Contents
Introduction
Are you structuring your volunteer program to attract volunteers and keep them coming back? Join Kaylee Williams from VolunteerLocal, a Neon One Certified Partner, as we go through the lifecycle of a volunteer, providing advice & resources to address volunteer coordinators’ most pressing questions about each stage.
Video
Slides
Volunteer Lifecyle_VolunteerLocal_NeonCRM.pdf
Contents & Additional Resources
- The lifecycle of a volunteer consists of four stages that recur cyclically:
- Recruitment: Finding passionate advocates for your cause who have the capacity and willingness to work in your organization without pay.
- To recruit more volunteers, get creative with your advertising medium & content. Also, utilize volunteer groups: corporate volunteer time as well as non-traditional groups.
- Scheduling: Activating volunteers by ensuring they have access to roles that match their availability, skills and interests.
- Be sure to acknowledge the time that volunteers are giving you to them and to provide for the volunteer's basic needs as you would a staffer: breaks, check-ins, and more.
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Management: Operational duties associated with attendance and hourly tracking, in addition to nurturing relationships over time and aligning volunteer’s interests with the goals of the nonprofit.
- Align incentives with your target audience & create feedback loops. You'll know what direction to go (longer or shorter shifts, for example) with feedback from your volunteers.
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Retention: Develop and maintain a core group of volunteers with the knowledge of and passion for your work with the goal of eventually expanding their role
- To retain volunteers, acknowledge their current gift of time & build a structure that allows for vertical advancement for the volunteers.
- To learn more about VolunteerLocal, create a free account here.
