Do:

• Understand and describe your requirements – what do you need volunteers to do?
• Ask not what your volunteers can do for you; ask what you can do for your volunteers.
• Analyse what types of people would be interested in performing the kind of work you need done. Who would be motivated to do it? Why?
• Target different potential volunteer resource groups and analyse their motivations and their needs;
  • Ontario high school students need to perform 40 hours of voluntary community services to graduate;
  • new community members may want to meet people and join a social network;
  • older volunteers and house-bound individuals can volunteer for work that can be done from their homes;
  • busy parents need a lot of flexibility in scheduling their contributions;
  • busy parents may be attracted by family volunteering opportunities;
  • new retirees frequently like to utilize their expertise and experience;
  • students and new employees often want to improve their resumes and demonstrate their initiative.
• Identify and market the specific rewards associated with volunteering for your organization.
  • How do your volunteers make the world a better place?
  • Do your volunteers have fun?
  • Market the documented health benefits of volunteering.
  • Market the benefits that your training program provides to volunteers.
  • Market the skills, knowledge and experience that can be gained.
• Create a social network that meets the needs of your volunteers.
• Put as much or more work into retaining your volunteers as recruiting them:
  • Capitalize on your volunteers’ talents, knowledge, and contacts.
  • Match volunteers’ work to their interests.
• Treat volunteers as partners; seek their input and their feedback.
• Provide the support and guidance they need to succeed.
• Ask counter-productive volunteers to leave before all your good volunteers do.
• Make sure your volunteers feel appreciated – through public and personal recognition, by sharing credit for ideas as well as work, by always looking delighted to see them and always thanking them for their contributions.

Find ways to demonstrate how volunteers’ contributions have made a difference – to the recipients of your services, to the community, to the environment, to your goals.

Don’t:

• waste their time;
• take them for granted;
• ignore their complaints;
• ignore their suggestions;
• treat them like mushrooms;
• blame them for problems.

You have to pay people to treat them like that.

One final suggestion of what not to do is don’t ever make a volunteer feel guilty for resigning. If you make them feel appreciated for what they have done, they may come back.

Helping Those Who Help Others

Appropriately, there are many resources available to organizations that utilize volunteers. Governments recognize the importance of the tremendous contribution made by charitable and not-for-profit organizations, and seek ways to encourage and support their work. With the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, www.volunteer.ca provides an impressive array of information and resources, from “The Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement” to links to comprehensive statistics and facts, all the way to sample skits that can be used at a “Volunteer Recognition Event”. In addition to providing free access to a large library of materials targeted for non-profits, www.nonprofitscan.ca provides practical guides and toolkits such as “Starting a new charity or nonprofit”.

With over a million hits on “attract volunteers”, it’s obvious that too much information becomes “disinformation”. Sometimes the best advice is right in front of your nose. Try finding someone who has done something similar to what you are trying to achieve. I’ll bet they’ll volunteer to help you do it in your community.