How to use GrowMe

View GrowMe PDF
  1. 01
    Choose one skill.
  2. 02
    Read across the row from left to right.
  3. 03
    Identify the description that best reflects where you are today.
  4. 04
    Then look one step to the right to identify your next development opportunity.

GrowMe can be used:

  • For self-reflection and professional development
  • During performance and development conversations
  • With mentors or managers
  • To support succession planning
  • To develop volunteer leadership teams
  • To identify future learning goals

Part of wider suite of tools

GrowMe sits alongside Volunteering New Zealand's volunteer leadership and best practice tools.

LeadMeHelps you assess your volunteer practice against the Best Practice Guidelines

InvolveMeHelps organisations review their volunteer programmes

GrowMeFocuses on the skills development of the people who lead and manage volunteers.

Together these tools provide a practical framework for strengthening volunteering across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Get started

You don't need to complete the whole matrix today.

Start with one skill.

Find where you are.

Choose where to grow.

View GrowMe PDF