An effective nonprofit often relies on a team of reliable, capable, and dedicated volunteers. Like the rest of your business, your volunteer program requires excellent recruitment, communication, and management techniques to accomplish the best work possible. If you’re looking for ways to move your nonprofit forward, your volunteers are a great place to start. Check out these successful ways to improve your volunteer program.
Know Who You’re Recruiting
As with any business, it’s important to have the right people on your team. While you want as many capable volunteers as possible, you still need to make sure that the volunteers you recruit are safe for your program and the people you work with.
Volunteer background checks help you learn more about the people you bring onto your team and continue to preserve your program’s values. When you make smart recruiting decisions, you protect your organization’s security, integrity, and reputation.
Make Volunteers Feel Welcome
Once you have the right volunteers, you want them to feel like valued members of the team right away. Create a warm welcome for everyone who joins your nonprofit. In addition to helping new recruits feel like part of the family, you’ll want to get them started with their work as soon as possible. When a volunteer joins your nonprofit, they do so because they want to assist in the work you do. Be respectful of this by having proper training and jobs available for them as soon as they join the team.
Seek Out Diversity
When you have a diverse team, you have access to a wide range of perspectives, thoughts, and ideas. One of the most successful ways to improve your volunteer program is to recruit people from a variety of backgrounds. Target multiple demographics in your recruiting efforts. For example, two of the most common volunteers are retirees and college students. These are vastly different populations who will each provide a unique set of skills and ideas for your organization. The more diverse your volunteer team is, the more equipped you are to come up with innovative solutions to help more people more effectively.
