Volunteers serve as the foundation of any successful nonprofit. But recruiting and retaining volunteers can be challenging, even in the best of times. Once you’ve exhausted your network of friends and acquaintances, you’ll need a solid strategy for reaching out to the rest of your community.
The good news is, it’s easier than ever to find new volunteers without even leaving your house. Here are some tips to help you plan, recruit, and manage volunteers from wherever you are.
Why Recruit Remotely?
Technology continues to change the way people interact, and if nonprofits fail to evolve with it, they may be left behind. There are plenty of nonprofits eager to get people to help with their cause, and often there’s a shortage of volunteers to fill those roles.
That’s where remote recruitment comes in handy. From the comfort of your home or office, you can start getting the word out about the work your nonprofit is doing. Instead of relying on people who know your existing employees and volunteers, this opens up your pool to total strangers who may simply feel passionate about your cause.
Build an Online Presence
Before you start marketing your nonprofit, make sure your online presence truly represents your organization’s mission. Your website and social media profiles should be packed with visuals showcasing your team’s previous efforts. In addition to showing your team hard at work, these visuals should also highlight the end result of all that hard work.
One of the most important things you can do, though, is to make it easy for interested volunteers to sign up. There should be an online sign-up form, along with details of any volunteer roles you have open. When someone shows an interest, make sure a team member immediately follows up. If you aren’t ready to get started immediately, at least pull new recruits into an email loop or messaging channel and stay in touch in the meantime.
Using Social Media
Once you’ve set up a way to capture interested volunteers, it’s time to start getting the word out. Give your recruitment drive a fun, unique name that matches your brand and come up with an idea to incentivize enrollment. Some ideas include:
- Contest with one large prize chosen by either a drawing or the highest participation
- Small prize given to all new recruits
- Invite to a VIP event
- VIP event held exclusively for new volunteers
Once you have your incentives in place, make it as easy as possible for existing volunteers and staff to share the post. You can incentivize sharing, as well, by issuing an incentive to the volunteer who successfully recruits the most new volunteers.
Although getting started with remote recruiting can take some work, once you have the infrastructure in place, you’ll find it’s less work in later years. Your volunteers will know what to expect and community members will remember your previous recruitment efforts.
Ready to start recruiting? We have tools that will help you set up a volunteer signup page, manage your members, and create online registration for your upcoming events. Check out our suite of tools.