Certain practices in volunteer development have proved successful to help organizations make the best use of their volunteers. Development should be a comprehensive, continuous process through which individuals can extend, update, and adapt their knowledge, skills, and abilities to enhance their performance and potential. A model for volunteer management and development is GEMS (Generate, Educate, Mobilize, Sustain). Discussion of volunteer development can be organized around the 4 steps and 18 phases of the spiral GEMS model, supplemented by United Kingdom standards and other sources. The first category, generate, includes identification of an organization's needs for volunteers that are then defined in written job descriptions; potential volunteers are identified, recruited, screened, and selected. The second category, educate, includes orienting volunteers to the organization and their jobs; protecting them from liability and risk with appropriate training; providing human, material, and information resources; and teaching, including initial and ongoing learning opportunities. Two other GEMS elements are mobilize (engage, motivate, supervise) and sustain (evaluate, recognize, retain, redirect, disengage). (18 references) (YLB)