be the change agent 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

Email Best Practices

Email is the dominant engagement channel for most organizations. A well-designed email program should be at the heart of your communication strategy.

By Organise Us

For every 1,000 email subscribers, the average nonprofit has 428 Facebook fans, 141 Twitter followers, and 39 Instagram followers. On average, a nonprofit will reach just 8% of its fans on Facebook with a post that isn’t promoted.

Email offers a long-term relationship with your supporters. But know this: On average, people receive 76 emails per day. Yes, they’re in multiple relationships with multiple organizations at any one time. Take them for granted or send them the same calling cards as their other dates? They’ll dump you as fast as they can hit the unsubscribe button!

Let’s take a look through our email behaviour:

In 2016, Nonprofits sent 10% more email than 2015. On average, nonprofits sent 24 fundraising emails, 20 advocacy emails and 11 e-newsletters per subscriber.
Advocacy email action rates average 1.6%. Open rates average 13% & click-through rates 1.91%.
Fundraising email action rates average 0.05%. On average, nonprofits receive one donation for every 2,000 fundraising messages sent. The average donation is $36. Fundraising email open rates average 13% while click-through rates average 0.38%.
Advocacy landing page completion rates average 74% and fundraising completion rates average 17%.
Email accounted for 26% of all online revenue in 2016.

From who? Keep it personal

Almost two-thirds of readers open emails based on the “from” address, whereas only a quarter opened based on the subject line.

The person who “sends” the email from your organization – the “from” address, and personalized name – needs to be recognizsable and, ideally, reputable. Always use a personalized email that people can reply to. For example use: “tabatha@nullorganiseus.com.au” not “noreply@nullroganiseus.com.au”.

Subject Lines

The first goal set by the Obama digital team during his election campaigns was to grab your attention long enough to get you to open the email. Toby Fallsgraff, Obama’s 2012 campaign email director explains, “The subject lines that worked the best were things you might see in your inbox from other people. ‘Hey’ was probably the best one we had over the duration.”

Consider the lifetime value of your supporter (and email list) and how they meet with your content, brand, story and actions.

The most effective subject lines evoke one or more of these themes and emotions:

Self-interest
Curiosity
Novelty
Urgency
Humanity
News
Social proof
Story

And how do you figure out what works? Test! Test! Test!

They opened the email. Now what?

Here are three core principles that form the basis of a successful email. (Success = the action you want them to take is taken).

1. CRISI-TUNITY

The crisi-tunity is what creates the tension in an email that leads the reader to act. Just like a good story, an email needs tension to create a sense of momentum. “We’re working night and day to protect the earth”. What does this sentence lack? That’s right – tension.

For example:
<crisis> Early this morning President Bush vetoed the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, cancelling lifesaving care for over 3.8 million children.</crisis> <opportunity>But a large, bi-partisan majority of Congress strongly favours the health care expansion. If we speak out now, Congress could overturn Bush’s veto — restoring care for millions of children and ending Bush’s assault on the programs vulnerable Americans depend on.</opportunity>

2. READER-FOCUSED THEORY OF CHANGE

By putting the supporter at the heart of the theory of change in the email, the reader is able to see how by taking the action, the change you are describing will actually happen. Paint a picture in which they can see themselves as a vital figure.

This theory of change is too abstract and has no tangible urgency for the supporter
“Climate change threatens our very way of life.”
The supporter is completely missing in this theory of change
“Child poverty is terrible, and we’ve launched a petition to stop it.”
This theory of change is totally impossible
“Tony Abbott has staked his leadership on stopping the boats. So we’ve launched a petition to change his mind.”

3. AUTHENTICITY

Be authentic. Be genuine. Your supporters joined your cause for a reason. You are in a relationship with them based on shared values. Connect with them on that basis. Remind them how important they are. Make it about them and what we can do together, not just about you and what you need from them.

How to structure an email

Good email is highly structured. Good email is focused. Good email creates a flow that engages the reader in the issue and inspires them to take the action you’ve designed.

After you’ve nailed the structure, and are following these simple principles, your email program will start writing itself.

Establish a suite of ‘’active voices’’– campaign manager, CEO, the person closest to the action, trusted surrogates. Your email should come from a human.
What’s your user-centered theory of change? Spell out why supporters should spend their time on this ask. Prove it’s plausible and worth it for them (not for us). It’s about “you”, “we” and “us” doing things – not them supporting x org to do things for them.
Develop a tone that suits the voice of the organization/issue – personal, casual, as if written to a friend, not formal.
And remember – only use bolding to highlight key phrases of the text but not entire paragraphs. Italics can emphasize the odd word, be conversational.

A good email structure example

[The Sender – First name, last name, org]
Simon Brand, CCAC
[The Subject line – keep it short. Goal is to get email opened. One to eight words]
Are you in?

[The Salutation – casual, first name, ‘Hi’ not ‘Dear’]
Hi Tabatha,

[The Challenge – what’s the problem, refer to antagonist, what’s the barrier to change? Be succinct, aim to describe the challenge, solution and ask in 150 words before the first link.]
We knew it was coming. On Monday, a $10 million industry-funded “Say No” campaign will launch. This means a Say No advertisement running in almost every prime-time advertising slot. On top of this, sections of the media remain hostile when it comes to putting a price on pollution.

[The Solution – plausible, starts with us, share the strategy, include other protagonists/supporting actors]
So, how are we responding? Before you say “not another rally!” don’t worry, we’re not repeating the same tactic. This is all about grassroots – our biggest strength and what the naysayers like to pretend they have, but don’t. We’ll be connecting with the community. We’re pretty sure people trust their friends and neighbours more than scare from mining magnates and shock jocks.

[The first link – needs to be visible without scrolling down. Should be a hyperlinked text, button or image]
Are you with us? I’m in!

[The Ask – simple, key to the ‘solution’, winnable, believable theory of change]
We’ve got community action planned across the country in August, starting with letter boxing our neighbourhoods. We want hundreds of you who are reading this email to volunteer to work with others to letterbox a neighbourhood. Are you in? [The second link – should be hyperlinked, active text like this can also be a friendly url link to copy & paste like this www.acfonline.org.au/I’m_In]
I’m in.

[The Back up – why now, if not before? Further develop antagonist]
We’re building a peak in our campaign bigger than the last, to show the depth of support for the price on pollution. And it’s happening soon – before our MPs return from recess to begin debating the package.

[Further illustration of the ask – personal stories, target, # of actions, urgency, deadline, show don’t tell]
Can letter boxing make a difference? Check out this story from our “Camp Yes!” graduate, Jarren: “A friend came over last night. He told me when he arrived at work that morning, everyone was talking about the carbon tax. He was dragged over to the noticeboard to look at a letter. The letter had my name on it. One girl was so impressed by the letter that I’d delivered to her house, she took it to work and posted it up for everyone to see. Our boss read it, and loved it so much she requested all her employees go read it. This sparked up a big conversation in support of the carbon price.”

Will you join Jarren and letterbox in your neighbourhood? [The third link – repeat the link at the end of the email]
I’m in.

[The Sign Off – use a friendly word like ‘Regards’ or a phrase like ‘Thanks for being part of this’, not formalities like ‘Yours sincerely’]
We’ll support you all the way,
Simon Brand,
Climate Team, CCAC

[The PS – fresh take for a different audience, add a final link if possible]
PS. Last week, you called for carbon capture to be kept out of the clean energy finance corporation. We flooded MPs with messages asking them to “keep it clean.” It worked! The $10 billion finance corporation could unlock $100 billion of investment in clean energy. [The fourth link – repeat the link at the end of the email]
Let’s keep it up!

One hyperlink

That’s right – only ONE link destination, rinsed and repeated two or three times. More than one hyperlink destination? Ask yourself, why am I sending this email? What’s the ONE thing I want to engage my audience to do? Then ask them to do that one thing.

Your best friend – the A/B test

A/B split testing is the comparison of two components with a single variation. A portion of your list receives one variation, the other portion receives another. The winning result is then sent to the full list.

Campaign communications can be fast and furious, but even in the frenzy of quick-turnaround actions, testing is still your friend. When testing is baked into your daily work, you can optimise your content, and your conversion and engagement will be all the better for it. Testing will help you increase deliverability and keep your list active.

Make sure you are selecting your sample randomly from your list and only conduct one test at a time (one variable at a time – a subject, or an image test, not both) so you can be crystal clear on the winning variable.

But! Know when to ignore your test result!

The metrics (what you’re measuring) that you pay attention to will depend on the function of each email. First ask yourself: what’s the purpose of this email? To get your supporters to take an action? Raise brand awareness? Acquire a donation? Base what you’re testing on the desired outcome you want. You asked them to sign something – measure your action rate. You’re working on brand awareness – measure the open/click through rate.

SEGMENT

A good, engaging email program segments every single email to a selected, defined list. How you segment your data list is dependent on a variety of factors that are unique to your supporter base and your goals.

Ask yourself:

Who is your audience?
Where on their journey are they with you?
How will you meaningfully track engagement?

If you respect the individual and tailor your communications based on their engagement and activity with your cause, they will love you more!

PLAN, CHECK, CHECK AGAIN

You’ve drafted your email, looked at the data, segmented your list, tailored your content accordingly, and are feeling confident your email has a reader-focused theory of change with just one clearly defined ask/call to action.

Before you hit send!:

Read your email out loud. You will hear mistakes you can’t see and improve your written conversational style.
Develop an email draft, proof, approval process: use two different proof readers, reading the test email on different browsers, proof for final errors (not rewrites) before sending.
Test all links.
Preview your subject line.
AB test? Send, wait, analyze, send highest performing email.

Remember – sometimes it will go wrong. Don’t panic. Instead, see if you can make your mistake work for you. Apologies can be a great opportunity to get real and personal with your supporter.

The apology email below is a great example from our friends at Greenpeace Australia Pacific. They turned a simple mistake – calling everyone the wrong name – into a follow up apology donation ask, that brought in more revenue!

Email Tips

Here are some email tips and a worksheet to help you plan when writing to or asking something of your supporters.

Write an email asking people to do something specific

Sending emails to a list of people is a great way to keep in contact and ask them to specific things like signing petitions and coming to events.

Plan your email

Before you start writing, make sure you know what you’re asking for and why:

Before you press send

Ask someone with fresh eyes to proofread your email
Check all the details (dates, times, contact details) are correct
Make sure all hyperlinks work

Other rules (only to be broken with good reason!)

Good email is highly structured! Follow this guide.
Think about what makes life easier for the reader, not what makes life easier for us!
If we are trying to get someone to do something, we should ask them clearly to do that thing, and the fewer different asks the better. Lots of options is easier for us but overwhelming for the reader, and the more options we provide the less likely the reader is to do any of them.
Only ONE hyperlink destination, which may be repeated two or three times.
This is not a newsletter, with lots of different options, it is a single ask email.
○ The exception is if there’s a step-down ask – something to do if the person can’t do what we most want
Use the email to say what you want to say – don’t put the content in an attachment. That forces the reader to open a second thing just to read what you have to say!
Emails come from a person, e.g. Helen, ACF Community Darebin
Is there a user-centered theory of change? Spell out why our supporters should spend their time on this ask. Prove why it is plausible and worth it FOR THEM (not for your group). How will it make a difference to what they care about?
For the same reason, it’s about “you”, “we” and “us” doing things – not them to doing us a favor.
Tone is personal, casual, to a friend, not formal.
Yes you really do have to tell the challenge, solution and ask in 150 words before the first link.
Use bold letters to highlight key phrases of the text but not entire paragraphs. Italics can emphasize the odd word, like you would if you were talking.
NO HEADLINES in an email – there is a subject line for that.

By Australian Conservation Foundation

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:

Empowered Fundraising

Anne O’Brien interviewed John Croft, developer of the Dragon Dreaming project model. John’s ‘Empowered Fundraising’ approach challenges groups to take their projects seriously and invite others to contribute funds, as a way to further their own social change values and make a difference in the world.

By Anne O’Brien, John Croft

Anne: Why is fundraising important?

John: For me, fundraising is highly important for community projects. In the modern world in which we live, and in which money is the measure of all value, many, many projects fail to achieve their potential due to lack of funds. With the proper fundraising approach, there need be no project ever that gets not done because of lack of money.

Raising funds can be fun and empowering for everyone who is involved in the project – and it can make the project much more effective as well, just being out there and talking to people about it.

How does your approach differ from conventional fundraising?

Conventional fundraising is like the cake stall or the raffle approach to fundraising. If you’re going to try to fundraize for an important project using the conventional approach the message you are actually giving to your community is “look, this project is not really important, and for that reason, we have to give you something in order for you to give us some money”. If it were a really important project you would just give us the money anyway, and we wouldn’t need to go to all the effort of trying to run a cake stall. If you’re passionate about cake stalls, and your project is all about cake stalls, then fine, run a cake stall. But a much more empowering approach is to communicate your enthusiasm for the project, your commitment to the project, and the best way to do that is YOU need to put money in. In conventional fundraising efforts, what happens is that you’re out there collecting money for a cause that you’re not prepared to give money to yourself.

In fundraising in a group, there are two opposites. One is that you reach into your pocket and you donate your loose change. That’s tokenism. If your project only needs a few cents, that’s fine. But most projects take a bit more. The second pole is that you give so much to the project that you sacrifice yourself and go without food for two weeks, and that’s just as silly as the first. Between tokenism and the sacrifice – somewhere in the middle between the two is the balance point. The balance point differs from one person to another and the only person who can know where the balance point lies is the person who’s giving the money.

The first step in the alternative approach that I teach is getting the people who are involved in the project together as a group. Step two is each person in the group then makes an assessment to identify where their balance point lies. Then you make a small stretch out of the balance point towards the sacrifice end. The reason for that is, that the balance point lies somewhere within your comfort zone. If you want your project to be transforming it should not just transform the world, but also transform you in some way, and so you write an IOU to the project, stating how much money you are going to give the project and by when. If you get a group of 10-15 people together, each of whom identifies where their balance point lies and where their step out of their comfort zone lies, and then donate that money by a certain date, you’ll be surprised at how much money the project will have raised straight away – it can be up in the tens of thousands of dollars.

The next thing you do is you identify people who you are going to ask, personally, who have a similar commitment to the project that you have. They may be friends, acquaintances, work colleagues, family – you identify anyone that you’d like to speak to about the project. Now there may be people who you would NOT like to speak to about the project. Ask them too. So make a list, and start with a group of ten people or so, and these are people you are going to ask for money in the next week or so. Don’t let it drag on for longer than two weeks – go ahead and ask ten people within two weeks to make the same kind of commitment to your project that you have yourself.

I once did a fundraising workshop where the trainer encouraged everyone in the group to write letters to their relatives asking for money. Do you think that’s important, to draw upon your immediate networks for monetary support?

Yes, but the best way to do this is not by writing letters. The best way to do this is face to face. This approach is most effective and empowering when you’re sitting face to face with someone you care about, and you offer them the chance to contribute to your project.

Remember, everyone’s balance point is in a different place. Someone who’s on a pension and gives $10 is in fact contributing more to the project than a multi-millionaire who gives you $10,000. We think it’s the big donors who are the really important people and we should therefore only target them. No, not at all. What is really happening here is that you are relationship-building with the person you are asking for money. It’s the relationship that’s important, not getting the money.

The secret is to treat a ‘no’ answer the same way you’d treat a ‘yes’ answer – it’s much more empowering. If instead you feel that the ‘no’ is a rejection of you or has some other meaning than just “no I can’t afford it”, if you start thinking they don’t believe the cause… then that’s using the fundraising to disempower yourself and make judgements about other people and that should be avoided at all costs. The secret is to treat people equally and to communicate authentically.

Once people have given, or even if they haven’t given, ask them “Do you know of anyone else who might be interested in this cause?” And then say “if I was to approach that person, could I use your name?” Or, “Could you introduce me to Joe Bloggs or Mary Smith so that I could ask them, or would you like to ask them yourself?” You can explain how you went about asking so they can ask their friends in the same way. The WA town of Katanning, using this method, raised a million and a half dollars in ten weeks, which was a third of the cost of their project to build a recreation center in the community.

With all fundraising, it’s a question of the context. What are you raising the money for? How much money do you need? How much communication are you going to have with the people you are raising the money from? Follow up is important, even with people who say no. You say “are you interested in this campaign, and can I keep you informed? Would you like to know how the project is going from time to time?” And if the person says “yes”, phone them up or get in touch with them, and let them know. You’ll very often find that people who initially are not interested, or “no I can’t give money”, they’ll say a few months down the track “you know the project you were working on? How is that going? Are you still asking for money? My circumstances have now changed, and I can now afford to give the money, how about $200 or $300?”.

I also suggest that when you ask someone for money, let them sit with it in silence for a little while, don’t try to fill the silence with words. Most people are so embarrassed about fundraising that they talk too much. When you ask a person for money, don’t keep talking about it. Otherwise what you’re communicating is “Hey look, um ah, I don’t really think that I’m offering you something that’s important…” and again you are communicating your own insecurity about the project. Role-playing asking someone for money can make a big difference to your confidence.

What are the main principles that your approach to fundraising is based on?

The single most important principle is respect for people. That includes respecting yourself as well as respecting the other person.

The second thing is that you are not begging as you are asking people for money. You’re not asking people from a relationship of lack, from a relationship of insufficiency. What you’re doing is coming to them out of a relationship of offering them something. What you’re offering them is the possibility of making a difference in the world, of making a difference in their lives. That’s a HUGE thing. Everyone wants to know that the life they’re living is worthwhile, and so if you give a person a chance to make a difference in life, as a result of their living, then that’s a huge gift. If you ask a person not out of a sense of offering a gift, but out of a sense of asking them for something you are not prepared to give yourself, then what you communicate is dishonesty and inauthenticity.

So the next principle is to be honest and authentic?

The main thing is that you are clear about your project and your relationships. Where are you coming from in this project? Are you coming from a position of desperation; a situation of lack; of not enough; of insufficiency? Or are you involved in this project because it is important, it is exciting, it needs to be done and everyone needs to be involved in it because it will transform everyone’s life and ensure that the world is a better place for us all. If that’s the place you’re communicating from, then that’s the way to do it.

For more information see ‘Empowered Fundraising: Radical Generosity – the Power of Philanthropy to Change the World’ by John Croft and Dot Green.