Implementing good practice in volunteer management helps organisations to value, reward, recruit and keep volunteers. In the spirit of National Volunteer Week, please find Volunteer Now’s Top 30 Tips for successfully involving volunteers:
- Value the gift of time and think about what you can offer the volunteer, not just what you need.
- Make it easy for people to volunteer by being creative and flexible when designing volunteering opportunities.
- Ask volunteers why they want to volunteer and try to meet their needs.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate – give information to volunteers and ask for feedback from them.
- Time, skills and experience are what volunteers offer, don’t waste this valuable resource and make sure there is a suitable role for your volunteer.
- Treat volunteers as you would want to be treated.
- Take time to listen and talk to your volunteers.
- Recruitment can be the easy part it’s keeping the volunteers that can be a challenge, support and training doesn’t stop at induction.
- Have fun with your volunteers.
- Keep an open mind about who can be a volunteer.
- Say ‘thank you’ and in lots of different ways – a full biscuit tin, a Christmas card, a Volunteers Week event.
- Never take your volunteers for granted.
- Pay attention to what your volunteers are saying they can be a great source of wisdom and ideas.
- Be flexible, involving volunteers is a two way relationship, a bit of give and take is important.
- Connect your volunteers together to build peer support and team work.
- Offer new opportunities to existing volunteers, most people like a bit of a change now and then.
- When offering or providing training to your volunteers keep it relevant and interactive.
- Keep your volunteers safe – pay attention to heath & safety and risk management.
- Think about your recruitment messages, know what it is you are looking for and what you need doing.
- Take time to provide the support that enables volunteers to enjoy their role and enhances their contribution.
- Help volunteers to take pride in what they do and the contribution they are making to the cause, the clients or the organisation.
- Be open and honest with your volunteers especially when there is an issue to be addressed.
- Think about what your volunteers do and then what they could do, you might be amazed at what other roles you can offer.
- Involving volunteers is not a static process, keep looking for ways to improve the volunteering experience.
- Don’t let your volunteers over commit; remember they have lives outside of their volunteering.
- When you ask for a volunteer be ready to act - don’t take their details and never contact them or contact them weeks later.
- At times we all need to be re-energised, encourage your volunteers to try something different, learn something new.
- Think of your volunteer’s comfort – a hot cup of tea, a better chair, the right type of equipment to get the task done.
- Volunteers are not necessarily free, there needs to be an allocation of appropriate resources for support including provision of out of pocket expenses.
Engaging Volunteers with Jessie Harman - Rotary Volunteer
The volunteering landscape is experiencing vast change which brings new challenges and opportunities. In this episode, hear from Dr Jessie Harman (Director of Partnerships and Commercial Engagement Federation University Australia and Rotary Zone Coordinator) about key volunteer engagement issues and how organisations must actively respond to lifestyle and generational factors to appeal to existing and potential volunteers in 2015.
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click here and register for the episode. AuSAE TV enables not-for-profit professionals to gain valuable insights from sector leaders willing to share their real life experiences. These insights, both lessons learnt and successes, just may be the key to advancing your career or setting yourself on the path to achieve your organisation's vision. New episodes are released monthly and can be watched via your desktop, tablet or mobile device.
