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

The Top Line

Leaders of volunteers always identify volunteer recruitment as a top priority 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 engaging people in your community to partner with you around your good cause.  Accordingly, this is way more than posting an opening for a four-hour shift every other Tuesday at 2 p.m.  Building relationships so your efforts to recruit volunteers become a larger campaign to create connection, community, and buy-in for your cause.

Read on to Discover:
Recruit Volunteers by Building Relationships FIRST
Three Ideas to Build Relationships & Recruit Volunteers
Don’t Recruit Volunteers to Your Cause Alone; Let VolPro Help

Recruit Volunteers by Building Relationships FIRST

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

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

However, as my skills and wisdom matured, I found that it’s 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 to recruit new volunteers. While the groundwork to build a solid recruitment framework takes time, 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 Relationships & 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 recruit as volunteers.

People enjoy gathering with others who are interested in similar things. So, why not create a social group opportunity for potential volunteers to meet? There are all kinds of activities to establish value in 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 include their kids. (Who knows…you may inspire 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 and network.

All of these are win-win for potential volunteers because they get to 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, long before you ask potential volunteers to commit to service, by sending them educational and entertaining cause-related content.  (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.  

(This idea requires 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.)

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

Once upon a time, I ran an employment and training program for homeless youth and had great success with this approach.

I developed opportunities for young people who were in our transitional living facility and preparing to find employment. I trained them and prepared them for work, then placed them with regional employers.

A big element was reaching employers who were willing to hire our people. We found 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; bring people together, talk about what you’re doing 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 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>> 

Invitations and Logistics

A recruitment luncheon 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, and 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 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 made coffee mugs so attendees could drink out of their coffee mug, and see our program’s logo on it.   

With 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?  

Tell stories. Share plans. Pose a challenge to invite people to solve the problem.   

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 heard 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.   

Don’t Recruit Volunteers to Your Cause Alone; Let VolPro Help

Again, the pre-work may seem daunting. Remember that creating frameworks early on drives future successful recruitment.  It is worth it!

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

Finally, I invite you to the VolunteerPro Membership Community. It’s a place to connect with many other future-thinking leaders, 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>> 

Final Thoughts on Three Ideas to Recruit Volunteers (That You May Not Have Considered)

As a volunteer administrator, volunteer recruitment is your top priority and/or challenge. However, true success goes beyond filling roles. Chiefly, it’s about building lasting relationships and engaging the community in a meaningful way. Ultimately, the goal is to create long-term support for your cause. These are just three examples of thinking creatively about recruiting volunteers for your organization.

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