The importance of volunteers and their role in your nonprofit is quite important but also, it is something that often goes unaddressed. Although volunteers may not add to your organization financially, the contribution that they make in terms of energy and ideas is highly valuable to get your nonprofit fundraising going. In this article, GiveCentral would like to delve into different volunteer management strategies which you can adopt inorder to manage your volunteers better.
It all begins with recruitment
When you call for volunteers, you can either put out a very basic announcement without stating too many specification or you can list out the kind of duties that the role would entail. We would recommend the latter. For example, if you are organizing a fundraising event and you require volunteers to come in, the job description you put out should have a detailed elaboration of the event and all the duties that the volunteers will have to perform.
By doing this, you won’t have to worry about volunteer retention as the people who come in will already know what they are signing up for; they would turn up because they are interested in the kind of work you’re offering. Use these out-of-the box volunteer recruitment ideas that will stand the test of time.
Community engagement for volunteers
As a nonprofit, your organization should make sure it is welcoming and supportive of volunteers. You should always position your fundraiser in such a way that it becomes an occasion where like minded people come together to contribute to a cause they all feel strongly about.
Apart from this, you must let your supporters know how exactly volunteering in your nonprofit fundraising event can help them get ahead in their future.
This should be an opportunity for your volunteers to get the chance to interact, engage and make contacts to climb up the ladder of selfless work.
Make volunteering easy
It’s a modern world that we live in, the development in technology is swift and everything is being converted into digital. Keeping in mind that the majority of volunteers are young supporters, make your volunteering process quick, easy and digital. There are volunteer management systems such as Church Director and Signup Basic that are absolutely free. GiveCentral too has its own donor management software that helps in the smooth management of volunteers by minimizing duplicate records. Not only does it help the volunteer managers to solicit interests from the right household and contacts, it also enables people to show their interest in your projects through easy communication.
Do your research well and see which software would work best for you, blending with the trend for good should be your motto.
Have your goals in place
After finalizing on your team of volunteers, the next step is to set goals that are realistic and attainable. It is important to have a goal because this will help you measure the success of your fundraising event and bring about satisfaction among your volunteers. Setting quantifiable and well defined goals is yet another key to volunteer management. Setting SMART goals will help you plan your execution better; your target should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Result-oriented and Time-bound. At the end of your event or campaign, you should be able to evaluate your milestones by seeing if the results are as expected and if your activities have been completed within the set time.
Volunteer recognition
As people who have worked hard for your nonprofit, it is very important to acknowledge the effort and time that your volunteers have invested in your cause. Thank them and if possible, give them incentives on the basis of their performances or send them thank you notes; make them feel valued so that they stay. If you have an ongoing campaign, you must also allow volunteers to craft their own schedules to give them a sense of ownership of their work, it will make them more responsible.
You can share stories of volunteer success to appreciate and support their hardwork. With volunteer recognition day coming on the 20th of April this year, connecting with your volunteers becomes all the more relevant.
At the end of the day, it all becomes evident that nonprofits need volunteers to broaden their community and even to reduce cost.
Therefore, quality volunteers must be well managed and retained as they can be a key factor to drive your nonprofit’s mission forward.
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