7+ Ways to Improve the “Curb Appeal” of Your Volunteer Recruitment Page
Your volunteer recruitment page is one of the most important pages on your organization’s website.
It is the page where you’re sending all potential volunteer candidates via your blog, emails, newsletters, and social media posts. You want it to be a virtual welcome mat, rolled out to warmly welcome visitors!
Is yours still serving you effectively? Does it give an accurate and compelling snapshot of opportunities and culture? Is it easy to use and inviting?
We’ve discussed the importance of this one page and given guidance on creating a volunteer recruitment page that converts in a previous blog post. Let’s make sure you’ve got a strong foundation in place based on four key points from there. Do you have these elements already in place?
- Include a strong hero image, header, and sub-header. Consider this your organization’s welcome mat.
- Include elements that build trust. This is where your testimonials can come into play.
- Nest information by linking to pages with more information.
- Clear Call to Action
If you’re not confident that you can say yes to each of the four above, I encourage you to review our posts: How to Engage Volunteers with a Volunteer Website that Converts and How to Recruit Volunteers Online With Powerful Calls to Action in addition to this current one.
Enhancing your Volunteer Recruitment Page
With the imminent potential for people in search of new virtual (and possibly in-person!) volunteer opportunities, now is the time to update your volunteer recruitment page. This advice is really helpful anytime you feel your recruitment efforts could be tweaked. Think of these 7 tips as guideposts for refreshing the effectiveness of your most important digital asset.
#1 Your Volunteer Recruitment Message
In reviewing your recruitment page messaging, do you find areas that you can strengthen? In addition to clear and powerful volunteer position descriptions, which this blog post helps you craft, you want to entice people to get involved with your nonprofit.
Include descriptive language about what volunteers will gain through their experience. Understand that volunteers have a variety of motivations that may have them seeking an opportunity. You might want to use:
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- Pictures of volunteers at work or just socializing
- Testimonials – written or, even more powerful, as video
- Outcomes for the organization as well as the volunteer
- Statistics – everyone loves to see the numbers as proof
#2 Provide Opportunities for Different Levels of Engagement
Part of our advice on volunteer position descriptions is to be specific. This means having a description and distinct posting for each variation of what it means to work with your organization. You want to clearly indicate whether a position is full-time, part-time, periodic, or one-time. You’ll appeal to potential candidates more if they can clearly see that you have opportunities that fit their preferences. This will also avoid the disappointment of an interested candidate who cannot meet the time commitment required of a particular position and possibly give you alternate opportunities to offer.
#3 Gather Information
Your volunteer recruitment page can serve many needs for both you and your volunteer candidates by employing a quiz or short form that collects information about applicants. For you, it can provide contact information for a list of potential future participants and great insight into what activities volunteers are most (or least) interested in.
For the potential candidate, just being asked about their areas of interest, the amount of time they’re seeking to commit, etc., reinforces the feeling that they matter, and their time and interests are being taken into account – even before they start working.
In the example below, candidates are asked about any previous experience they’ve had with the program, what positions they’re interested in and what alternative participation they might also consider.
#4 Differentiate with Accurate Position Descriptions
Rather than just calling for volunteers generically, let people know the specific jobs you need volunteers for. You’ll also want to point out any particular skills that volunteers need to have or whether there will be training.
Getting specific also helps avoid confusion, as people have different notions of what being a volunteer means. You want to clearly state that, for instance, being a dog walker twice a week, is different commitment from being available to clean out cages twice a day. Can the volunteer do both? Will the same training prepare them for each of those jobs?
#5 Keep the Focus on Them
Your volunteer recruitment page should be about how the organization benefits from having volunteers as well as how the individuals participating derive gains. Using information on the 6 key volunteer motivations can help you include inspirational content, whether it’s pictures, testimonials, or text that appeals to your prospective volunteers.
Be sure that what you’re claiming as a benefit is congruent with the opportunities you’re offering. For example, you could say that someone helping to plan an event could learn new organizational skills. The same might not apply for someone teaching reading at a literacy program.
#6 Show Them Who You Are
The volunteer recruitment page of your organization’s website is a prime location for information about your organization’s history, founders, locations and populations served. It is very important to include the whole community of people that a volunteer might engage with. Definitely offer links to your blog and social media pages, and consider adding a welcoming video.
You’ll want to link to or restate the organization’s vision, mission statement and values on this page. Letting potential candidates know what’s important to your organization helps them determine whether the role is the right fit for them. Helpful too, would be pictures or stories that demonstrate how you empower volunteers to live those values through their work.
Team member biographies can help tell your company’s story, especially when presented in a visually engaging and friendly way. Visitors who are researching your organization want to know what they can expect from you and for themselves.
#7 Make It Easy
Have you made it exceptionally easy to fill in a volunteer application form? It is well worth your time to make sure you’re not giving prospective volunteers a negative experience before they can even start working with you. Make sure people can very easily find the information on volunteering and be happy to fill out your forms.
Ensure that anyone visiting your site can easily spot where they should click to learn about volunteer opportunities. Then, on the volunteer recruitment page itself, clearly indicate where the positions are posted and how to apply. By keeping navigation as simple as possible, visitors can easily make their way to the information they’re seeking. Be sure your prospects can easily see how to access pages deeper in your site without getting lost.
Support for Your Volunteer Recruitment Page
A Great Blog
Having mentioned including links to your blog, we should address how a great blog strategy can enhance the effectiveness and boost the curb appeal of your volunteer recruitment page. Posting engaging content on your website is crucial for capturing visitors and nurturing them into volunteer candidates.
Information which makes becoming a volunteer candidate easier is highly recommended, especially when it’s in the form of downloads such as case studies, brochures, webinars, etc., which means interested individuals are added to your email list.
Always Be Recruiting
To build the best team, you need to keep your focus on recruiting and retention. An effective volunteer recruitment page can be your silent partner in doing that job all of the time. Drawing applicants to your page is a first step in using your website to recruit the right people. Be sure to include reminders throughout the website that your organization has volunteer opportunities. Keep position descriptions current and updated with the most recent details. Even if you aren’t actively recruiting for open roles, create a means to collect applicants who might be interested in future positions. That’s a great way to build a sustainable supporter pipeline.
‘Contact Us’
Empower site visitors to contact you via any number of means as they’re exploring the idea of volunteering. This can be in the form of a ‘Support’ or ‘Contact Us’ button with specific contact information included for the person or people who can answer questions about volunteering. Depending on your audience, you may want to include phone numbers, email addresses, or an online form to fill out.
This invites a prospect to be engaged with you, even before they’ve applied as a volunteer. Be sure that all indicated parties are prepared to respond to incoming questions and your systems are mapped out. You don’t want the first tentative steps of a potential volunteer to be deterred by an unprepared receptionist or misdirected email inquiry.
Communication is Key
Include social buttons on your volunteer recruitment page(s) so candidates can have access to your online community. If you have an email newsletter, include a subscribe link on your volunteer recruitment page. Receiving regular communications from you will let potential candidates learn about what your organization does, show them whether your work can fulfill their needs, and may generate referrals to other qualified candidates.
If applicants typically receive a standard “thank you for your application” screen after they’ve submitted their information on your site, can you use that page to tell them more about your organization? An email confirming receipt of their application, even if it’s automated, will calm concerns that it might not have reached you.
If they’re not receiving an automated ‘thank you’, it should be simple enough to take advantage of your organization’s email automation system to add one and point prospects in the direction of additional resources. Even when they don’t complete an application, this is an excellent platform, in your efforts to always be recruiting, for a compelling testimonial.
The Value of Your Well-designed
Volunteer Recruitment Page
In the ongoing effort to recruit and retain volunteers, a well-crafted recruitment page is an exceptional tool. This tool gives volunteer coordinators greater reach. Recruitment and applicant sourcing on the web can be localized or international and can access a broader selection of candidates than any other medium. An enticing, engaging recruitment page is a competitive advantage, helping your organization stand out from all that competes for your ideal prospect’s time and attention.
Your page can be working and available to candidates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, putting fewer time constraints on you and your team. Recruiting across different time zones, late at night, or before dawn is possible, with no additional staff hours.
Your well-designed and updated volunteer recruitment page supports a faster hiring cycle at significantly lower cost. It has the advantage of offering faster engagement; through email, chat, or online messaging, candidates can send requests or receive information quickly without waiting for regular mail or playing phone tag. The end result is a better experience on both sides.
More for Your Recruitment Success
For even more support in successful recruiting, sign up today for our free online course – delivered straight to your inbox – that will enhance your recruitment skills.
In this FREE e-course, Better Volunteer Recruitment in 6 Easy Steps, you will learn how you can attract the right people for the right jobs. You’ll get practical strategies that you can put to use right away. You’ll finish more ready than ever that to find qualified volunteers who truly want to make a difference.
