Pro RoundUp: 3 Ideas to Recruit Volunteers (That You May Not Have Considered) 

Volunteer recruitment is always the top priority mentioned by leaders of volunteers in our annual Volunteer Management Progress Report survey, both as a challenge and as the top goal for the coming year.   

We know how important it is to recruit volunteers, but I’d encourage you to go deeper than simply working to fill a certain number of available spots with the corresponding total of willing individuals.  

Long-term, sustainable volunteer recruitment is about finding, attracting, and engage people in your community to partner with you around your good cause, and this is way more than posting an opening for every other Tuesday at 2PM for a four-hour shift.  

This is about building relationships, so that your efforts to recruit volunteers becomes a larger campaign to create connection, community, and buy-in for your cause.  

It’s not as difficult as it may seem, and here are three simple ideas to recruit volunteers that you may not have thought of yet.  

If you implement any of these, I’d love to hear about your results so please drop us a line at wecare@volpro.net!.  

Recruit Volunteers by Building Relationship FIRST 

When I started my nonprofit career, I was an outreach coordinator and a marketing director. And I remember when I started, I thought it was all about pushing information out in as many ways as possible over and over again.  

My marketing philosophy at the time? Basically, the person who shouts the most and communicates the most wins.   

However, as my skills and wisdom matured, I found that it’s really more about creating a two-way street. “Marketing” is about building relationships with your audience, so that they are ready when the time comes to take action.  

This means more upfront work when it comes to recruiting new volunteers, but while the initial outlay of time to build a solid recruitment framework takes a bit longer, it’s an investment that pays off in the end.   

For more on things I’ve learned over the years, check out Training Volunteers, What I Wish I’d Known HERE>> 

Three Ideas to Build Relationship & Recruit Volunteers 

Host a “Theme Day” Targeting a Specific Audience   

This idea is all about segmentation, about creating something that has special appeal for a specific target audience you’re trying to engage as volunteers.  

People enjoy gathering with others who are interested in similar things. So, why not create the social opportunity for potential volunteers to meet each other in a group setting?  There are all kinds of things you can do to offer a value add to the volunteer effort.  

For instance, this service day could be combined with some interesting in-service training for a “Learn More About Us” theme, along with social time to make it even more fun. The service aspect of these days could be combined with an experience, or an update of what’s happening at your organization.  

Additionally, you could create a day of service specifically for family volunteering, where parents bring their kids to volunteer together. (Who knows…you may even be inspiring the next generation of volunteers!)   

Think about a “Singles Saturday” once a month, or a “Senior Saturday.” Or a Young Professionals Night, where young professionals come to serve but also network with each other.  

All of these are win-win for potential volunteers because they get to serve and contribute their time and talent, but also meet others who are equally interested in giving back to the community.   

And…when your volunteers become friends, they’re more likely to come back. 

Create a “Nurture” Email Sequence 

This idea is all about building trust, connection and buy-in to your cause – long before you ask potential volunteers to commit to service – by sending them cause-related content that educates and entertains them.  

(This idea does require an email service provider that offers pre-scheduled, segmented emails. Don’t let that discourage you, though! There are lots of options out there at various price points to fit almost every need, so you’re sure to find one that fits.  

And bonus: if you’re a VolunteerPro Member, we’re doing a live demonstration of how to set up your email sequences this week!) 

Content-wise, you want to start with something engaging and interesting for that first email. It’s definitely NOT an immediate call to action!  

You’ve got to warm your audience up first through content that’s about your cause in general. So, “10 Things You Might Not Know About…” or “Myths and Facts About…”  

You could share a research roundup of scholarly articles about your cause, or “The Ultimate Guide To…”    

For causes related to advocacy, you could share a social media swipe file for your readers to download and share social media images about your current initiative, or an email template for a letter to your elected official.   

The important thing is to start your nurture email series with valuable free content, no strings attached. Then later, you can add the call to action.   

Again, this does take time upfront to write the content and set up the email automations and tagging. However, you are building an organizational asset that is continually warming up your audience so you won’t be at a loss or need to make cold calls later when you need volunteer help.  

And when it comes time for your next volunteer orientation training, or a new project or an event, you will have a mailing list of people who already know, like, and trust you.   

Host a Recruitment Luncheon   

I had great success with this approach back when I ran a youth employment and training program for homeless youth.  

I was developing opportunities for young people who were in our transitional living facility and were preparing to find employment. My job was to help get them trained and ready for work, and then place them with employers in our area.   

A big part of that was getting in touch with employers who were willing to hire our people. We found that the best way to do it was to host a relationship-building breakfast where we recruited potential employers to think about hiring our youth, or at least doing informational interviews.  

This is similar to a donor cultivation event or a volunteer recruitment event; basically, it’s where you bring people together, you talk about what you’re doing, and then you make an ask.   

You may want to align it with something that makes sense for your organization or cause, like Valentine’s Day, National Volunteer Week, Giving Tuesday, your special day or week or month.  

Here’s the key, though. To make this work, you need to enlist your current volunteer leaders, major donors and board of directors to help you build an email list of highly qualified prospects. It’s not just about putting up flyers and trying to get people to a breakfast or luncheon. This is a very targeted outreach.   

For more on how to include coworkers in volunteer support, check out Helping Nonprofit Employees See the Value of Volunteers HERE>> 

It could include some of the people from your email nurture campaign. You could also invite people who’ve downloaded more than one free resource, or who open your newsletter frequently.  

You could invite people who have made financial contributions, people who have an interest in your cause, friends of volunteer leaders who are interested in learning more…think through who you want to include, and just make sure you’re inviting a very “warm” list of prospects that are more likely to say yes to your ask.  

Also, you don’t have to come up with this all out of your own budget. You can ask partners and sponsors to provide in-kind donations of food, room space, printing, etc. When we did that breakfast for our potential employers, we actually had coffee mugs made up so they could drink out of their coffee mug and see our program’s logo on it.   

Once you have everyone in the room, it’s time to share your story, your big “why.” Why volunteers? Why your organization? What does it do in the community and why do volunteers matter?  

You want to tell stories. You want to share a glimpse into the future of what your organization has planned. You want to pose a challenge to invite people to be part of that big plan.   

And this shouldn’t just be you talking about volunteering at your organization. Invite compelling people to share their personal stories…service beneficiaries, individual volunteers, your board chair, and the volunteer coordinator all sharing why the work you all do matters.  

And then, extend the offer to join the amazing team of people your audience has just from. You could have an interest card at each place setting. You could set up a QR code for individuals to scan and connect, or have a team member ready to start scheduling future one-on-one meetings.    

There will be a fair amount of legwork afterwards, because you’re working to bring on a large group of people all at once. But that’s the point of an event like this, and that’s what makes it so rewarding.   

You CAN Recruit Volunteers to Your Cause, But Don’t Go It Alone 

Again, I want to encourage you that, while the set-up on these ideas may feel too big, remember that the work you do now will have long-term results on your future efforts to recruit volunteers to your cause. It is worth it!  

And, you don’t have to go it alone. Invite your coworkers, your volunteer team, and your executive leadership to all participate in these efforts with you, and allow them to be an integral part of the community you are working to build.  

And I want to personally invite you to the VolunteerPro Membership Community, where you can connect with many other future-thinking leaders just like you, all working toward the same goal of building a vibrant, enthusiastic volunteer corps to expand the reach of their organizations.  

To learn more about VolunteerPro membership, click HERE>>