12 Innovative Volunteer Engagement Strategies for the New “Normal” – Part 2
In part 1 of this two-part post, I discussed what might be getting in the way of implementing innovative volunteer engagement strategies as nonprofits build back from COVID.
This week, I want to offer solutions to the challenges I mentioned in Part 1. You’ll find Part 1 HERE >>
To recap, there are significant upheavals in the world today that can impact whether people are ready and willing to serve. So, organizations need to be nimble enough to address emerging needs.
As society evolves, so too does volunteerism.
If that’s the case, how should we evolve as volunteer-involving organizations to rise to these challenges? What can we offer the world that can ease anxiety, build confidence, deepen belonging? What innovative volunteer engagement strategies should we lean into right now?
Innovative Volunteer Engagement Strategies: 12 Ideas for Your Operations Plan
What specific steps can be taken, and innovations made, to actively engage volunteers in today’s world? What should be part of your blueprint for the year ahead given the massive global disruption taking place?
As I mentioned last week, disruptions can cause chaos, but they can also create openings and opportunities for new ways of working.
In the end, it will be strategic management that will help you survive disruption. When you have a clear foundation, you can then innovate inside the solid platform you have built. When you lack a solid infrastructure, you are stuck in a reactive mode, putting out fires rather than thinking ahead.
Many volunteer-driven organizations still lack the strategic foundation beyond simply a set of human resources documents and processes. Below are 12 big ideas for how you can lead through uncertainty with strategic management practices.
1.) Conduct an Environmental Scan
Innovative volunteer engagement strategies can’t be developed until you understand the context, pressures, and priorities you are working under. The best results come from solid planning and a clear understanding of the problem at hand.
In the previous post, I offered up a few pressures on organizations and people. What’s at work in your community? What are your biggest risks and current opportunities? Who’s also recruiting volunteers? Who seems to be getting the most traction? Who are obvious allies you might partner with?
Take time to scan your organizational context or environment to determine which might have an impact on your plan’s success, positively or negatively. Consider what may need to be included in your plan for growth to ensure you are fully prepared and your plans aren’t blindsided.
2.) Align Your Goals Across Stakeholder Domains
The most sustainable volunteer strategy operations plan goals that align across boundaries – the more a goal is shared by volunteer services, the organization, and the community, the more powerful it is. Makes sense, right? When we have mutually-shared interests, we are more likely to support one another in the attainment of them.
To pinpoint which goals are aligned, brainstorm a list of goals for your volunteer program, your organization, and for your community as a whole (either geographic area or community of practice). Then ask: what program results would be good for the organization and community, not just volunteer services or the program where volunteer(s) are to be placed? Prioritize these goals in your blueprint and set a plan to reach them.
3.) Identify 3-5 Key Goals for Volunteer Involvement, Beyond Volunteer Hours
Unfortunately, many volunteer programs simply focus on reaching a particular number of volunteers or an aggregate number of hours contributed. While this is helpful for the volunteer manager in terms of better understanding what capacity has been reached or how far they are from it, these numbers don’t communicate a complete picture of volunteer impact.
We recommend organizing goals around the structure below. Objectives are the projects or initiatives that support the goal, activities are the key tasks to complete that objective. Expected outcomes describe what success looks like, and the data source is where you will get the data needed to confirm success.
The structure looks like this …
GOAL 1:
- Objective 1A:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Objective 1B:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Objective 1C:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Activity:
- Expected Outcome(s):
- Data Source:
4.) Share a Commitment to Community Statement with Key Stakeholders
In our Volunteer Management Fundamentals Certificate course and VolunterPro membership community, we teach students how to develop a philosophy of volunteer involvement, which we call the Commitment to Community Statement. This statement is a powerful way to communicate the value of volunteers to an organization. This rationale must move beyond merely saving money. In the end, volunteers might expand and deepen the services of an agency but may not necessarily cut costs.
While an organization’s mission statement describes the purpose of the organization and why it exists, the Commitment to Community Statement is about volunteers and why they are essential as a chosen human resources strategy to meet critical goals. This should be reviewed and approved by senior management and share with all key stakeholders – volunteers, employees, and community partners. How it will be used is a key to gaining buy in.
5.) Develop a Comprehensive Risk Management Strategy
Risk is inherent in any human endeavor, whether it be undertaken by paid or unpaid staff. It goes far beyond simply volunteer background checks. Rather, well-executed risk management helps you do more not less. If you take the time to develop a full risk management strategy, you’ll find that the process will unearth program challenges that you can address through smarter policy and management.
There are five different types of risk to consider when it comes to volunteer programming. Brainstorm possible risks to the following and how you might handle them. Include the most important in your operations plan.
- People
- Property
- Reputation
- Income
- Organizational Liability
6.) Clearly Communicate Who’s Responsible and Accountable
One of the biggest complaints we hear when it comes to volunteer engagement is that someone (volunteer or co-worker) is following through on their commitments. Responsibility and accountability aren’t the same thing.
Responsibility is task-oriented- people on a team are responsible for completing a task. Teams may also share responsibility for completion. While responsibility focuses on defined roles, job descriptions, and processes, accountability is about taking ownership of the results that a person is not 100% in control of, but has an impact on the ultimate results of the organization. The person accountable is the person who answers for success or failure.
When volunteers are part of the picture, there are generally many people responsible for tasks, but few are held accountable for the results. This means that tasks and issues fall through the cracks. But who should be held accountable for what and how do you keep track of it all? One way is to create a chart of accountabilities (CoA). CoAs are a particularly helpful tool for identifying functional areas where there are ambiguities in who owns the work.
To create a CoA, list all the essential tasks in your department. Then, outline who is involved in each task in the list.
- UR = Ultimately Accountable
- P = Participates
- S = Supports
- ITL = In the loop
7.) Develop a Volunteer Recruitment Plan Fueled by Digital Marketing Best Practices
Today’s online marketing is more about building an audience than it is about blasting your contact list with unwanted emails or expecting social media to be your primary source of recruits. It takes a highly aligned and focused strategy to get results.
A modern volunteer recruitment strategy includes all of the following:
- A plan for building a list of contacts who are enthusiastic about your work, but haven’t volunteered yet
- A clear understanding of your ideal volunteer(s) and what will appeal to them most, rather than an “any warm body” approach that reaches no one with a message that resonates
- Mission-centered messaging that speaks to the true motivations of volunteers and speaks to the heart as well as the head
- Carefully selected marketing channels (at minimum email) that reach your ideal volunteer where they are, with less time wasted on where they are not
- Regular analysis of what’s working (and not) and updates to your strategy based on what you learn about how your ideal audience responds
- A word-of-mouth marketing strategy to promote the sharing of testimonials, calls to action, and direct appeals
Yes, it’s a lot of work. But, once you have volunteers onboard, you might consider delegating some of these tasks to a few skilled people. Catchafire is a great, free resource for connecting with marketing professionals who’d like to contribute their skills. Plus, you can set up a preliminary call just to explore the possibilities before committing.
8.) Define Your Level of Investment with a Clear Budget
Often leaders of volunteers are left in the dark about the budgets they are working with. Worse, separate line times are buried in other budgets. The result? The actual costs of engaging volunteers are hidden, leaving staff to assume that volunteer engagement is free.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Engaging volunteers costs both time and money. Most often, the investment is worth it. But how do you know if you’re not tracking it? Below are some of the line items you might want to include in your budget:
- Salaries
- Fringe Benefits & Payroll Taxes
- Insurance/Legal Fees
- Occupancy (rent, utilities, etc.)
- Consulting & Professional Development Fees
- Staff Travel/Meetings
- Parking
- Background Check Fees
- Software Fees (volunteer management, other)
- Office Equipment/Computers
- Office Supplies/Postage
- Marketing/Advertising
- Printing
- Volunteer Reimbursement (mileage, supplies, etc.)
- Volunteer Appreciation (events, awards, etc.)
This is just a start; there may be others in your organization. When it comes to innovative volunteer engagement strategies, you can’t get started without some resources and support (in the form of training and coaching if you’re not sure about your next steps and want to get there faster) to take your program to the next level. So, like any other program at your agency, plan to secure the resources you need to grow.
9.) Determine How You Will Evaluate Your Volunteer Engagement Strategy
Self-reflection is the most important tool in your toolbox when it comes to growing volunteer involvement at your nonprofit. But it’s rarely utilized on a consistent basis. How can you improve if you’re not reviewing progress from time to time?
For each project or initiative or project you undertake, consider the following questions:
In the Planning Stage
- What data is needed?
- How will it be collected (who, by when)?
- How will it be reported (who, by when)?
- What tools will be used?
- To whom will it be reported?
- Where will it be made available?
Evaluation Questions
- What went well? What could have gone better? What had to change mid-stream?
- What did clients, volunteers, and paid staff think about the process & results?
- What best/promising practices should be shared with others?
- What has to change about the plan for it to have even more impact?
- What are the next steps?
Once you have a solid program management system in place, memorialized in an operations plan, you can start to build out more innovative volunteer engagement strategies.
Given the stresses of today’s world, it makes sense to seek out brain-friendly strategies that make the lives of volunteers easier, not harder.
The good news is that no matter what country or neighborhood we live in, what language we speak, what politics we believe in, or what food we eat, our brain functions are basically the same. Our core human needs are for safety, satisfaction, and belonging.
So, if we design volunteer experiences that align with these core human needs – based on thousands of years of evolution – we are likely to offer an experience that both attracts volunteers and keeps them coming back.
So, for our final three innovations, let’s look at what we can do to fulfill these needs.
10.) Fulfill the Human Need for Safety
Above all, humans need to feel safe in their surroundings.
11.) Fulfill the Human Need for Satisfaction
Satisfaction is all about setting and achieving goals.
12.) Fulfill the Human Need for Belonging
Self-reflection is the most important tool in your toolbox when it comes to growing volunteer involvement.
Struggling to Realize Your Volunteer Engagement Goals?
Are you ready to take specific steps to build and implement innovative volunteer engagement strategies at your organization?
Explore our Volunteer Program Accelerator Coaching Program.
Our area of expertise is helping charities, causes, and public sector programs get quality volunteers coming to them, at will, and on-demand, and keeping them happy, engaged, and contributing in a predictable way.
We typically work with agencies or associations that are seeking premium-level coaching services with a professional who has deep experience in volunteer services.
Our goal is to help clients find new ways to engage high-impact volunteers – and deliver an exceptional volunteer experience – more efficiently in less time and with less uncertainty.
This intensive, private coaching engagement with company president Tobi Johnson, MA, CVA is specifically designed to help charities, causes, and public sector organizations develop a reliable, repeatable system to boost volunteer capacity and results in less than six months.
The Volunteer Program Accelerator Coaching Program includes four components –
- A quick-start call to get you oriented to the program
- Access to the VolunteerPro membership community for each team member (up to 6 people)
- An audit of your current volunteer program to identify opportunities for growth
- Twelve private coaching calls focused on building a unique Volunteer Program Operations Plan, suited to your organization’s needs that will serve as your blueprint for success
To apply for the program, book a discovery call to learn whether this program is the right fit for you.
