VOLUNTEERING Archives • Angelmedia Peacebuilders Association

How to Recruit Volunteers

Carrie, a volunteer coordinator at a youth services organization, was having trouble finding enough volunteers.

She had an open call on her organization’s website, and kept running a blurb about volunteering in the newsletter.

A few times a year she’d have a booth at a volunteer fair.

And that was her entire volunteer recruitment process.

Seems like a problem, right?

The issue was that creating a recruitment process kept getting knocked down further on her to-do list.

“I’m so busy staffing our tutoring center, and helping the volunteers I do have solve problems, that I can’t find the time to actively recruit more. I know I need to do it, but I don’t have any established process,” she said.

And from what I’ve seen, a lot of would-be volunteer recruiters are in the same boat: they know they need more volunteers, but don’t know how to go about getting them.

That’s why I’ve created this post: so that other organizations who are in the same boat as Carrie can have a volunteer recruitment plan to follow. Once you reach the end of the post, be sure to check out the volunteer recruitment checklist for a quick summary of the key steps we outline here.

Here are the steps that go into preparing a strategy:

Planning For Recruitment

If you’re new to volunteer recruitment, or if your organization doesn’t have a formal process in place, you’ll need to do a little planning before you launch that first volunteer job posting.

This includes answering questions like:

1. Who Will Recruit Volunteers?

If you don’t know the answer, it’s very possible it’s, “Nobody!”

Without deciding who should do it, volunteers go not recruited — just like at Carrie’s organization.

If your organization has a staff volunteer manager, that person should be leading the charge.

Likewise, if you have a volunteer who coordinates volunteering opportunities, that person is a likely recruitment leader.

But if no one person is responsible for volunteer recruitment, consider gathering your existing Event Committee Chairs or your Board of Directors to establish a volunteer recruitment team to help identify, screen, orient and manage event volunteers.

In addition, depending on the number of volunteers you need and the roles they will fill, you might want to consider dividing up the recruitment tasks among a number of people.

For example, if there are several committees for an event, perhaps each Committee Chair can take responsibility for recruiting their own team (e.g., Publicity; Registration; Logistics/
Venue; Silent Auction; etc).

2. What Are Our Volunteer Needs?

To help promote an optimal experience for the volunteer, as well as for your organization, it’s important to define specific volunteer assignments or roles.

If your organization has been around for a while, you’ve probably got this covered. If not, though, here are a few questions for you to consider.

3. Where Do We Need Volunteers?

For day-to-day operations? Special programs? A specific event? For example, for an event, you might need volunteers for program development, registration/ticket sales, publicity, and logistics. For day-to-day operations, you might need a combination of office and field volunteers.

And don’t forget to keep an open mind. Even if a volunteer doesn’t immediately seem to suit your organization due to their schedule, you might be able to find a task that’s previously been neglected that they can take on.

“There is a job for everyone,” said Nancy Byars Trofemuk Kistler, the volunteer coordinator at the Academy for Classical Education. “Weekends, nights, take home jobs… you can find something for everyone!”

4. How Many Volunteers Do We Actually Need?

If you’re building a house, you may need a whole crew.

But if you’re supplementing the staff at your local library, you may only need 4 to 5.

The number of people you need will influence how you go about recruiting them.

5. What Skills Are We Looking For?

Public speaking?

Office skills?

Tech pros?

Do you need volunteers who can lead teams, speak on behalf of your organization, or work independently?

It’s important to be clear about what you need, so that you’re not wasting your time or potential volunteers’ by talking to people who aren’t the right fit.

One important factor to consider is also the amount of time they have available.

“Most organizations find short-term volunteers frustrating, but I think that we have to meet people where they are to fulfill the needs of the organization we serve,” said David Fulton Fondren, Volunteer Coordinator at Southern Pines Animal Shelter.

“Knowing that I work with a high volume of these volunteers, I try to make impactful volunteer opportunities that are accessible for “joiners.” This means they require little training or oversight and that there are accompanying signs or materials that are specific in what we want from the volunteer.”

6. What is Our Recruitment Strategy?

There are several approaches to recruiting volunteers, each suited to different types of volunteer opportunities.

Mass appeals work when you need a large number of volunteers, but don’t need them to have any special skills. Sometimes called “warm body recruitment,” the goal is to attract as many people as possible. Tactics include publicizing your call for volunteers in the media, posting your message on all your communications channels, sending mass emails, and putting a sign out in front of your building.
Targeted recruitment seeks to make contact with people who have specific skills you need.Tactics include reaching out to groups like professional associations, university programs, or clubs to find individuals who want to share their expertise.
Networking uses the relationships of your existing volunteers to find more, using tactics like informal referrals and more formalized mixers or networking events. This works best if you’re just looking for a few volunteers, or know that the people who already work with you have the skills you need.

However, before setting out to recruit anyone, think about your organization’s goals.

What positions do you really need to fill right now?

For example, when Carrie really thought about it, she needed seven more volunteers for the tutoring center, and someone to help with maintaining student records. Eight people seemed like an achievable goal.

Then, she chose to target her recruitment to students in their third year of university and retirees — the volunteers that she currently worked with in those demographics were the ones most likely to stick around and have the skills she needed.

How You Can Actually Start Recruiting Volunteers

Recruiting volunteers doesn’t usually require creating a lot of new material. With a section on your website and a good volunteer job description, you can go a long way.

Adding Positions to Your Website

For many potential volunteers, your website will be the first place they look for information. Make it easy for them to find out about volunteering, which roles are available, and how to get involved. Simplify your application process so they can complete it online, without waiting for someone to call them back, or send them more information.

Creating a Volunteer Job Description

People like to know what they’re getting into. Volunteer job descriptions make the expectations clear, and help organizations ask for the help they really need. They also make it easier for volunteers to connect with the roles that will be most meaningful to them.

Your volunteer job description should include:

A title. Give the role a name, like “Tour Guide” or “Office Support,” or “Tutor”. That will make it easier for volunteers to list it on their CV later, and provides a good overview of the role for anyone scrolling through quickly.
Necessary qualifications or experience. Does the person need a driver’s license? A/V experience? Experience working with kids? That way, people can eliminate themselves right off the bat if they don’t have the requisite skills.
Specific responsibilities and typical tasks. What are the major features of the role? Again, this can people decide if the role is suited for them before you go through the interview process.
Time commitment. When do you need them? For how long? Is this a long-term assignment, or a one-day commitment?
Supervision. Who oversees the role? Who is their contact person within your organization?
Benefits. What does the volunteer get out of this?

For example, for Carrie’s after-school tutors, the volunteer job description might look like this:

After-school Tutor

If you like kids and have completed two years of university, why not become an after-school tutor?

After school tutors help students with homework and teach them study skills and other academic success strategies twice a week at our tutoring center. Must be available from 3PM-5PM, Monday and Wednesday, or Tuesday and Thursday, and willing to commit to a semester.

This position reports to our School Services Coordinator and is a great opportunity for someone who wants to be a positive role model to a small group of students. Current university students and retired educators encouraged to apply!

How to Target Potential Volunteers

What’s scarier: asking a total stranger for some of their time, or chatting to a friend of a friend about open opportunities at your organization?

Most people would say the latter.

The good news is that many of your future volunteers are probably already marginally connected to you.

They know someone you know, are in the neighborhood, or frequent the same events or places that your organization does.

They’re former donors, friends of your club members, and people who care about your cause.

When you think about recruitment more as connecting with these people, instead of as convincing complete strangers to give a chunk of their time to your organization, it seems a lot more possible, doesn’t it?

So, before you launch a full-scale publicity campaign, reach for the lower-hanging fruit: the people you know.

Did Someone Already Volunteer?

Sometimes organizations without a recruitment process still get offers from people interested in volunteering. If you’ve collected names and contact information, now is the time to get in touch. Reach out to past volunteers, too. They may be ready to come back.

However, if there is no preexisting list or database of volunteers, you’ll need to develop one going forward by creating a process for gathering and storing this information. This could involve creating a volunteer application form, a volunteer database or at the very least, a spreadsheet.

Look Within Your Immediate Circle of Influence

Have each recruitment team member create a list of potential contacts, from among their:

Friends
Family
Co-workers
Neighbors
Community members (religious organizations, clubs, sporting teams)

Publicize Within Your Network

If you’re having trouble identifying enough volunteers within your immediate circle, consider:

Writing a newsletter article or a post on your organization’s blog or forum
Posting a request on your social media platforms
Posting a compelling video or photos of last year’s event on your FB page and ask for new recruits (follow up with anyone that “Likes” your post)

To reach out to suitable people within her organization’s network, Carrie switched up her newsletter piece.

Instead of her usual blurb about volunteering, Carrie proposed that the communications director at her organization interview a few of her existing volunteers about what volunteering meant to them.

The communications director was thrilled to have the content, and the volunteers felt honored to be asked.

Even better?

After the newsletter was published, Carrie received several emails from people interested in volunteering!

Broadening Your Circle

If you’ve surveyed family and friends and still come up short, you might need to widen your search to include:

Putting an ad in your community newspaper
Posting a request through your municipal or state/province volunteer center
Posting a request at a local high school, college or a student volunteer center
Signing up with a volunteer-matching site like VolunteerMatch

Targeting Specific Skills or Needs

If you need to find volunteers with specific skills or experience, you may need to look beyond your close circle. For example:

If you need volunteers with, for example, skills at website development, PR or social media skills, you could target local businesses by offering them a sponsorship opportunity.
If you’re hosting a silent auction or other fundraising event for the first time, you might want to find out who has been involved in other similar events in your community (such as an auctioneer or a member of a service club).
You can also consider whether a local company might be willing to organize its employees to assist with your event as a corporate initiative.

Once you’ve started working with other organizations, they might also be able to recruit their connections.

David said, “Connecting with Greek Life organizations can provide a stream of volunteers as well as support for larger events. For example, I asked one of my Phi Mu volunteers to help me recruit mile attendants for my shelter’s sponsored mile on a marathon.”

The Next Step: Applications and Screening

So, you’ve started recruiting and gotten a few responses.

What’s next?

Before you proceed, it’s wise to get a little more information.

An informal interview or a formal application will help both the organization and volunteer get the relevant details about each other and set appropriate expectations.

You’ll want to:

Introduce the organization and outline the event or program that needs volunteers
Describe specific volunteer roles, including time commitment and tasks
Discuss the person’s past volunteer and/or professional experience
Determine what role might suit this individual, based on their interests and qualifications
Explain the next steps toward volunteering
Answer questions or provide a contact person for questions

At several organizations I’ve worked for, there have been more formal volunteer interview processes, some of which even asked for references. However, I’ve noticed that this process is usually for more specialized volunteer jobs, or ones that deal with vulnerable populations.

Others, that have been hiring for roles like manning a booth at the state fair, have had a much simpler process. It really just depends on what kind of experience you’re looking for, and on the type of person you need.

Following Up With Potential Volunteers

If you applied for a job and hadn’t heard back in a month, you’d probably assume you hadn’t gotten it — and keep looking elsewhere.

This is true for volunteer positions as well. If you wait too long to get back to potential volunteers, they’ll take their time and talents elsewhere.

That’s why it’s so important to clearly communicate your timeline for making decisions about volunteer assignments. It shows volunteers that you value their time and contributions — meaning they’re likely to start off on a much better foot and speak more highly of your organization.

With that in mind, here are a few things all potential volunteers should learn.

Tell Them Your Decision

Once you’ve made the decision about who you are bringing on board as volunteers and which roles they’ll play, you’ll need to inform them. Email or call to welcome them and confirm their role.

And what about the people who aren’t quite right?

It’s not as much fun, but you must also contact these people to explain you will not be moving forward — it’s not fair for them to have to wait and wait without getting a response from you. Thank them for their interest, and if they take it well, you can offer other ways to get involved with your cause. If the timing just wasn’t right, you can also offer to contact them again in the future, or ask them to reach out in a few months to see if there are opportunities more suited to their skills.

Confirm What They’ve Signed On For

In addition to notifying volunteers that you want to work with them, you should confirm the volunteer commitment through an email or letter that reiterates the job description, time commitment, relevant dates and times, and contact person at your organization. Again, this sets clear expectations for everyone.

Outline the next steps they’ll need to take to start volunteering. Introduce them to your volunteer orientation process, and any other training they’ll need to complete before they take on their role.

That way, there won’t be any misunderstandings about timing and they’ll know what’s required at every step of the way.

Get Them All Set Up

Think about your first day on the job.

Were you thrown into the deep end right away? Or did you have a little time to learn the ins and outs of your new job?

For your sake, I’m hoping it was the latter – and if it wasn’t, then just think of how much easier those first few days would have been if you’d had some time to settle in.

The same is true for new volunteers, and that’s where a volunteer orientation comes in.

Volunteer orientations give new volunteers an overview of your organization and an understanding of how their help fits in.

It can also help them feel included in your community, and get excited about their role.

While orientation sessions will differ depending on the volunteer job tasks, here is an overview of the type of information you might want to include in your orientations:

An overview of the organization – its mission, vision and values
Description of the program or event and its objectives (show a video, photos, etc.)
Outline of the specific volunteer job and tasks
Details on planning – schedule of meetings, activities, list of responsibilities, etc.
Information on resources that pertain to their role, necessary record or document keeping, and support systems.
Confirm their contact information.
Complete any necessary paperwork like waivers or media releases.

Something I’ve also seen other organizations do — and quite successfully — is integrate a mentorship program into their orientation.

“We have a Mentor Program where we recognize the more committed volunteers and ask them to interact with other volunteers, teach and share,” said Jeff Blazewicz, volunteer coordinator at the Monmouth County SPCA.

Even better, this can also help with volunteer engagement down the line.

“I also go through my list each year (sometimes twice) and reach out to those who have not logged any hours in the past 9 – 12 months. I get many people who have faded away and just need a jump start to get back into the program,” he added.

For a complete guide on how to get new volunteers set up with your organization, check out this article, as well as this checklist of everything you need to do to welcome your new volunteers.

Volunteer Recruitment Doesn’t Have To Be Hard

Once she got started, Carrie found that creating a recruitment process wasn’t as much work as she’d anticipated.

By defining the specific opportunities, refining her tools to emphasize them, and targeting her recruitment efforts, she was able to recruit new volunteers fairly easily.

With effective planning and volunteer management tools in place, the volunteer recruitment and retention process should be streamlined and less stressful. Soon, you’ll be bringing in a steady supply of new people who are excited to get involved with your organization!

By Tatiana Morand, https://www.wildapricot.com

Volunteer Orientation

Once you’ve got volunteers in the door, your work has only just begun. Your volunteers need to be received like guests and shown around the organization. You need to carefully explain what’s happening because if the coast looks dark and unwelcoming, the new recruit might turn around and walk right back out that door.

To help welcome new volunteers into the organization, some groups hold orientation programs to start new volunteers on the path of becoming seasoned veterans.

What is an orientation?

The orientation truly starts at our initial contact with the new volunteer. When you speak to a prospective volunteer over the phone, or when you meet that person for an interview, orientation has already begun. You are giving your recruit a sense of what your organization is all about. More than that, you are communicating something crucial about:

The way your organization does business
Your attitudes toward the outside world
Your seriousness of purpose
Your sense of humor
Your general expectations about the content of the job
Your general expectations about the way in which the job should be performed

You communicate much of the information in this initial orientation non-verbally, and you may not even be aware that you’re doing it. But this “informal” orientation is important because your recruit’s first impression of you and your organization will be based on it. Scientific research exists that suggests first impressions are formed very quickly, and that once established, those impressions are hard to get rid of.

You probably wish to supplement this implicit orientation with more explicit and formal instruction in which you will systematically communicate certain general information about your organization and the job. That formal instruction is what we mean by an orientation program, and that is the focus of this section.

An important distinction to make is that an orientation program is not the same as a training program. An orientation would take place before the training. It would tell new volunteers how long the program has been in existence, where they will be doing the tutoring, who they will be tutoring, what is expected of them, the benefits they can expect to receive.

Why should you have orientation?

The advantages of a structured orientation are:

Imparting knowledge. The orientation program will help new volunteers learn about your organization and its mission and goals, and it may instruct the volunteer on policies and procedures in your organization.
Increasing confidence. An orientation program can make future volunteers more comfortable and confident in their work by helping them see the purpose of what he or she is doing.
Increasing enthusiasm. A positive orientation session affirms people’s decisions to work for your organization. It reminds them that what they are doing is worthwhile, and shows them that your organization is the place to help.
Avoiding future problems. By explaining important information from the start, you save time and energy that would be spent on questions, misunderstandings, and misconceptions.

What information should you cover during an orientation session?

Commonly discussed items are:

A description of your organization’s programs, the community you serve, and your organization’s relationships in the community.
The structure of your organization, including an introduction to key staff members and an explanation of their roles.
What is expected of the volunteers, including a general overview of the jobs they will be doing.
A brief history of your organization. Help them understand your organization’s mission, policies and main goals, as well as how the volunteer can contribute.
An explanation of your organization’s policies, rules, and procedures.
A tour of the facilities. Make sure you show the volunteer offices, phones, rest rooms, parking, et cetera.
The volunteer training schedule, if one exists.
The volunteer evaluation and performance review system.
Volunteer benefits. These may be tangible, such as free membership in a nearby gym or free coffee and doughnuts for breakfast. But the job also has more abstract benefits, such as personal growth or the opportunity to obtain new skills. For example, a group helping to build low-income housing may teach volunteers the basics of construction–a skill they will be able to use throughout their lives. A mentoring relationship might give the mentor the satisfaction of having helped a young person succeed in school, or having opened his protégé’s eyes to new life possibilities.
Emergency procedures, such as where to go in case of a storm, where to find the first aid kit, and related information, should always be explained.

Written materials for new volunteers

It is often helpful to have some orientation materials in writing. These can range from a one-page tip sheet to a full-length orientation manual. The more complex the job and orientation, the more complex the material should be. (One variation of this, in large organizations, is to include one or more instructional videos, describing the organization and how it works.)

Some organizations have orientation manuals (sometimes called personnel manuals or policy manuals) which are given to new recruits, or at least made available to them. If your organization is large or formal, such as an established agency, school,or church, you might consider developing something comparable. Such development can take place over time, with new policies or other information being added gradually, possibly in a loose-leaf binder format. Loose-leaf binders are particularly good because new information can be inserted in its proper place and outdated information removed.

Warning: Written orientation materials should supplement, not replace, face-to-face orientation. More personalized orientation can deal with topics that printed materials do not address. It can also communicate which points in the written material are just there for the record, and those which really need to be followed to the letter. Most importantly, of course, talking with someone can answer questions and allay any fears the new volunteer might have.

Information that might be covered in a volunteer manual:

Copies of publications such as brochures, articles, et cetera, that have been written or produced by the organization
Staff and volunteer directory
A list of the Board of Directors
Record keeping forms and paperwork
Reimbursement policy
Termination procedure
Dress code
Scheduling changes
Insurance (if necessary)
Grievance procedure
Definitions of technical terms and jargon used by your organization
Information on client rights, confidentiality, legal restrictions, etc.
Volunteer promotion opportunities
Use of agency facilities, equipment, and services
A written copy of information discussed during the orientation

An excerpt from the article “Developing Volunteer Orientation Programs” by Jenette Nagy, Bill Berkowitz and Eric Wadud.

Starting Volunteers Off Right

If volunteers are the lifeblood of your organization, you want to ensure that they have a positive experience with your organization – one that motivates them to become active, committed team members. And making a good first impression can go a long way towards creating that volunteer bond.

Why develop a process for welcoming or onboarding new volunteers?

When we say “process”, we’re not necessarily suggesting you develop a highly structured training program to initiate your new volunteers. In fact, volunteer development experts, such as Tobi Johnson, suggest that organizations stop thinking in terms of “new volunteer orientation as an event. Rather, it involves a process of adaptation where volunteers experience a wide range of emotions internally — surprise, fear, ambiguity, etc. — while they wrestle with past and current expectations and make sense of their new environment. So, we must support them accordingly.”

Your onboarding process should be tailored to the different types of volunteers you have, as well as your organizational culture. But once developed, consistency is key. It’s important that all of your staff and volunteers involved in volunteer management offer a united front in welcoming and orienting new volunteers, based on shared goals, consistent information and process.

Having a well thought out onboarding process can:

Make volunteers feel welcome and part of your team from the start.
Help all new volunteers develop a solid understanding of your organization – it’s mission, goals and culture.
Build engagement and commitment. By taking the opportunity to demonstrate how important their efforts are towards making an impact, you can develop their connection with your organization, and hopefully ensure they stick around.
Address legal/liability/insurance issues – by ensuring all volunteers are properly briefed or prepared for their roles.

Start With These 5 Critical Steps

To get your volunteers off to a good start, here are 5 critical steps to follow:

Step #1: Develop a plan

Whether you decide to meet with volunteers one-on-one or plan to orient volunteers in teams, you shouldn’t simply do it “on the fly”. With a little planning, you can develop a framework that your volunteer leaders can customize to suit individuals or teams.

Start by getting to know your volunteers to understand their goals, abilities and interests

The process of getting to know your new volunteers starts in your screening or interview process. You likely asked a number of questions and had a conversation with each volunteer. If you’ve kept track of that information it can help you customize each new volunteer’s orientation or onboarding. There should also be additional information available through your membership database. Take a look at their member, donor or volunteer profile for insight into their background and involvement with your organization.

You might also want to look at different types of volunteers (leadership volunteers; short-term, task-focused volunteers; pro-bono or skills-based contributors, etc.) to customize your basic orientation to suit different individuals or groups.

For example, in a post a while back, Nancy Schwartz outlined the New York Cares’ “Volunteer Engagement Scale (VES),” that they use “to pinpoint the best way to motivate volunteer movement from episodic to more engaged participation.” They identified “VES categories” of volunteers which included, for example: “Episodic Contributor”, “Short-term Contributor”, “Fully Engaged Volunteer, “ “Committed Leader”, etc.)

By understanding your volunteers, you can determine the best approaches for orientation and job or task training.

Decide who should be involved:

Your organization may have staff that manage or coordinate volunteers, but you might also want to consider involving volunteers (e.g., recruitment committee members, board members, etc.) to help out.

You should also give some thought to the long-term process of welcoming and training. What about providing mentors or a buddy system? Or perhaps you want to organize small team meetings based on the type of volunteer roles they’ll be playing. Are there committee chairs who should participate or be responsible for their team’s orientations?

Identify and/or develop the tools and resources you’ll need:

You don’t want to burden the new volunteer with mountains of paper or lists of required reading in their first visit. But there are a number of resources that you should provide at some point during their orientation. For example:

Does each volunteer role have a job description? Volunteer experts suggest that the volunteer experience (for all involved) can be easily derailed if there isn’t clear communication about expectations and roles.
Do you have a volunteer handbook or training manual?

As Tobi Johnson suggests, “A Volunteer Handbook is not the same as a Training Manual, covering key technical aspects of the job they will do. Instead, Handbooks help volunteers acclimate to your organization by providing social clues about “how things are done around here.” A high-quality Handbook can also inspire volunteers to see what’s possible as a result of their service.

Volunteer Handbooks can also help deepen levels of engagement. When volunteers join, many haven’t yet fully committed to your program and are still checking you out. A well-written, informative, and approachable Handbook answers three critical personal questions your new recruits are asking themselves — does this organization have the capacity to make a difference in the world? Can I make a difference here? Will I fit in?

Do you have a structure in place for communication and performance management? Apparently, statistics suggest that lack of guidance and mentoring can have a huge impact on volunteer turnover. If volunteers feel their efforts aren’t valued or are frustrated with a lack of communication, they will leave. And since turnover is both time-consuming and costly (not to mention the negative feelings of those who are leaving), it’s important to put processes in place for on-going communication and feedback of volunteers.

Step #2: Make new volunteers feel welcome

Whether you have a few new recruits for a specific project, or you’re going through an entire changing of the volunteer guard, offering a warm welcome lays the foundation for building a meaningful long-term relationship. After all, the first day or first meeting is like a first date. So first impressions really do count. If volunteers have a negative first day or meeting, they may not make it to the second (date) and can go looking for a more compatible organizational partner with whom to share their volunteer time and skills.

You’re probably thinking that it goes without saying that your organization offers a welcoming first impression. But think back to your first experience with your organization or your first volunteer role. Were you warmly welcomed by the staff, board or membership committee chair? Or were you expected to hit the ground running during a first event or project? In small organizations where busy volunteers are feeling swamped, they may be so glad to have a new recruit that they forget to offer a proper welcome.

But while you need to introduce the new volunteer to the organization, you don’t want to offer a lecture-style talk. Instead, offer an overview of the organization – use examples to tell your story and build the volunteer’s enthusiasm. But also be sure to engage in two-way conversation to get to know this person, their volunteer goals and expectations. Remember it’s personal – each individual is making a personal commitment to your organization. So it’s important to take the time to understand their motivation, and explain the importance of his/her role as part of your team.

Step #3: Go beyond an orientation – demonstrate how volunteer efforts will make a difference

All volunteers, regardless of their assignment area, should receive an orientation about the organization itself. This session may or may not be provided in the volunteer’s first visit or meeting, but should take place before he/she is fully active in their new role. But as Tobi Johnson reminds us “volunteer orientation is a process not an event.”

Volunteering is powerful, personal and emotional – and every volunteer has their own reasons for their commitment to your organization. So to ensure each individual feels connected with your mission and your team, you need to instill the 4 key emotions (as illustrated in the Dale Carnegie Training infographic clip) that lead to engagement:

Enthusiasm
Inspiration
Empowerment
Confidence

Research into employee engagement, conducted by Dale Carnegie Training and MSW and ARS Research, found that these four emotions are some of the main drivers of engagement. While volunteers aren’t paid for their efforts, the same principles apply to their motivation in their unpaid roles. This means that in any orientation or onboarding, you need to be sure to demonstrate how their efforts will make a difference to build their enthusiasm and inspire their work.

Understanding how their efforts make an impact will make a difference to your volunteer’s experience and commitment

Every volunteer has his or her own reasons for getting involved with your organization. They may want to give something back to their community or their profession. But in addition, they want to gain a sense of accomplishment for their endeavors and know that their efforts made a difference.

In a Nonprofit Blog Carnival round-up that we hosted about Improving the Volunteer Experience, we included a great post by Joanne Fritz about the importance of “enchanting your volunteers.” Joanne quotes Guy Kawasaki (from his book Enchanted) who advises organizations to:

…make your goals for volunteers ambitious ones. If there is one thing that volunteers want, it’s to know that they are doing something important and that they are really making a difference. So don’t waste your volunteers’ time by setting piddling goals. It’s a terrible waste. Make your goals big, even grandiose. It’s much better to overuse volunteers than to under use them, and better to reach for the impossible than to settle for the merely doable.

What does your orientation look like ?

The formality and structure of your volunteer orientation will depend on the nature of your organization, the type of volunteers (e.g., one-time or micro-volunteers versus year-round, committee or board roles) and job they will perform. The format can range from an intimate one-on-one meeting to a gathering of a new volunteer team.

When developing a new orientation, consider the following:

What is the individual’s background with or knowledge of the organization?
How complex is the volunteer job?
Does this individual have prior experience with this type of role?
What are the legal or liability issues around the job to be performed?

Orientation formats

Once you’ve identified the different types of volunteers and roles, you can think about how to best offer the orientation. For example:

Can some of the documents be available online for review prior to a face-to-face session?
Could long-term volunteers offer their insight and experience?
Are there documents or procedure manuals that some volunteers are required to read prior to starting their job? If so, how can you make these available and/or confirm their comprehension?
Do you offer mentors or buddies to orient new volunteers and help them through their early days? If so, are they prepared to offer a full and consistent orientation?

What should your orientation include?

While onboarding sessions will differ depending on the volunteer job tasks, here is an overview of the type of information you might want to include in your general orientation:

An overview of the organization – its mission, vision, values
An outline of the organizational structure, e.g., key staff members, leadership volunteers and an explanation of their roles
A general overview of the type of volunteer jobs performed at your organization
A position or job description that outlines specific expectations for their role
Physical orientation –help newcomers find their way around – e.g., show the volunteer creature-comfort such as the coat closet, rest rooms, and where to get coffee. Begin your tour with the volunteer’s own work space.
An outline of any policies, rules, and procedures
An overview of any volunteer training that is required and pertinent schedules
Contact information and emergency procedures

Step #4: Offer training that motivates and engages volunteers

Some volunteer roles require specific training that goes beyond a simple orientation. And according to Tobi Johnson, “Good Training Means Better Retention. Whether it be a simple orientation to the policies, procedures, and mission of the organization or a five-day boot camp of complex technical information volunteers must master before they are able to provide direct service, all volunteers need be provided information that will help them do their job to the best of their ability.”

Finding the right kind of training

But you don’t want to scare volunteers away with daunting amounts of information and boring presentations. Tobi suggests that to “Design Volunteer Training that Helps (Not Hurts) Learning” you need to better understand how our brains process information and learn. We should also think about volunteer training in terms of “talent development”. So volunteer managers need to consider the following when developing training programs:

Focus on learning style: new research suggests that people learn better with informal versus formal, classroom-style training. Peer-to peer training is especially effective.
Integrate practice into training: Tobi Johnson suggests that a “stair step” structure is the most effective architecture for the transfer of learning for novices and is a great way to integrate timely practice into learning. With this approach, the instructor explains the concept, illustrates how to do the skill, invites learners to try it, and finally gives supportive feedback. … Case studies and scenarios lend themselves to this type of architecture and give volunteers the chance to practice before they try their new skills out in the real world.
Feed the right emotions – research suggests that learning is fueled by these three hormones:
- Adrenaline, fueled by anxiety and our “fight or flight” response, makes it hard for the neurotransmitters to carry messages across the synapses in your brain; this causes learners to “blank out” on tests.
- Endorphins are produced when we relax, exercise, laugh, or learn new things. If we produce calming hormones, they can counteract the limiting effects of stress.
- Dopamine is released in the brain when something is perceived as new, exciting, or rewarding. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses; it enables us not only to see rewards but to also take action to move toward them.

As Tobi suggests,“for many volunteers, learning new things is very rewarding; so, training itself can help them retain new information. On the other hand, if dopamine levels are low new information goes in one ear and out the other.”

Avoid information overload – don’t overwhelm new recruits with too much information! Tobi suggests that “research estimates that only 3-5 pieces of information can be stored in the working memory at a time. If our working memory is corrupted by cognitive overload, we are unable to transfer knowledge into our long-term memory, which has much greater capacity for information storage.” To help, consider:
- Removing any content that is not absolutely “need to know” (give learners links to additional optional info they can read on their own)
- Relate new information to existing knowledge learners may have (icebreakers are great ways for learners to share their own personal experiences with the topic at hand)
- Maintain a consistent look and feel to the training materials (fonts, colors, graphics, etc.)
- Use simple, flat graphics and visuals versus those that are complex and overly detailed (cartoons are great, if they are done well)
- Use visuals – to extend the capacity of the working memory, explain visuals with audio (versus text, which uses too much “brain bandwidth”)

Motivating volunteers to ensure it is a rewarding experience

In a post a few years back, Rebecca Leaman offered some insight into volunteer motivation in her post: Motivating your volunteers Needs Barriers and Psychology 101. Leaman explains:

“Rewards are not the most powerful kind of human motivation — because a reward by definition follows the act. Motivation, on the other hand, is what gives the volunteer a reason to step up in the first place. And just as there are two ways to reward someone — to give something they like, or take away something they don’t like — motivation also has two sides.
We can create opportunities to volunteer that are designed meet the needs of our supporters, or we can remove the barriers that might keep them from volunteering. Ideally, we’ll do both — but removing the barriers has to come first, if volunteer activities can hope to compete with all the other attractive demands on busy people’s time and attention.”

Step #5: Say thank you and recognize their efforts

We all want to know if we’re doing a good job or if there is room for improvement. And we also want to have our efforts acknowledged or recognized. This is especially true of volunteers who are offer their time and talents to help meet your mission.

As we’ve noted, organizations often think a lot about volunteer recognition during Volunteer Week, but it’s important to thank volunteers regularly and let them know that all of their efforts are appreciated and make an impact on the organization. So make volunteer recognition a priority for the entire organization – and get buy-in from Committee Chairs and event organizers through to the Board of Directors. Say thank you often and sincerely.

Formalize your communications and feedback process

But it isn’t just about saying thank-you at the end of the day or the end of a project. Two-way communication and feedback needs to be initiated in the volunteer’s welcome process and maintained throughout their volunteer experience.

Just as you shouldn’t conduct the new volunteer’s welcome and orientation on the fly, don’t leave the process of offering feedback and thanking volunteers to chance. It’s important to formalize the process of checking in with volunteers and offering feedback on their efforts. This could take place through one-on-one conversations with their volunteer leader or staff volunteer coordinator. It may also be through a call or meeting with a mentor or volunteer buddy. Not only should you be checking to ensure the volunteer understands his/her role and is confident about their tasks, but you also need to address any issues or questions he/she may have. With regular communication and feedback, volunteers will be more confident in their tasks, which leads to higher satisfaction with their experience and motivation to stay involved with your organization for the long term.

By Wild Apricot

The Ultimate Volunteer Recruitment Checklist

Since many non-profits and membership organizations struggle to recruit volunteers, we’ve created a Volunteer Recruitment guide and checklist to help volunteers and staff who are new to volunteer recruitment.

Once you’ve reviewed the guide’s general overview of the recruitment process, you can use this step-by- step checklist to help you get started. For a more detailed resource, you can read our guide, “Getting Started with Volunteer Recruitment”. Please note: to make this checklist more effective, we’ve focused this checklist on recruiting event volunteers.

1. Pre-recruitment Planning

☐ Gather a “Recruitment Team” from among your existing volunteers (or Board)

☐ Identify volunteer needs:

Define specific volunteer assignments
Determine how many volunteers you’ll need for each job/assignment and whether you need additional team leaders or supervisors

☐ Create volunteer position descriptions

☐ Create or Update Recruitment Tools

2. Targeting Potential Volunteers

☐ Start with Existing Volunteers

Identify previous volunteers to contact
Review list of individuals who have offered to volunteer

☐ Recruit Within Your “Circle of Influence”

Have each recruiter create a list of potential contacts, including:

Friends
Family
Co-workers
Neighbors
Community members (at church; clubs; sporting teams, etc.)

☐ Broaden Your Circle:
Once you exhaust the family and friends list, you might need to widen your search by:

Writing a newsletter article or a post on your organization’s blog or forum
Posting a video or photos of last year’s event on your Facebook page and ask for new recruits
Putting an ad in your community newspaper
Posting a request through your municipal or state/province volunteer center
Posting a request at a local high school, or college student volunteer center
Signing up with one of the volunteer-matching sites

☐ Target Specific Skills or Needs:
If you need volunteers with specific skills or experience, consider talking to:

Local small businesses re pro bono services
Individuals who have volunteered at similar events in your community (e.g., an auctioneer; member of a service club, etc.)
Local companies that might be willing to organize their employees to assist with your event as a corporate initiative

3. Screening and Confirming a Commitment

☐ Screen each potential volunteer:

Create short-lists of volunteers in each volunteer job category
Develop screening process and documentation
Interview each volunteer applicant and capture information from all interviews.

☐ Determine appropriate roles for each volunteer

☐ Contact each volunteer to inform them of their role

4. Follow-up and Orientation

Effective follow-up communication and orientation can impact both an event’s success and the volunteering experience. So be sure to:

☐ Send volunteer confirmation:
Send an email or letter with all of the pertinent details of their commitment

☐ Conduct volunteer orientation(s):
While orientation sessions will differ depending on the volunteer job tasks, you should provide training or orientation sessions for each group of volunteers.

By https://www.wildapricot.com

Motivating Volunteers

Designing Motivational Work

For volunteers or staff to be driven to do their work, it must be motivational, both ‘extrinsically’ and ‘intrinsically’. ‘Extrinsic’ motivation comes from the environment of the work: Do I like my team? Do I care about the goal? Do we have fun? ‘Intrinsic’ motivation, on the other hand, is about the task itself: its context and design.

Often we look at extrinsic factors to address flagging motivation. People aren’t coming back to phone banks? Let’s have a celebrity join the session to excite the volunteers. Now, it’s not as if this is necessarily the wrong approach. But too often we neglect the intrinsic elements of the work.

Before you read further, answer this question: If you think of the time you were most motivated in your work, what was going on? What was it about the work? If you want to be more precise: think of a specific task you work on, that you find motivating. What is it about that task?

We asked this question in our workshop and, well, the answers weren’t really surprising at all. People found work motivating when they had autonomy – when they were trusted and given specific, unique responsibilities. People loved having a sense of impact, of knowing what they had achieved. People wanted a connection between their work and their goals – to be able to see the part they had played in bringing about the world they wanted.

These answers aligned perfectly with the work of Wageman and Hackmann, which Anita and I wanted to share. These researchers argue that motivation requires three states: experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and knowledge of results. You should be contributing to something worthwhile, you should have a distinct role to play, and you should know how well you are doing and what the outcomes are. These are the three ‘critical psychological states.’

Achieving these states requires designing work with respect to five ‘core job dimensions’.

The first three dimensions contribute to experienced meaningfulness:

Skill Variety. The work should involve multiple skills, covering the heart, head, and hands.
Task identity. The work outcomes should be evident in the end result – the difference made should be clear.
Task significance. The end result should actually matter, should help to make the world more as it should be.

The fourth dimension contributes to experienced responsibility:

Autonomy. The task should promote a degree of freedom in choosing methods toachieve an outcome.

Lastly, the fifth dimension contributes towards ‘knowledge of results:

Feedback. The worker should be able to know how well they are doing and the consequences of their work.

While not every dimension can be maximized for every task, improvements are possible for every task, even ‘boring’ ones. Participants in the workshop talked about redesigning recruitment stalls so more methods were available to sign people up. People suggested incorporating debriefs more consistently, to improve feedback. Someone from an activist call center had the idea of breaking down the skills required into more different elements and facilitating staff to focus on and improve different skill elements for each shift. I loved this idea, which would improve skill variety, and autonomy, and feedback.

As organizers, we know there are many elements to our power-building work. We can’t underestimate the power of story and relationships to help in growing our base and fostering commitment. Structure and strategy help to create strong, purposeful teams. And we can change things around the work itself to make the experience more pleasing: team drinks, recognition ceremonies, and picnics.

We can also design every task to be so motivating that contributors – staff or volunteers – look forward to it. By improving skill variety, task identity and task significance, we can increase experienced meaningfulness. By offering autonomy, we give the experience of responsibility. And feedback promotes knowledge of results. More motivating work means more people participating more often, more effectively. It’s not just how we give our people the experience they deserve. It’s how we build our numbers and power and capacity. It’s how we win.

By Joel Dignam, a lead organizer with the ACT Greens.

Reasons to Recruit Online Volunteers

Here are but 10 reasons for an organization to engage in virtual volunteering:

1. Extend Your Resources

Online volunteers, just as those volunteers who work onsite, extend the resources of an organization. The additional help augments core staff efforts and allows an organization to do even more. They and other volunteers are not, however, replacements for employees.

2. Expand Your Reach

An organization that embraces virtual volunteering gives volunteers new ways of supporting causes they feel passionate about. This can lead both to expanding the involvement of onsite volunteers and to involving new volunteers altogether.

3. Volunteering Anytime Anywhere

Virtual volunteering can remove some time and physical barriers for both current and new volunteers. While the time required for volunteering online is real, not virtual, volunteers can provide a service, ask questions, or provide feedback at whatever time is convenient for them, outside of a few required live meetings with staff or other volunteers.

4. Stay Ahead of the Curve

An organization that uses the Internet to support and involve volunteers is sending a message to its supporters that it is modern and efficient, that it wants to provide convenience to its volunteers, and that it understands the realities of the 21st-century workplace. As the competition for press coverage and funding becomes more intense, it has never been more important for nonprofits, NGOs, government agencies, and others to exude such an image.

5. Accommodate any Lifestyle

Virtual volunteering allows for the participation of people who might find onsite volunteering difficult or impossible because of a disability, mobility issue, home obligation, or work schedule. This, in turn, allows agencies to benefit from the additional talent and resources of more volunteers and allows the organization to demonstrate its commitment to being an accessible organization.

6. A New Way to Find Volunteers

Potential volunteers not reached by traditional means may be reached online. The Internet makes it easy to reach particular audiences quickly, such as people with a specific skill or representing a specific demographic. This does not mean the Internet will totally replace other forms of volunteer recruitment, such as a booth at a community event or registering with your local volunteer center (which these days is likely to put local information online as well). It simply means you have an additional avenue to use to recruit volunteers.

7. Reach a Younger Generation

The Internet offers a proven tool for recruiting younger volunteers, a difficulty many organizations face. We have noted earlier that online volunteers may represent a variety of populations. While it is certainly true that people under the age of 30 are more prone to use online technologies than any other age group, even people in their 40s have used the Web for most of their professional lives.

8. Increase Your Capabilities

Some or most of your organization’s mission may be best served by online volunteers, especially if your organization’s membership is dispersed across a region or a country, or even around the world. Three examples of entirely virtual organizations are: Project Gutenberg, mentioned earlier in this chapter; LibriVox, a nonprofit that coordinates volunteers making freely-available online recordings of public-domain books; and the Aid Workers Network, an online resource for people working in aid, relief, and development. These entirely virtual organizations could not exist if they only or primarily involved onsite volunteers.

9. Save the Environment

Online volunteers can be environmentally friendly. Online volunteers create no car exhaust, do not require a parking space, and do not need the organization to provide them with a desk or chair. And people are not buying new, additional technology just to volunteer online; they are using technology for a variety of other tasks. Even so, you may want to encourage your online volunteers to dispose of electronic waste in an ecologically friendly manner.

Moreover, volunteer resources managers who work online have no restrictive limits on giving and sharing information with volunteers. For instance, instead of printed volunteer policies, which must be copied for onsite distribution and quickly go out of date, managers can share the most current policies online, in a public or private area, for any volunteer to access at any time. Instead of giving a volunteer mounds of printed material that are not environmentally friendly, the manager can point to online resources for the volunteer to read from home. And the volunteer can read as much as he or she needs to for an assignment (and, beyond that, what he or she wants to).

10. Better Record Keeping

Managing volunteers virtually can create automatic, extensive records of both volunteer activities and interactions with volunteers—records that can be used to generate statistics, provide quotes for an upcoming grant proposal, or evaluate the overall volunteering initiative. An organization that manages virtually gains an archive of e-mails, instant messages, chats, online forum messages, photos, and audio and video recordings relating to volunteer discussions and activities.

This article is an excerpt from The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service into Volunteer Involvement, by Jayne Cravens and Susan J. Ellis, © 2014, Energize, Inc. Found in the Energize, Inc. Online Bookstore.

New Volunteer Checklist

A checklist and prompting questions to help you set up an effective and welcoming volunteer orientation process.

By Wild Apricot

Most non-profits and membership organizations depend on volunteers to help run projects, raise funds, organize events, and even manage day-to-day administration. These individuals are also likely members, supporters or donors – the very folks your organization is trying to engage and retain. So making the effort to get your volunteers off to a good start is critical. They need to understand – from the get go – how important their role is to your organization. They also need to feel they are part of a team working towards a common goal.

So do you have a process for welcoming, orienting and engaging your new volunteers?

We recognize that finding time to develop, customize and maintain a new volunteer welcome and orientation process can be difficult, especially for small organizations with few or no staff. Although they rely on volunteers, the staff or volunteer leaders are often time and resource-challenged.

So we’ve developed this New Volunteer Checklist to help you get started. Take a look through our checklist and check off the items you’ve got covered (for a great sense of accomplishment); identify items you need to address; or use this as a jumping off point for your own volunteer orientation “to do” list.

For more details, you can also check out our Hub article – Starting Volunteers Off Right – which offers additional ideas and resources.

Pre-planning:

How will you get to know the new volunteer?

☐ Did you capture information about the volunteers in the screening process?

☐ Is the volunteer a member or supporter – whose profile will be available in your membership database?

Who should be involved in the welcome and orientation process?

☐ Does each committee or event chair provide a one-on-one welcome for their new team members?

☐ Do you provide mentors or volunteer buddies to help welcome and orient new volunteers?

Do you have a structure in place for communication and performance management?

☐ Do team or committee leaders perform regular check-ins with volunteers?

☐ Does each new volunteer have an assigned coordinator or manager as a key contact?

What tools and resources will you need?

☐ Does each volunteer role have a job description?

☐ Do you have a volunteer manual?

Making new volunteers feel welcome:

☐ Do you have a process in place to welcome new recruits?

☐ Is someone assigned to greet the new volunteer in person?

Orientation that inspires and empowers:

☐ Does your orientation process inspire:

Enthusiasm?
Inspiration?
Empowerment?
Confidence?

☐ Can you customize your orientation based on…

The individual’s background with or knowledge of the organization?
The particular volunteer job?
Prior experience with this type of role?
Legal or liability issues around the job to be performed?

☐ Have you considered non-traditional ways of providing orientation information? For example:

Can some of the documents be available online (for mobile access) for review prior to a face-to-face session?
Would existing volunteers be willing to offer their insight and experience?
Are there documents or procedure manuals that some volunteers are required to read prior to starting their job? If so, how can you make these available and/or confirm their comprehension?

☐ Do your orientation materials include:

An overview of the organization – its mission, vision, values?
An outline of the organizational structure (e.g., key staff members, leadership volunteers and an explanation of their roles)?
A general overview of the type of volunteer jobs?
Physical orientation to your office, project location, event venue – so they know their way around?
An outline of any policies, rules, and procedures?
An overview of any volunteer training that is required and pertinent schedules?
Contact information and emergency procedures?
Training that motivates and engages volunteers

☐ Does your training style match your volunteers’ needs? For example…

Can you offer informal versus formal, classroom-style training?
Is peer-to-peer training an option you can consider?
Can you incorporate hands-on practice into your training?

☐ Are you overwhelming new recruits with too much material?

To avoid information overload can you:

Offer only “need to know” information?
Allow learners to check out additional optional information on their own via your website?

Saying thank you and recognizing volunteers’ efforts:

☐ Do you have a process for checking in with volunteers and offering feedback?

☐ Do you recognize volunteer efforts and explain how these are making a difference at your organization?

☐ Do you thank volunteers often and sincerely?

We hope this volunteer checklist helps you fine-tune your existing volunteer orientation process or acts as a roadmap for developing a consistent new process to welcome new volunteers.

101 Ways to Recognize Your Volunteers

There are many ways you can recognize your volunteers for their remarkable spirit of giving. Read on for a few ideas …

Celebrate National Volunteer Week

Give a certificate to commemorate anniversaries of involvement.
Take photos of volunteers ‘on the job’, imprint a ‘Thank you’ message and frame them-then give them to each volunteer.
Hold special ‘thank you’ or social functions in honor of volunteers.
For long-standing volunteers, collect coins in the amount of hours contributed, place them in a vase tied with a royal blue ribbon and present to them at a special afternoon break.
Have a morning coffee with testimonials to the volunteers from recipients of services.
Give them a mug with logo or ‘thank you’ motif.
Create bookmarks for the volunteers with an acknowledgement of appreciation for work contributed.
Hold a BBQ for your volunteers.
Run a Volunteers Breakfast.
Give a pat on the back: Trace your hand on plain paper and cut out. Write, ‘Here’s a pat on the back for ________. Thanks for all you hard work.’ Invite staff or anyone else that has contact with the volunteers to make one in recognition of the service of particular volunteers. Hang them all together for visual impact.
Create Volunteer buttons and pins.
Arrange discounts for your volunteers at local shops.
Celebrate formal recognition events such as International Volunteer Day and National Volunteer Week with dinners, dessert buffets, etc.

Start off on the right foot

Match the volunteer’s desires with the organization’s needs.
Develop a volunteer policy for your organization.
Accept that an individual volunteer’s ability to commit may change over time.
Add volunteers to memo and email distribution lists.
Ensure volunteers have adequate space and equipment to do their work.
Ensure a safe and healthy working environment.
Ensure confidentiality for your volunteers. Provide a clear role description for every volunteer.
Provide a clear role description for every volunteer.
Make sure new volunteers are welcomed warmly.
Give volunteers a proper induction.
Provide car or bike parking for volunteers.
Devote resources (time and money) to volunteer support.
Maintain Occupational Health and Safety standards.
Provide the opportunity for volunteers to take leave of absence.
Have a vision for volunteer involvement in your organization.

After you have warmly welcomed your volunteer, it is so easy to show your appreciation everyday without having to spend a huge amount of money.

Easy every day and cost-free ways to acknowledge your volunteers

Always be courteous.
Always greet your volunteers by name.
Say ‘thank you’ often, and mean it.
Recognize that volunteers play a unique role.
Be honest at all times.
Don’t treat volunteers as second-class citizens.
Help volunteers feel good about themselves.
Create a climate in which volunteers can feel motivated.
Do not overwhelm volunteers.
Always be appreciative of volunteers’ contributions.
Give volunteers a real voice within the organization.
Tell volunteers they have done a good job.
Suggest sources of help and support for personal problems.
Know the volunteers’ names, the names of their partners, kids or pets and ask about how they are.

Respecting your volunteers is another important way of showing your appreciation that won’t break the bank. It will help you improve your volunteer program and retention rates, and will bring new ideas and viewpoints that may allow you to improve your organization.

Ways to show you value your volunteers’ input …

Ask volunteers for ideas of how the organization can show it cares.
Encourage them to sit on committees and attend meetings.
Allow volunteers to take on more challenging responsibilities.
Encourage volunteer participation in planning that affects their work.
Enable volunteers to ‘grow’ on the job.
Send articles about your volunteer(s) to the local newspaper or run them in your newsletter.
Include their name on a program they helped organize.
Ask volunteers to share their ideas.
Share the results of program evaluations with volunteers so they can see their impact on clients and programs.
Review the progress of volunteers on a regular basis.
Provide constructive appraisal.
Allow volunteers to get involved in solving problems.
Learn what motivates each volunteer, and make your recognition appropriate to what he or she thinks is important.
Give volunteers tasks in which they will be successful.
Make sure the volunteers are doing work that is meaningful to them and the community.
Promote volunteers to other roles that take better advantage of their talents.
Highlight the impact that the volunteers’ contribution is having on the organization .
Always have work for your volunteers to do, and never waste their time.
Provide meaningful and enjoyable work.
Give volunteers an opportunity to debrief, especially if they work in stressful situations.
Let volunteers put their names to something they have helped to produce or to make happen.
Use surveys as a way of eliciting your volunteers views.
Take the time to explain and listen to volunteer’s ideas and concerns.
Ask volunteers to give presentations or lead meetings.
Ask volunteers to train other volunteers, for example, older volunteers to mentor the young.
Make sure the volunteer coordinator is easily accessible and has an open door policy.
Supervise volunteers work.
Set up a volunteer support group.
Do not impose new policies and procedures without volunteers input.
Include volunteers by providing them with a special mail box in the office so they can retrieve memos or files when they stop by.
Ask volunteers opinions when developing new policies and strategies.
Maintain regular contact with volunteers, even if they work offsite or at odd hours.
Use quotes from volunteers in leaflets and annual reports.
Allow volunteers to air legitimate grievances and make sure these are dealt with swiftly.

If your budget allows, spending a little bit of money on your volunteers is a nice gesture to show the organization values their contribution.

Some tips that may involve a slight cost …

Provide excellent training and coaching.
Reimburse out-‐of-‐pocket expenses.
A personal note to say ‘thanks’ for a job well done.
Thank them in a newsletter.
Pay registration fees (or part of) for continuing education classes or conferences.
Write letters to the volunteer’s family-‐ let them know how much the person’s work has contributed, and thank the family for supporting the volunteer in their efforts.
Have a letter to the volunteer from (or a visit with) a person who has benefited from the volunteer’s services. Let the volunteer really see, hear and feel the end result of their work.
Have staff and clients write comments and quotes about the difference volunteers make, and have these printed in a booklet and mailed out or shared at a recognition event.
Create a volunteer notice board.
Provide free refreshments during coffee and tea breaks.
Include volunteers in coffee breaks.
Nominate your volunteers for community awards.

There are other forms of recognition that may only be relevant once a year or at the appropriate time, but which are nevertheless worthwhile doing as they show you value your volunteers.

Annual or one‐time recognition ideas …

Have an annual volunteer award ceremony.
Conduct an exit interview when a volunteer leaves.
Feature your volunteers at special events throughout the year.
Farewell volunteers when they move away from the area or leave the organization.
Provide letters of reference.
Recommend volunteers to prospective employers.
Help interested volunteers prepare their resumes, emphasizing the skills they have developed through their volunteer work.
Send birthday cards.
Present volunteers with a special memento recognizing their service to the organization.
Celebrate the years work together.
Present special awards for 1, 3, 5, 10, 15and more years of service.
Nominate a volunteer of the month, put up their picture in your office and send it to the local newspaper.
If you work with children, ask them to make thank-‐you cards for volunteers.

Prepared by: