Sometimes, volunteers do not always willingly volunteer. Sometimes, even the willing volunteers will not be the engaged and motivated volunteers you wish them to be.
As everyone knows, there is no such thing as “free” time. Every moment a volunteer spends with your association is a moment that they are not earning income, spending with family, eating, exercising, or sleeping.
Here are ten tips to help you recruit, engage, and keep volunteers who are willing to give you their time.
1. Take advantage of every member contact. Members who are willing to call or email an association, even if to complain, consider their membership valuable enough to reach out. They are likely the same members who will be willing to put in some effort to make the association better.
2. Watch who posts on your social media. Similar to the members who contact your association, members who repost, comment, and respond are already showing engagement. If you or a volunteer leader has not yet reached out, send your member an email, letting them know you appreciate that they increase the appearance of your association, and would they like to increase awareness in a more directed way?
3. Keep your eye out for blogs, industry awards, and advertisements. A member who blogs has won an award, or emails excellent advertisements has already demonstrated some talent and motivation. Let them know that the association is noticing their work, and use it is an opportunity to begin the conversation of volunteering.
4. Develop relationships with your members over time. Even if a member is not ready to volunteer right away, they might be in the future. Keep in contact with them, so that when they are ready, or you have the perfect project, they already know you see them as a valuable member.
5. Begin members with microvolunteering opportunities. While members are not going to start out by running for a Board of Directors position, they might be interested in limited engagement, such as a task force, singular event, such as one-off editing opportunity or moderating an online course. Once they begin to feel like they are a part of something bigger, many will be willing to take on a bigger task.
6. Foster mentoring from your volunteer leaders. Encourage a chapter’s past treasurer to help train the new treasurer. Encourage your Board to recommend newer members for volunteer positions, and then to help train the members. If members know they will be supported, they will be more likely to volunteer.
7. Split up larger positions into smaller positions with well-defined responsibilities. With members being less willing to give enormous amounts of time to an association for free, members will be more likely to agree to be a co-chair than a chair. Assist the new co-chairs (or ask a Board liaison) to assist in defining the responsibilities of each co-chair.
8. Have as diverse a pool of volunteers as possible. Try to recruit from different levels of experience, in various specialties, and from as many geographical areas as possible. The more diverse your pool of volunteers, the less likely you are to burn out a single group, and the more likely current volunteers will have a more wide-spread net of contacts and new blood.
9. Find creative ways to recognize your volunteers. Often, all it takes to keep a volunteer is showing appreciation. This can be done for free or at little cost. Thank them on social media, list their names in your e-newsletter, print volunteer ribbons for conference, feature a different volunteer each month on your website, and even simply calling or writing a letter on email of thanks for a specific completed task can mean a good deal to a volunteer.
10. Have a strategy to move volunteers up through the volunteer ranks. Committee chairs and other volunteer leaders are happy to let their associations know about hard working volunteers. When they have successfully completed a few microvolunteering tasks, have a clear next step up, such as being a committee member or becoming part of a task force, and a clear next rung up after that.
If you allow yourself the opportunity to reach more members and give them more choices, you will be able to build up a volunteer force who can tackle almost any project and address any issue.
But it takes time to build the relationships and systems necessary. Give yourself the time, and it will certainly pay off.
