Great Expectations: Communication Tips for Volunteer Coordinators

May 8, 2020May 8, 2020 Rebekah Coenen

As a volunteer coordinator, you have expectations of your volunteers. You expect they arrive on time for their shifts, act respectfully to other volunteers and participants, and perform their jobs well. Although we may lose sight of this from time to time, volunteers also have expectations of volunteer coordinators!

Although volunteer coordinating comes in many different (and equally fabulous) styles, one thing separates a good coordinator from a great coordinator: effective communication. Of course, communication comes in many different styles as well. And, in the last decade, technology has facilitated countless new channels of communication – emails, texts, DM’s, and more.

Volunteers expect you to uphold timely, informative communication.

No one likes to feel in the dark or out of the loop, so keep your volunteers informed! Volunteers need to know what to expect, what to prepare for, and what to deliver on at every step in their volunteer journey – at least in the beginning. Offer guidance to your volunteers at every stage, and they’ll feel safe and confident in their new role in the organization.

Make sure you use the appropriate communication channels, too.

As technology has woven itself into our social fabric, we’ve all adopted certain assumptions and expectations of various digital communication channels. For volunteer coordinators, here are some quick guidelines…

Email: Unless you observe push-back from younger volunteers (Millennials and Gen Z), use email communication as much as possible. This establishes a professional tone. An extra handy tip – in VolunteerLocal, you can automate confirmation emails, schedule reminder emails, and send broadcast emails to volunteers in an entire event, or even a specific shift in the event. Of course, attach documents, links, or pictures if you like, too!

Phone Calls: This is a great way to touch base with your volunteers, especially with new updates/news. There are some things to be aware of though!

The younger the volunteer base, the less comfortable they often are with phone calls (especially from unknown numbers). The older the volunteer base, the more comfortable they are with a phone call.
You may hope that the phone call is brief, but some folks like to chat! Make sure you keep track of the time so you don’t suddenly find yourself an hour behind schedule.
A phone call is not a written record. Sometimes it’s helpful to have important information in writing so it may be reviewed later.

Text: Considering that text messages are widely accepted as an informal mode of communication, remember to keep your texts professional. Texts might be helpful for sudden updates/announcements. Another handy tip – VolunteerLocal also allows you to send texts to volunteers, without leaving the platform. Sudden thunderstorm? Tell your volunteers to seek shelter, stat!

Although you may want to give your communication style and channels some thought in the beginning, it usually becomes very natural once you’ve established a system for communicating with your volunteers. Your volunteers will sincerely appreciate the effort, too. With consistent, informative communication, they’ll be well prepared and ready to volunteer! Remember, VolunteerLocal has a whole tool belt to help you pull this off. Never leave a volunteer hanging – jump in with immediate, scheduled, or automatic emails and texts, whenever you need.

Creative Volunteer Recruitment Methods

January 23, 2018January 25, 2018 Samantha Gratton

Recruiting volunteers is a part of your job, but it can still be interesting and fun for both you and the future volunteers.

Do you ever ask yourself, “Here I am, the volunteer coordinator – now where’s all the people?” If so, then it’s time to recruit some new volunteers! You already know all the basic (and sometimes boring) ways to try to recruit volunteers, so why not have a little fun with it?

Jazz up your fliers.

Yes, the basic information is important when it comes to getting the word out about your organization – but why not get more creative? Collaborate with the coolest screen printing shop in town or simply ask yourself…would this be hip enough to wear as a t-shirt? Aesthetics matter, which means the coffee shop, retail space, and local business will be even more inclined to hang your poster when it looks good.

Find a friend.

Involve the volunteers already serving with your organization and promote benefits if they find a friend to join in as well. Maybe you can’t give a referral bonus or half-off their gym membership, but incentivize current volunteers with getting a friend to sign up by offering first dibs on the most sought out volunteer shifts or an extra ticket for the music festival.

Raise the stakes.

Similar to the find-a-friend method, encourage people to seek out the most volunteers in a certain time period. Award the best volunteer recruiter with a goofy trophy and some extra incentives. Sometimes having a little friendly competition will help people up their game.

Talk about it.

Everyone knows word of mouth is powerful. So get out there and really talk about volunteering with your organization! College campuses, corporate lunches, PTA meetings – wherever you can go that might have the type of volunteers you need. But don’t stop there, create a nice informative video or simply turn on Facebook live/Instagram stories and tell the top five reasons people should volunteer with your organization. If you have the budget, promote it further on social media by paying for a sponsored post. (Even better, encourage some of your media and corporate sponsors to do the same on their social media channels.)

Give away free stuff.

Ears always seem to pique when hearing the word “free!” So pass out stickers, launch t-shirts out of cannons, hold a luncheon or interesting seminar, host a meetup at a local coffee shop, bar or coworking space, give away yummy cookies…the possibilities are endless. Just make sure those free things come with more info about the organization and ways to volunteer.

A big part of being a volunteer coordinator is making sure you have enough people to fill your volunteer team. Recruiting can seem daunting at times – enjoy making it your own and get creative with it!

5 Ways to Recruit Race Volunteers

December 4, 2017December 5, 2017 Julie Kent

Like any event, organizing a race has a lot of moving pieces.

From figuring out the route to creating bibs, it’s no wonder volunteer recruitment is so essential. Yet it’s often hard to find enough to fill all of your water stations, start line, and finish line.

Good news: we’ve sprinted around the internet (we’ll stop with the terrible puns soon), talked to race organizers, and used our own experiences to curate a “top five” list of creative methods to recruit race volunteers.

Even better news – VolunteerLocal will make the process of setting up and managing volunteers so seamless that you’ll have more time to focus on runner registrations so your event can be as successful as possible.

And now, without further ado…

Hit the streets: Once you have your course route, go door-to-door and ask residents to volunteer as Course Marshals. It’s old fashioned, but it works! Make the offer impossible to turn down: “All you have to do is step outside!” Bonus tip: work directly with the neighborhood association(s) to create and post flyers. Earning the endorsement of the neighborhood can go a long way!

Connect with high schools: High schools are full of potential volunteers as many schools require a certain number of volunteer hours. Bonus tip: target track or cross country teams, beta clubs, or other student activity groups within the school to find your most eager team members.

Make it fun: The essence of volunteer work is that it’s unpaid, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show appreciation for people giving their time. A little bit can go a long way – offering a free-t shirt or breakfast before the race can go a long ways towards making sure your volunteers are happy. Bonus tip: If your budget is tight, offering a discount off future race registration is a great option!

Reach out to family & friends: Most racers invite friends and family to cheer them on at a race, so why not convert them into volunteers instead? You likely already have all of the racers’ email addresses, so the next time you’re sending information about the race, include a blurb asking for their help recruiting volunteers. Bonus tip: Offering a discount or a free t-shirt for recruiting a certain number of volunteers could help.

Make it easy: This should go without saying, but we live in a day and age where we expect everything to be fast and simple. If you ask someone to volunteer for an event, but have a multi-step registration process, you’ll likely lose some sign-ups along the way. Ideally, we find that three steps or less really helps streamline the process. Bonus tip: VolunteerLocal can help!

And that’s the run around! With the right volunteers, your event will easily fly across the finish line (last pun, we swear).

Inspiring Volunteers to Tackle Worst Jobs

November 29, 2017November 30, 2017 Brianne Sanchez

Those dirty, thankless, difficult-to-fill volunteer jobs are sometimes the most critical to your event’s success.

The volunteers who take them on probably deserve more than an oversized event T-shirt, but let’s face it – there isn’t a budget for much else. From the pre-dawn setup crew to the teardown team, here are five simple ways to inspire volunteers to tackle the worst jobs, all with a smile.

Let them know why it matters. That late night cleanup shift is certainly not as glamorous as the early evening gig checking VIP wristbands. But if leaving a venue in ship-shape after the last attendee has departed is essential to the festival getting its permits renewed, it’s totally clutch. Let your volunteers know how they’re key to keeping an amazing event viable.

Recruit volunteers who want to develop a specialized skill. Working a marathon’s finish line might not be a good fit for someone who’s squeamish about a runner possibly puking on his shoes or passing out in her arms as she slips on medals and hands out thermal blankets. But it could be a great fit for students in a pre-med club or nursing school who can swiftly help seek medical attention.

Institute a “Mike Rowe” award. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it. Turn a crappy assignment into a competition by asking one of your most outgoing leaders to captain the team. Create a sense of camaraderie by gamifying trash collection or doing a post-cleanup catwalk in which the most mud-splattered volunteer takes home an epic swag bag.

Name the job something creative. Don’t be misleading, but take inspiration from the goofy titles that startup companies give their employees. Apple’s “genius” is another company’s service technician. Which job sounds more impressive? Do you want a volunteer who begrudgingly signs up to be a trash collector, or who’ll be proud to wear a name badge with the title “Ambassador of Clean”? Be sure to add a description to the job, though, so volunteers are clear on the expectations.

Pitch in. Great leadership involves showing that you wouldn’t ask someone to do (for free!) what you’re not willing to do yourself. Shouting encouragement from the sidelines isn’t the same as tackling trash duty with your volunteer troops.

Show a little extra appreciation with a personalized thank you and odds are, next time you have a dirty, difficult or downright boring job that just has to be done, you’ll have volunteers ready to roll up their sleeves.

How to Attract Millennial Volunteers

November 7, 2017November 8, 2017 Josanna E. Berg-Hammond

Millennial volunteers are a goldmine for coordinators.

Tech-savvy, passionate and willing to help, Millennials can make up an incredible workforce for your organization. But how do you get them hooked on helping you out? Research shows that Millennials respond well to good design, relevant content and organizations with a strong mission that give back to the community. We’ve rounded up a few easy ways to get Millennial volunteers to your organization and to keep them coming back.

What’s the Website? Millennials, and just about everyone else at this point, hop on a website for nearly everything they need. If your organization’s website still looks like it was created in 2008, chances are you’re not grabbing Millennial attention as best as you could. A clean, visually appealing site with easy-to-access information will take you far with Millennials looking for a quick reference point for your organization.

Keep it Social. Social media is a top way for Millennials to communicate with their peers (and then some), so offering a well-rounded social media presence to your volunteers is key. A strong Instagram account, designated hashtags for your event and live updates with platforms like Facebook Live and Snapchat offer volunteers an opportunity to share their volunteering experience with their social circles. Bonus: they can help spread the word about your organization to friends and followers!

Swag. Everyone loves swag, but Millennials are especially excited about the offer of free anything. Shirts, caps and tote bags are classics, but you can also get creative with branded koozies, visors, fannypacks and more. And, when in doubt, offer snacks! Something as simple as a few bags of chips and some seltzer water goes a long way.

Be Transparent. At the end of the day, volunteers are there because they care about your organization. Have a well thought out mission statement and ample information on how your organization helps your community. Offering a clear, concise explanation of what your organization does gives volunteers a quick way to explain why they’re volunteering for your specific event.

How to Direct a Successful Thanksgiving Run

November 6, 2017November 6, 2017 Jordan Maze

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time for family togetherness and fun, but it’s rarely that simple.

Between making travel plans, accommodating everyone’s personal needs, and navigating family dynamics, the last weekend in November can be a stressful time. And for those of us who cannot be with family, it’s hard not to feel lonely.

Some organizations plan Thanksgiving-themed Turkey Trots on the holiday in order to raise money for a cause. For the reasons listed above, convincing folks to get out of the house and volunteer on a holiday doesn’t require too much arm-bending. A group activity? Check. Community-oriented? Check. Exercise before gorging yourself for six hours? Check.

Turkey Trots are family affairs, low key and often associated with parades and costumes. Showing potential volunteers the benefits of volunteering on Thanksgiving morning will certainly lead to a fun and well-attended event. Here are some tips for communicating with your future Turkey Trotters:

Start early. Folks tend to plan their holidays months and months out, and without proper warning, the idea of taking Thanksgiving morning off from cooking will induce a lot of stress in holiday hosts. Recruit early and often, especially within family-oriented settings (kids’ sporting events, outdoor recreational areas, clubs, etc).

Emphasize physical and communal activity. A Turkey Trot solves the problem of getting large groups organized the morning of a holiday, getting their energy out, and feeling like they’re contributing to a cause (instead of just sitting and eating all day). For single folks or small groups, Turkey Trots can help them connect with their communities.

Keep in touch. Plans change quickly, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed during this time period. Make sure your volunteers know that you’re excited to see them, that their decision was a good one, and that they’ll leave your Turkey Trot feeling engaged and fulfilled (before filling their bellies). This will help minimize your last-minute cancellations.

Volunteering on Thanksgiving is great for everyone: the volunteers feel the spirit of togetherness, have a way to structure their day, and get quality time with their families and the community. Your organization gets more recognition in the community and more resources to do your work. Holiday volunteer recruitment can be as satisfying as pumpkin pie.

Best Preparation Practices for the Big Day

October 30, 2017October 30, 2017 Josanna E. Berg-Hammond

Clipboard? Check. Volunteer contact form? Check. Sanity? Kind of.

There are a million and one things a volunteer coordinator needs to remember the day of an event. Setting a plan, preparing for potential obstacles and keeping everything on course is just the beginning. To help our volunteer coordinators out, we’ve whipped up a few of our best practices for prepping for the big day.

Communication is Key

Emails, texts, Facebook groups and even old-fashioned phone trees are all great ways to communicate early and often with volunteers. Clearly stating arrival and dismissal times, expectations for behavior and dress, and other pertinent details are crucial to making sure volunteers show up informed and ready.

Be Realistic

Volunteer coordinators should always believe in their volunteers, but they’re not superheroes. Can three people really set up your entire event before the rest of the volunteers arrive? Probably not. Consider exactly how many people you’ll need for each shift and then add a few more to be safe. Volunteers are ready and willing to help you, so let them!

Know Where to Go

When you’re in the middle of managing a group of helpers, chances are you won’t have much time to direct volunteers to the bathrooms. Making a detailed map of everything a volunteer might need to find (bathrooms, water station, breakroom, etc.) will provide a quick reference point. And if they still ask you where the bathroom is, take a deep breath and kindly point to the map.

Self Love is the Best Love

Coordinating volunteers can be incredibly rewarding – all these people giving their time to help your organization?! – but it can also feel like herding giant, human cats. So, our biggest suggestion to help you prepare is to take care of number one. Meditate, listen to music, eat all the chocolate in your house. Do whatever you need to do to show up at your event calm, collected and ready to coordinate.

Retain and Grow Your Volunteer Base

October 25, 2017September 25, 2018 Anne Summers

Volunteerism has significant power to spread your organization’s mission, but it can be daunting to tackle the amount of engagement and intentionality it takes to get that force in motion. Connecting to vision is the key to helping volunteers move from the “I’m just a volunteer” mentality to being some of your best advocates.

Start by taking a look at your organization’s vision and mission. Are you and your team on the same page as your leadership? Ensuring you’re properly aligned and speaking the same language in the beginning is crucial to good communication and sharing that vision with your volunteers. Sometimes this looks like adding clarity to your core message by creating new language everyone can use. Other times it looks like simplifying your organizational language to the most essential elements. In the end your staff is more unified and excited about why they show up to work everyday, and you’re ready to share that enthusiasm with your volunteers.

Next, get creative! Brainstorm ways to integrate this language into your communication and volunteer training. Staying true to your core message doesn’t need to be boring! Take a look at a few ways of getting the word out.

Weekly Emails: Keeping in touch with your volunteers on a weekly or monthly basis demonstrates that their service isn’t limited to one day or one event. Remind them that you still see them as part of the team and desire to continue sharing with them. Keep it short. Keep it focused. Keep it fun!

Team Huddles: When you have the chance to see your volunteers face-to-face, take 5-10 minutes before the event or program begins to intentionally talk about the why behind their work. Make sure they know their presence is making a difference!

Share Stories: When your organization or event has a big success, your volunteers should be among the first to know! Seeing how they fit into the big picture helps connect them to the larger organization and makes them proud to be a part of it.

Volunteer Profiles: In the same way that you share success stories with volunteers, share volunteer stories with your larger organization! This is a simple way to show you value your volunteers while also signifying the collaboration between staff and volunteers.

As you share the pieces of vision little by little, your volunteers connect to the mission and engage at a higher level. As that connection strengthens, volunteers are more prone to continuing their relationship with the organization or event, more likely talk about it with their friends, and more likely to bring along additional volunteers the next time they’re needed. Do this part of the process well, and watch as your team grows and is more unified through and through.

For tips and tricks to retain and grow your donations as well, check out these 200+ nonprofit fundraising ideas.

Connecting with Volunteers Before, During, and After Events

October 25, 2017September 20, 2018 Samantha Gratton

So, you’re a volunteer coordinator.

There’s software to keep you organized and spreadsheets to print out and timeslots to fill. But how do you manage volunteers in a way that makes them feel like more than a number? After all, you couldn’t make things happen without them.

Build a relationship with volunteers

Learning what makes your volunteers tick is the first step towards leveraging their strengths and abilities. Once you know what they are most excited about or what made them want to volunteer with your organization in the first place, you might be able to really connect with them on a deeper level. Instead of puzzle pieces that need to fit in various roles and schedules, remember that volunteers are people. They have other jobs, family, passions, hobbies–all sorts of interesting things about them.

So start by getting to know them. Maybe it’s taking them out to coffee to hear their story or learn about how they got connected with your organization. Maybe it’s sending out a silly questionnaire including questions such as “What’s your spirit animal and why?” or “Where and how do you spend most of your free time?” You might learn about special talents that could be used or their unique quirks. Make sure to jot these notes down so you can keep them in mind for the future.

Building a relationship with volunteers is beneficial for both you and the volunteer. Not only do you get to know them better, but they get to know and trust you. Trust is an invaluable trait to have if and when some sort of issue comes up during an event.

Keep the communication clear and open

You’ve probably been on both the giving and receiving side of communication, and you know it’s vital to keep all communication clear and easy to understand. Of course you have countless things on your to-do list, but don’t let communication fall to the bottom of the list. Communication can come in all forms–emails, texts, phone calls, trainings, and even one-on-one meetings in person. Keeping volunteers in the know leads to more personal investment from them, better interactions with them, and a higher likelihood they will continue volunteering in the future. You are their primary point of contact with the organization, and they rely on you to learn what they need to know in order to do their job successfully. Make sure this line of communication is open on both sides by being available for questions or comments from them along the way.

Follow-up

Keep the momentum going–and follow-up! After an event there’s a lot to sort out, but make sure you reach out to volunteers soon afterwards. Thank them for their time, and ask for their thoughts about how it went and what can be improved next time. Host a debrief and thank you celebration night with ice cream for volunteers or send a personal thank you card in the mail. If you can’t manage that, send a thoughtful email with a survey to capture feedback for future events. Use the information you collected at the beginning and send a birthday card when the time comes or reach out with a friendly email when you find out they got a promotion at work, bought a new house, or rocked it at open mic night. Anything you can do to show volunteers how much you care about them goes a long way.

For tips on finding the best volunteer management software for your organization, check out Wild Apricot’s Top 10 Free Volunteer Management Software Tools.

Building Your Volunteer Team

October 18, 2017October 19, 2017 Brianne Sanchez

Building out a volunteer team is a little like filling a football roster.

A common mistake rookie volunteer coordinators often make is to put themselves in the role of quarterback instead of coach. The last place you should be at the beginning of your event is on the field with a bunch of players rushing you.

An effective volunteer coordinator should be able to direct from the sidelines and have a big-picture view of the event. That degree of distance only feels comfortable when you know you have the right people plugged into different positions. Recruit trusted volunteers whose natural strengths or talents give them a leg-up for the most critical positions:

Volunteer Captain: Look for someone with a customer service oriented spirit. Inevitably, you will have a few volunteers who arrive to check in awkwardly early, when you’re still in the midst of a few last-minute tasks. Training a friendly and organized volunteer captain or two a few days before the event will free you up from fielding volunteer questions so you can be available to troubleshoot other issues that might arise. Just remember to plan for a frenzy of volunteer activity at every shift change and keep volunteer support especially strong during those periods.

Vendor Greeter: The caterer, the florist, the balloon guy, the sound engineer, the exhibitors – they all seem to arrive in unison and have complex setup questions. If you have a confident friend who knows her way around an event map and can help exhibitors get situated in the right spot, you might not need to clone yourself. If food safety and storage are a concern, it would be wise to secure a capable volunteer familiar with regulations tasked with overseeing that area.

Social Media Maven: If there is an event hashtag but no one to populate it, what’s the point? Don’t expect you’ll have time to snap candids and come up with creative captions when you’re running an event. Hand over the digital keys to your event’s account for the day to someone on the marketing committee. Bonus points if they already have an Instagram with a loyal following and are willing to cross-post a few pics on their personal account.

Signage scout: Get the right volunteers on your event setup squad and you’ll save time and energy down the line. Don’t underestimate the power of fresh eyes on signage. You might know the venue like the back of your hand, but if there’s any question about where to find the bathrooms or how to map the event flow, it’s great to get a volunteer who can offer a critical eye and make things easier for your attendees.

The key to being able to comfortably delegate is to know each volunteer is playing to his or her strengths. Think through these more specialized types of jobs in advance and actively recruit people with the most helpful personalities for these positions. Don’t forget a pre-event huddle so everyone knows everyone else’s roles, too! Having a printed contact list with leaders’ cell phone numbers, or walkie-talkies tuned to the same channel also lets your critical volunteers connect. Setting up these connections will lead to smoother transitions before and during your event.

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