Volunteers are an irreplaceable part of a non-profit organization. A volunteer helps you do many things like giving the creative idea for your campaign, helping promote your campaigns, walking and washing your animals, cleaning, and providing students tuition. But getting a volunteer that would do all this is the most challenging job you can ever do.
Your organization needs to steadily build up its plans and strategies to recruit talent that doesn't take volunteering as just another badge in their achievements. It would help if you found people who want to employ their skills to achieve your targets. So how can you find such volunteers? Let's find out.
7 Strategies to Make Volunteer Recruitment Easy
✔️ 1. Find the Who and the Why
When forming a strategy for something, you need to know why you are making that strategy and who would be a perfect fit for the strategy. Sit with your team and write down the job description. It will tell the volunteers what you don't have and what skills you are looking for.
Clearly define what kind of experience and in which field you are looking so that your volunteers can join in. You can provide training to selected volunteers, so they acquire the necessary skills and experience that is needed for your organization.
✔️ 2. Be Flexible
When you define your job description, you need to tell your volunteers when you require them and if they can join when they are free. You must give them the flexibility to join your venture when they can. It would help if you also told them whether your volunteer program is for one month, six months, or a year. This would help in choosing the right members for your organization more efficiently. You can offer short time opportunities so that more people can join in, for example, your volunteer program can be for 8 hours a week.
✔️ 3. What Way You Want to Recruit
Another vital question after ensuring who and why you want to recruit is how you want to recruit. There can be several ways through which you can recruit volunteers. Besides considering what jobs you need to make your volunteers do, you need to check who can do those jobs; whether millennials or baby boomers, can achieve your tasks. You need to choose a method to promote your volunteer programs, such as online volunteer platforms, fairs, and social media.
✔️ 4. Boost Your Social Media Engagement
No one can question the reach of social media for any corporate volunteering program. With a boost in the number of social media users, there is no doubt that your volunteer campaign will reach the right audience. But it would help if you created a plan before you go all out on your strategy. Be sure to research and identify your targeted audience. You can also bring in influencers to promote your volunteer program.
✔️ 5. Make the Signup Short
Well, you may need more than a bit of information on your volunteer if they are joining the program, which can also be done after completing the program. The long sign-up process can be mentally exhausting for your volunteers and may let them lose interest. You can help them sign up with their group of friends. It can entice people who are shy to sign up in groups. It will help your organization to gain many volunteers at a time.
✔️ 6. Let Them Choose the Medium for Volunteering
Some people may not prefer to become your volunteer if they need to travel to volunteer. So you need to keep your doors open and embrace the change in how volunteers contribute. You can make them volunteer through an online platform, write a few lines for your campaign, manage your finances or bring in collaborators - all in one place. Use the internet and its endless possibilities for its users to create better experiences for your volunteers.
✔️ 7. Get in Some Professional Help
You might think that your volunteer program and strategies are well versed and you are doing good. But there is a lot more than a professional can do. So, take time and look through professionals who can help your organization improve by providing you with their time. You can take help from professional recruiting websites, which can help you recruit talented individuals as well as help you teach your volunteer the skills you need.
Endnote
When you start recruitment, a lot of hard work goes in, but with practice, you can make it easier. Do you know the golden rule for the volunteer process? Unless you ask, the answer remains no. Another thing to remember is that you must maintain a good relationship with your volunteers so that they keep coming back, even if it is for one month.
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