Volunteers are the backbone of non-profits and with demand on non-profits greater than ever, ensuring that you have a strong volunteer management program in place is essential to your organization's success. But where to start?
Finding the right volunteers for your organization can be a tad overwhelming. That’s why we’re here to help! The team at Rosterfy have put together the Top 5 Ways to Recruit Volunteers specifically for non-profits.
1. Communicate
Make it loud and clear that you are recruiting volunteers! You’d be surprised just how many people out there are looking for volunteer opportunities but simply can’t find them.
Communicate your volunteer requirements across all of your communication channels including:
- Non-profit website. Create a dedicated page on your website reserved for volunteers with information including how to register, types of roles on offer, locations and skills required as well as a link to your volunteer registration page.
- Social media. Spread your message far and wide through the power of social media! Incentivise your current members and volunteers to also share and drive recruitment through their own personal social media accounts.
- Newsletter. Communicate volunteer opportunities both internally and externally to your staff and subscribers/members encouraging them to volunteer!
- Media. Reach out to local media to share your story with a call to action to volunteer.
2. Utilize external recruitment websites
As referenced in our Where to Post Volunteer Opportunities, there are a host of external recruitment websites that can be used for free to help you recruit volunteers including Volunteer Match, Idealist.org and SEEK.
These websites allow you to post volunteer opportunities with specific tags so that you can attract the right volunteers, specific to your nonprofits requirements.
3. Be informative
If someone is going to give up their time, they’re going to want to know what they’re doing. Be specific when it comes to advertising your volunteer shifts and roles with detailed information including:
- Non-profit mission - how will volunteering impact your nonprofit and the work that they do in the community?
- Job description - what will the role entail and what exactly will your volunteers be doing? Check out our 'Guide to writing a volunteer job description' here.
- Shift details - start and finish times including specific locations
- Skills required - a detailed description of specific skills required and an explanation as to why thus is required?
- Kit and apparel - let your volunteers what they will receive as part of their volunteer experience (i.e lunch, drink bottle, volunteer t-shirt etc)
4. Make it simple using technology
Who has time for complex processes? We can answer that! No one. From start to finish, we can’t stress enough the importance of making the user experience simple and easy to use for your volunteers.
Technology is the best way to make even the most complicated processes simple. From recruitment through to screening, scheduling and training right through to communications the volunteer experience needs to be simple.
By employing technology to make things simpler, not only do administrators save time and money but volunteers are guaranteed a seamless volunteer experience that will strengthen engagement, retention and encourage your volunteers to bring along friends, family and colleagues to join them.
5. Engage with your volunteers
Time and time again, organizations make this mistake of thinking only about what their volunteers can do for them rather than what they can provide for their volunteers. Always remember that volunteers are giving up their time to help you so anything you can do to ‘give back’ to your volunteers is great for engagement and retention.
Speak to your volunteers and understand their motivations for volunteering. This can help you to create shifts and roles that are exciting and attract the right sorts of volunteers who are motivated to give it their all.