Finding the right volunteers for your nonprofit or club can be tough. Sometimes you hear crickets. Other times you’re flooded with applications but can’t find the perfect match. And, with so many organizations out there, your ideal volunteers are spoiled for choice.
So how do you find and recruit the perfect volunteers? With the right plan, approach, and enthusiasm — that’s how.
Here’s our simple yet idea-packed guide on how to recruit volunteers, plus how to onboard them and create an amazing experience that’ll keep them coming back.
What To Look for in a Volunteer
Before we jump into volunteer recruitment, do you know who you’re looking for? While every club or organization has different needs, on the whole, you’ll want volunteers who are:
- Reliable
- Trustworthy
- Passionate about your cause
- Motivated
- Positive
- Team players
You also want volunteers who have the skills you’re looking for. Both soft skills and more specialized skills count.
Need a volunteer to help with event management? Look for someone who’s confident, organized, and a great leader. Want some help with running your online community? Seek out someone with experience in helping others and creating awesome graphics.
How To Recruit Volunteers: A Step-by-Step Guide
Ready to get started? Here’s our simple step-by-step guide on how to recruit volunteers.
1. Make a Plan
First of all, it makes sense to have a plan. You need to know exactly what you want to get out of this experience before you go recruiting volunteers.
Identify your needs and work out:
- The number of volunteers you need
- When you need them to be available (days and frequency)
- Which roles and responsibilities you need to cover
- What skills your volunteers need
- Who’s going to handle volunteer management
For example, the volunteer needs at Amazing Animal Shelter will look really different to the needs of Boys and Girls Club of America. One will need volunteers with a natural skill at working with animals, and the other needs volunteers with plenty of empathy and enthusiasm for working with kids of all ages.
Once you’ve got this sorted out, you’ll have an effective volunteer plan and a good idea of who you’re looking for.
2. Look for Potential Volunteers and Make the Ask
Now’s the time to get out there and identify potential volunteers. They could be hiding anywhere, but here are a few really great places to look:
- Your network
- Local high schools and colleges
- Local community groups
- Previous volunteers
- Online — e.g., forums or social media channels like Facebook or LinkedIn
- Volunteer matching websites, like VolunteerMatch
Start by reaching out to your network first and spreading the word that you’re looking for new volunteers. Ask your current volunteers to put out a notice and send referrals your way. Re-engage with past volunteers and ask if they’d like to join you again. You can also get in touch with donors to see if they’d be interested in contributing their time.
If you’re seeking a handful of volunteers for a project, you might find everyone you need in your network. If you need a large number of volunteers, expand your search and go wider with a post on social media. Add a listing to volunteer matching websites, and place an ad in relevant local publications.
Here are some different ways to make the ask for volunteers:
- Post an ad and recruitment message on your website
- Host a stand at a volunteer fair to promote your volunteering opportunities
- Upload a job description on a volunteer matching or jobs website
When you’re posting about your volunteer opportunities, make sure you talk about what’s required of your volunteers. This can cover things like hours, location, skills, and interests. Share as much detail as you can about the volunteer activities they can get involved with.
Don’t forget to share what you’re offering to them, too. Talk about how it’s a wonderful way to give back to the community or how they’ll learn skills they can feature on their resume. Appeal to your potential volunteers’ passions, interests, and thoughtful nature.
4. Consider Your Options
By now you’ll be rolling in volunteer job applications. Well, sometimes. Even if you’re not inundated, chances are you have a great collection of applications to consider.
You want to make sure you have the absolute best people on your team. To do that, score your prospective volunteers based on:
- How they match up to the role description
- Their experience
- Their skills
- Their passion for your cause
- Their references and recommendations
Tailor this to your volunteering needs and goals. If you need a specialist volunteer spokesperson for your City Learning Initiative, prioritize someone with industry experience, the right communication skills, and plenty of valuable connections.
If specialist skills aren’t needed, don’t panic if they’re not an exact match. Most of us love to learn new things, and skills like confidence and event organization can be encouraged or taught. Look for passion, drive, motivation, and enthusiasm over a specific skill set.
Haven’t found the right people yet? Head back out there and tweak your volunteer promotion. Try posting a different ad, tailoring your roles so they’re more specific, or putting out a more general call of interest to see what works best for your audience.
5. Follow Up
It’s time to let your soon-to-be volunteers know they’ve been successful! Get in touch with your applicants and share the good news.
A really fun and engaging way to do this is with video. Instead of sending a generic letter or email, whip up a personalized video using ThankView to send to your volunteer applicants. Thank them for applying and welcome them to your team in a video full of energy and personality.
Make sure you follow up with your unsuccessful applicants too. Thank them for applying, and keep the door open if you’d love to hear from them again in the future.
Sometimes you find great people, but you don’t have the perfect role for them at that time.
Suggest other ways they can support you in the meantime — like being active on your social channels or talking about your organization with friends and family.
6. Onboard Like a Pro
Your volunteer recruitment hasn’t finished just yet. You still need to onboard your lovely new volunteers and welcome them into your organization.
We’ve all had lackluster experiences when it comes to signing up for a class or joining a new job. Don’t give your volunteers one of those experiences. Instead, look for ways you can liven up your onboarding process so that it’s engaging and interesting.
For example, you could ask new volunteers to your Kids Literacy Nonprofit to pick out their favorite kids’ book and record a reading of it for your social media channels. It’s all about making the experience fun and motivating.
Here are some things you don’t want to miss from your onboarding process:
- Host a welcome meeting with their manager and the team
- Introduce them to how you do things — e.g., communication, organization values, and procedures
- Share relevant policies and guidance documents
- Introduce your organization or cause in a fun way — e.g., with an interactive presentation or a first-hand experience of what you do
- Mention any training opportunities or mandatory learning
- Assign your new volunteer a mentor or “buddy” to help guide and support them
- Give your volunteers a fun introductory project — like creating a social media post on what they’ve learned, or coming up with creative fundraising ideas
Create a culture of support, enthusiasm, and positivity right from the start with a stellar onboarding process. It takes more time and effort than a simple letter or introductory talk, but it’s definitely worth it to maximize your engagement with volunteers.
How To Recruit Volunteers: Our Expert Tips
Finding and recruiting volunteers is easy once you get the hang of it. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t always room for improvement. Perfect your process with these extra volunteer recruitment tips.
Test Your Volunteer Sign-Up Process
Don’t miss out on applications from amazing people. Make sure your volunteer sign-up process is working properly. Do a test run to see what’s working and what isn’t.
This is also the perfect opportunity to refine your process. Does it seem overly complicated? Could it be more user-friendly? Make changes here, and your volunteers will find it easier to get in touch with you.
Offer Online Volunteering Opportunities
Some of your best volunteers might not even live close to your location. Introduce some online or digital volunteering opportunities to capture talent and passion from people, wherever they are.
For some people, traveling time and distance make it hard to get out and volunteer. For others, their daily responsibilities might mean they’re mostly available after work hours. Their time and energy is just as useful as an in-person volunteer, so find ways to make it happen.
Not every role works digitally, but some are perfect for it. Community management, admin, event planning, and social media management can all be done remotely.
If you do have a mix of in-person and online volunteers, create opportunities for them to get to know each other. Hold regular video calls and create private communication channels using tools like WhatsApp or Slack where volunteers can chat and form friendships.
Create Unique Experiences
Other organizations are also on the lookout for volunteers. How can you stand out? By offering unique, valuable experiences that nobody else is.
Look for ways you can make your volunteer experience super interesting.
Building a new website? Seek out volunteers to help you create engaging content for it. In exchange, give them a look behind the scenes at what goes into web development. For example, Georgetown University enlisted students from their call center to help create videos for donors.
Heading overseas to check on the progress of a project build? Take some of your volunteers with you, and ask them to create a report you can share with the world.
Try Again
Did you offer a volunteer role to someone and they haven’t accepted? Maybe it’s just not great timing for them. Don’t be afraid to try again in the future.
Whenever you contact a volunteer to let them know you’re interested or to let them down gently, ask if they’d like to keep in touch about future opportunities. This way, you have a ready-built list of potential volunteers next time you recruit.
Offer an Awesome Volunteering Experience
You want your volunteers to have a really positive experience with your organization or club. If they do, they’re more likely to stick around and rave about you to other potential volunteers. That’s great news for your volunteer retention and recruitment efforts.
Do everything you can to make your volunteering experience as fun and engaging as possible. Give your volunteers space and freedom to get creative, to propose ideas, and to challenge the status quo. Offer chances to try new skills, shadow a leader, and learn all there is to know about how your nonprofit or club works.
These could be future employees or nonprofit leaders, so be generous with your time, energy, and enthusiasm.
Ready To Recruit Your Next Volunteers?
Volunteer recruitment can be tricky, but we’re here to make it easier. With this guide, you’ll be able to create a winning volunteer recruitment plan, choose the right people to join your cause, and onboard your volunteers in a more engaging way.
Book a demo with our team to find out how you can use our personalized video platform to create engaging welcome videos that’ll delight your volunteers right from the start.