The Bottom Line
A Service Enterprise is an organization that doesn’t just engage volunteers, but operates with a culture of volunteerism that enables it to fundamentally leverage volunteers and their skills to achieve its social mission. These high-performing organizations have deeply integrated volunteers into their strategic plan and day-to-day operations, thereby allowing them to reduce costs and increase efficiency and effectiveness in providing services to fulfill their mission.
A Service Enterprise Hub leads cohort(s) of organizations through a prescribed training and coaching process to build their capacity to operate in this way.
The goal of the Service Enterprise Initiative is to strengthen the capacity of organizations to strategically and effectively engage volunteers to address community needs.
Increase Your Capacity and Impact with Skilled Volunteers
Ultimately, becoming a Service Enterprise organization will give you the ability to look at internal staff capacity in a new way and leverage skilled volunteers to expand that capacity to achieve your mission.
A nationally certified Service Enterprise organization typically benefits from:
- Outperforming similar organizations on all measures of organizational capacity
- Increased human resource capacity with limited additional expense
- Significant increase in volunteer hours contributed annually
- Retooled operations that intentionally use skilled volunteers
- Community needs better addressed through organizational growth
- Ability to take programs to scale
Volunteer Maine and Service Enterprise Trainers help organizations realize these benefits through assessment, training, and coaching.
Watch this short introductory video on Service Enterprise in Maine:
Upcoming Service Enterprise Trainings
We have two upcoming Introduction to Service Enterprise sessions:
December 15, 2025 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. via Zoom
January 7, 2026 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. via Zoom
Interested in Service Enterprise certification?
Your nonprofit can access innovative training and consulting support to become a Service Enterprise and achieve results similar to those outlined above. Through a multi-month engagement with Volunteer Maine, your nonprofit organization will move through a change management process that will result in more effectively leveraging the time and talents of volunteers and lead to greater impact.
Your organization will receive:
- A thorough assessment of your existing organizational capacity and volunteer engagement practices
- Up to 16 hours of training to assist in re-tooling the roles and ways in which your organization engages volunteers
- Individualized consulting to address unique organizational opportunities and challenges
- National certification signifying your organization's commitment to ensuring that the time and talent of volunteers are appropriately leveraged to meet the social mission of your organization
Ready to get started?
For more information about how you can become a Service Enterprise or receive a national certification for Service Enterprise , contact us at Service.Commission@Maine.Gov or call us at 207-624-7792.