Volunteer Engagement Solutions From Your Peers

One of the perks of attending a Nonprofit Connect institute is building an incredible peer network to help you brainstorm solutions to your toughest challenges. Recently, the Volunteer Managers Institute Alumn’s met for a roundtable discussion that was full of incredible advice.

Marathon Volunteers vs. Sprint Volunteers
Marathon volunteers are those who show up, week-in-and-week-out, ready for their shift. Sprint volunteers can only commit to serving your organization for a short duration, like for special events or as part of a corporate team-building activity. Truth is, organizations need both.

During the roundtable, several organizations shared that particularly in the summer, they have tons of sprint volunteers and not enough marathon volunteers. That’s why we brainstormed a list of ways to keep the summer sprinters engaged.

Keeping Your Sprinters Engaged

• Know the needs of your organization: You’d be surprised how many little projects lurk un-done in various departments. These are some of the different projects our attendees mentioned:
  • Process or sorting donations.
  • Archive and inventory ‘that one closet’ every organization seems to have.
  • Ask corporate groups to host a “drive” (either of monetary donations or material donations).
  • Host a lunch & learn where participants can assemble packages (back pack with school supplies, patient intake folders, etc) while learning about your mission.
• Break Marathon positions into smaller sprints: Particularly if you work with children or vulnerable populations, volunteer consistency is key. Yet, there are still a few ways to put volunteers in a position to help.
  • Start a “flextra” program. That way, your sprint volunteers can step in and fill a shift when a marathon volunteer is sick or on vacation.
  • Develop shared opportunities. Two sprint volunteers combined still create consistency for the clients in your program and also enables more volunteers to participate because the time commitment is much lower.  
• Create virtual opportunities to ‘try before you buy’ signing up for a large volunteer commitment: At the end of the day, you have to keep your program participants safe. That means your organization likely has volunteer background checks, applications, and more. One organization shared that they now let volunteers “attend a session virtually” so they can see if the opportunity is the right fit before completing all the necessary steps to becoming a regular volunteer. This is a great way for a potential volunteer to get to see the work without having to fill out a bunch of paperwork first. 

Above all, retention is key. You never know how a volunteer may engage with your organization in the long term. By finding meaningful experiences for the short term, sporadic volunteers, you pave the path to having a strong fleet of dedicated, regular, marathon volunteers when their time and schedule allows.

Ready to learn more? Join us Wednesday, July 27^th for The Path Forward: Volunteer Engagement of the Future with Jennifer Bennett with Volunteer Match. Or you can register for our final 2022 cohort of Volunteer Managers Institute starting Wednesday, Aug. 24^th. 
 
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