Recruitment Strategies

Volunteer Recruitment Strategies 

 
What five things have you done in the last month to recruit volunteers?
 
·        Did you have trouble identifying five?
·        Are these different than things you tried six months ago or five years ago?
 
Any volunteer program needs to put out its message about volunteer opportunities more than just once in a while. An annual campaign won't do it.
 
·        This is sometimes called the McDonald’s Quotient. McDonald’s keep their name in front of you constantly.
·        Never assume that everyone knows about you and your organization's need for volunteers, even if you’re well known. Occasional publicity and recruitment are not enough. Repetition is important. There are a lot of organizations who have their message out there. You're never the only game in town.
 
Readiness of Volunteers
 
·        You want to make sure potential volunteers hear your message at the time they're contemplating getting involved in a volunteer activity. People’s lives change. Someone who discounted you or said no to your appeal six months ago may be ready now. Make sure it’s your message they hear.
·        We live in a mobile society. People who heard your message six months ago may have moved. New people may have moved into your neighbourhood or town.
·        In these days of market saturation, people need to hear your message many times. People usually need to hear a message multiple times before they'll take action.
 
Jot down some points about what your agency looks like.
 
·        Staff: number of males, females, age, culture
·        Volunteers: number of males, females, age, culture
·        Clients: number of males, females, age, culture
 
People, consciously or not, will assess whether your organization's image matches their self-image. Put another way, prospective volunteers must be able to picture themselves with your agency. Who is sending your recruitment message?
 
·        Look at the demographics of your volunteers, staff, board and committees. Do they look like the demographics of the population you’re trying to recruit?
·        Do you feature your target audience in agency brochures, annual reports and recruitment materials? If not, can you plan to change this the next time you reprint your materials? On the other hand, can you find a generic image that portrays what your agency does? It's difficult to include every demographic of society and you don't want to miss any.
·        Can you contract someone who matches the demographic of your target audience to do recruitment? For example, hire a male to do male recruitment. Any group can be stratified by income, education, geography, language, nationality. Common elements make the ‘ask’ easier and more effective.
·        At Big Brothers Big Sisters, we have many more female volunteers than male. More women than men volunteer across Canada. At our agency, we have 50 staff and only two are male. While that's not unusual for a social service agency, it doesn't help us attract more male volunteers.
·        If recruiting male volunteers is important, it can also be helpful to have leaders from targeted male communities like service clubs, sports groups, churches, who are visible and involved. A committee of male community leaders may be helpful in gaining publicity for your agency.
·        Can you ask your volunteers to write testimonials for you to use in publicity? Can they join you to do media interviews? Can you create a speakers' bureau from your pool of current and former volunteers? Having a volunteer who matches the demographic of your audience accompany you to presentations can send a much more powerful message than just having paid staff do it. It you're hosting a display table at a seniors' fair, can one of your older volunteers come along? If you're talking to a group of business people at the Rotary Club, do you have a volunteer who owns a business to tell their story? As their knowledge and confidence builds, you may eventually be able to send these volunteers out to display tables or speaking engagements alone, which frees up agency staff to do other work.
·        In the same way, can you ask clients who've been helped by your agency to write testimonials? Can they join your speakers' bureau? Are they comfortable doing media interviews? A client whose life has improved because of your agency's work can be a powerful messenger.
 
Data Collection and Documentation
 
·        Volunteer Demographics: Does your agency maintain records on volunteers? This helps you learn the age, gender, where they live, if they attend school, where they work. Having this data helps you figure out where you might recruit similar people.
·        How Volunteers Heard About You: You want to ask new volunteers, at the time of their initial contact, how they heard about your organization. During their interview, we ask them to expand on their motivations to volunteer and what lead them to our agency. We've incorporated an array of marketing and recruitment strategies into our volunteer application form, both paper and online, and into our volunteer database. With our online application and its checklist of possible ways volunteers heard about us, we don't want the volunteer to skip over any, so we ask for clarification.
        Keep track of this data. It doesn't have to be time consuming. It can be as simple as keeping a pad of paper by the phone and tallying it weekly or monthly. Often, our sense of what’s working is quite different from what’s really happening. It's important to keep data on your recruitment and marketing efforts to dispel any myths your agency may hold about who your volunteers are and what recruitment activities are worthwhile. Having said that, you still may not see immediate results from your efforts because your latest message may just be one of the multiple appeals that people need to hear before stepping up to the plate.
·        Exceptional Customer Service: What happens in your front office and your intake department is critical. Do you have pleasant, knowledgeable people answering the phone and responding to emails? Do they have the information to be able to answer questions? Do they get accurate messages and return messages promptly? It's important that your frontline staff are giving the same messages that your recruiters and marketing team give. If people are turned off by this initial contact or by contradictory responses, you may lose them forever.
       Our agency goes the extra mile by sending our interviewers and trainers to the volunteers' location if there is a group of people who want to get involved. We decided that if we answer any question about our agency with 'Because we've always done it that way' then that wasn't a valid reason to continue doing something.
       Our old thinking leaned toward the model that if people couldn't overcome scheduling conflicts and transportation barriers to getting to an interview or training session, or even to come to our office to fill out application and background check forms, then they were screening themselves out. This tends to be a view held more often by social workers than by marketing people! If you were selling cars and assumed everyone who just browsed and didn't immediately buy wasn't serious about buying, you'd be missing out on a whole lot of people who might buy a car from you later on. Any salesperson will tell you that you should rarely give up on people who've make contact with you.
       The time and money you've invested in getting that person to contact you will be wasted if you don't follow up with them and try to turn that inquiry into an application. We're not talking high pressure sales here, just friendly reminders that your agency is still here and still needs volunteers. For example, I donate blood but don't always make another appointment every few months. Canadian Blood Services always follows up with a quick phone call to ask if I'd like to book an appointment. I don't find this offensive. I WANT to donate blood. I appreciate the friendly reminder.
       These off-site interviews and training can work when you're trying to bring a new corporate supporter on board. They've also worked well for us at the University of Alberta, where many students don't have vehicles or are new to the city and live in residence. Just because they don't want to navigate bus routes to get to our offices doesn't mean they won't be a good volunteer, especially in the school program where they don't have to drive their little one to and from activities.
·        Exit Interviews: Does your agency conduct exit interviews, either formally or informally, to find out why a volunteer is leaving your organization? Do they know about other ways to stay involved with your organization or that you have an alumni association? Would they like to be contacted down the road to see if they're ready to be re-engaged, maybe in a lesser or different capacity than the role they're leaving?
·        Volunteer Feedback: Have volunteers ever complained about certain requirements of a volunteer position with your organization? Can the requirement be modified? For example, we used to insist that volunteers must make a one year commitment as a mentor. This eliminated a large number of college and university students who were only in the city for eight months. We now offer flexibility in how long and even how often mentors see their matches.
Another example is the interview questions we used in the past to screen In-School Mentors. They were the same questions used to interview Big Brothers and Big Sisters. When a senior told us he couldn't understand why we asked about his daughter's divorce just so he could go to school and read with a kid, it helped us realize we needed to tailor our interviews to our specific programs and use common sense. Just because we'd always done it that way, doesn't mean it was the best way.
We send satisfaction surveys to the parents and guardians of our Little Brothers and Sisters and plan to do the same for our volunteers. Especially important from a recruitment standpoint is to survey those people who contacted us but never became volunteers. We need to know why so we can improve the way we do things.
 
Jot down five reasons why someone should volunteer with your organization.
 
You have to know what your organization has to offer a volunteer. What’s in it for them? 
 
·        These might include learning new skills, meeting new people, expanding their network, the rewards of being a part of a team, gaining experience to add to their resume, helping others, sharing knowledge and skills, fun and laughter, free activities, exercise, etc.
·        Recognize that some people will never volunteer to work in a prison, and a person who will volunteer to work in a prison may not volunteer at a hospital.
·        Remember, some people do not qualify to volunteer in your program because the logistics are wrong. For example, if you need a driver on Tuesday nights, and your potential volunteer works Tuesday nights, you don’t have a match and all the cajoling in the world isn't going to change that.
·        There are some people who simply don’t volunteer for anything. They may have preconceived ideas about volunteering and you may never change them.
Publicity is not Recruitment
 
·        Surveys show the number one reason people don’t volunteer is that they were never asked. Informing people of your need for volunteers through brochures, ads, posters, etc. is part of the layering effect which creates visibility for your agency in the community, but recruiting is making the 'ask'.
·        Knowing this, we should do as much face-to-face recruiting as possible. We know, for example, that many of our new volunteers are recruited by a current or former volunteer or because they were directly asked by a staffperson.
·        Face-to-face recruitment offers you the opportunity to explore with someone whether or not they fit into your organization. You can have a dialogue. Maybe something they thought was a barrier to getting involved can be removed when you have a conversation. I often ask a person directly if they've ever thought about volunteering. If their response is no, I ask them why not? This gives me the chance to dispel any myths and misinformation and assure them that we try to be flexible in our enrollment process and in arranging a match with a child that fits their lifestyle and schedule.
        Recently at a career fair, a young woman said she thought you had to be a Big Sister for three years. Our conversation gave me a change to dispel that myth. Another man once told me he didn't think he could be a mentor because he had a criminal record. Another myth: it depends on what he did, how long ago and how he feels about it now. Of course, if he was convicted of a violent crime or a crime against a child, we could never accept him as a volunteer. But having a troubled past and recovering from it can give a mentor a much better understanding of where some of our Little Brothers and Little Sisters are now.
·        Individual contact and dialogue are always positive – even if the result is a no. Why? Because it's always flattering to have someone ask you to join. You're not begging. You're the bearer of an opportunity.
·        Who should make the 'ask'? This is very important. Like it or not, there is a level of charisma involved in successfully motivating people. Prospective volunteers will respond more to a spokesperson who seems warm, likeable and enthusiastic than to someone just going through the motions. It's a matter of attitude.
 
What are the various techniques you use to recruit volunteers?
 
If you're distributing a few hundred or a few thousand brochures a couple of times a year and sticking a poster up in a community center, you’ve only just begun the recruitment process.
 
Proven Recruitment Techniques
 
·        TV and Radio: Send public services announcements to TV and radio stations. Local stations usually have community calendars where they promote good causes.
·        Newspapers: Can you get a corporate sponsor to pay for you ad in exchange for having their name and logo appear in the ad? Have you sent media releases to announce awards your volunteers have received or special events you're holding? This can lead to free coverage.
·        Electronic Message Boards: Do any banks or car dealers in town have message boards on their signs? They'll often run public service announcements for free.
·        Ask to be a guest speaker at service club meetings
·        Displays at shopping malls, special events, trade shows, career fairs
·        Guerilla marketing means creating opportunities: politely infiltrate events or locales to hand out recruitment materials or put up posters. Even if your posters stay on the backs of public washroom doors for just one day, it might be worth it, esp. if you're promoting an event. Don't waste money on colour copies for guerilla postering. You can do the same by leaving materials on tables at colleges, food courts and other off-limits venues IF you're willing to risk a call from that facility.

You can usually only get away with such tactics once in a blue moon because after you've been informed that the practice is prohibited, you can't plead ignorance. For example, I once quietly handed out candy cards to students in a huge computer lab at the U of A. A staffperson came over to ask me to leave, but when I told her I was with Big Brothers Big Sisters, she allowed me to finish the room. A warm smile, a good cause and an attitude that you belong are key to successful guerilla tactics.
·        Create opportunities for conversations with potential volunteers by attracting questions, e.g. wear a lanyard (a name badge on a necklace showing your agency's name), a button (mine says 'I'm part of something BIG') or a big silly hat. Humour is a great ice breaker.
·        Targeted mail and email to your current volunteers, target groups, etc.
·        Investigate volunteer listings and job boards at colleges, churches, etc.
·        Referrals from clergy, colleges where applicants need volunteer hours, etc.
·        Special events: your own or piggybacking on others
·        Technology: include a recruitment message in your agency's voicemail, your staff's email signatures, web site
·        Recognition items: If you’re giving your volunteers thank you gifts or recognition items, choose something that will do double duty. A volunteer wearing one of your t-shirts is great publicity. So is a travel mug, a book bag, even a pen. Anything that won't sit at home on a shelf or in a closet.
·        Brochures, flyers, posters, etc.
·        When you use any or all of these techniques, think about your message, the medium, the audience, and the images and language you use.
·        Recruitment is a marketing exercise. You need to understand your product, i.e. your agency, and what motivates people to volunteer.
 
Where in your community would you look for volunteers?
 
The ability to identify where to find prospective volunteers is at the heart of successful recruitment.
 
·        Ask yourself where in your community you might find people who have the skills or background or characteristics that the volunteer job needs. Identify all possible areas in your community where you might recruit volunteers.

Brainstorming as a group will help you identify more possibilities. When brainstorming, there are no bad ideas. No discussion or criticism of ideas is allowed until you've run out of ideas. Then put everything on the table, discuss the merits and drawbacks of the ideas, and decide what you'll take on first. It's important to document all your ideas so you can return to them later, even if something doesn't seem feasible at the time.
·        Here's an example of brainstorming: If you need drivers, where do you find people who enjoy driving? (car washes, motor vehicle bureaus, drivers ed classes, gas stations, car repairs shops, taxi and bus depots, parking lots, tire and auto stores, car rallies, car shows, etc.
·        If you're in a city or urban setting, don’t look at it as one big city. Look at it as a collection of neighbourhoods. Draw a circle of resources: Take a map and draw a small circle around the immediate neighbourhood where your agency is located. Identify potential sources of volunteers in that circle.

Then continue to draw circles at ever-widening distances from the center and identify sources in each neighbourhood. Picture your neighbourhood as a bull’s eye with circles around it. Now do the following: If you're in an urban area, walk out your front door with a clipboard and pen. Take an inventory of potential sources of volunteers you see. Remember, it's sometimes easier to make contact with your neighbour than to approach people across the city. Also, you’ve removed a potential barrier to volunteering: lack of a vehicle.
·        Piggyback: If someone else has done all the work of bringing a lot of people out for an event, why not use that as a recruitment opportunity. If someone has organized a fair in your town with hundreds of people attending, is there a recruitment opportunity there?

We are often the only charity at trade shows and career fairs, but that may be part of the reason we're the biggest Big Brothers Big Sisters agency in Canada. The connection between a trade show and our agency is not always logical so we try to minimize staff time at these events unless the connection is clear: e.g. The Women's Show.

We tend to just leave our recruitment materials at a supporting organization's booth in the case of most trade shows. Career and job fairs are a different story: people looking for work are often highly motivated to volunteer because they want to gain experience and enhance their resumes. Even if the crowd doesn't contain a lot of prospective volunteers, it's often worthwhile being there just to talk to all the exhibitors about your need for volunteers.
·        Collaborations with other good causes: Think cooperatively, not competitively. Can you join forces with other organizations to do recruitment?

Can you ask other organizations in your community which have a volunteer program to remember you if they have a volunteer who does not meet their criteria? Can they refer them to you? If another organization’s time commitment is a barrier to a potential volunteer, but wouldn't be in your program, would they refer that volunteer to you? Likewise, you could do the same for them.
·        Is there a volunteer referral network in your community? Are your volunteer needs on record with them? If you don’t have a volunteer center, could you form one?
·        Does your agency routinely circulate information about your programs and volunteer needs to other agencies?
·        What about churches? Can you establish a good relationship with the local churches and clergy? Are any of your staff, volunteers or clients members of the congregation?
·        Universities, colleges, trade schools, etc. are an excellent source of volunteers because these students are usually interested in gaining experience and showing volunteer work on their resumes.

Some post-secondary schools require applicants to have a certain number of volunteer hours before they're accepted into the program, e.g. social work. We launched a BBBS Student Club at the U of A last year, which gives us the inside track on booking space at Club Sign-Up Fairs, Volunteer Fairs, and other campus events for which we weren't eligible in the past. It's also a way to activate your campus volunteers in roles other than the one they originally took on, e.g. postering, public speaking, recruitment.
·        Our agency has lowered our minimum age for volunteers – in supervised settings like schools or group activities – from 18 to 15 years. When we asked ourselves why our volunteers have to be 18, guess what the answer was: because we've always done it that way! We realized we were missing out on a huge pool of highly motivated volunteers: high school students.

Now we've progressed to the point where we form partnerships with the high schools to release those students interested – or those in a particular class where work experience or volunteer hours are needed or those in the IB program who need to demonstrate community involvement – for an hour or so each week to mentor a student at an elementary school. We've even arranged for yellow buses to remove the transportation barrier. We've also increased the likelihood that the mentors will follow through because it's part of their curriculum in some classes.
·        Public-sector organizations and corporations, from government offices to small businesses to multinational chains: It can hard to convince an organization they should back your cause unless you have a pre-existing relationship with someone in that organization.

Start with simple requests to do grassroots recruitment: Would they put up your poster in the public area? If the answer is no, keep asking until you give them something they can say 'yes' to: Would they put up your poster in the staff area? Would they put your agency's cards in customers' bags? Could you provide table tents to put on tables in a restaurant? Could you pay to print a restaurant's paper placemats and include you message?
This brings us back to the data you keep. If you keep track of where your volunteers and clients work, you need to mine that data. About 20 per cent of our new volunteers tell us they came forward because someone they know is involved with our agency, as a volunteer, a family member of a Little Brother or Sister or a grown-up Little Brother or Sister. I send a thank you card to each of these individuals named by new volunteers. You can ask those current volunteers and clients who are able ambassadors to open doors for you. Identify champions who can further your cause.
Remember to expand your message to organizations to include your agency's full menu, not just your need for volunteers. You may want to include financial support, gifts in kind like prizes for your events and fundraisers, free advertising, the opportunity to host brownbag lunch sessions to tell their members about your organization, etc.
·        Develop a volunteer recruitment workplan for your agency to help keep you on track. Be realistic in the goals and timelines you set. Identify key people who are responsible for moving the work forward. When planning each year, consider the annual cycle. Are there events where you need to register for a booth? In our experience, there are peaks and valleys over the year in volunteer recruitment. January and September are our biggest months. Document your efforts so you can consider where you want to invest your resources in coming years.
 
A few final points to remember that can impact your volunteer recruitment strategies:
 
·        Trends: Divorce, single parenthood, both partners in the workplace, blended families? How does this impact your recruitment efforts? It might mean there are fewer people with daytime availability or that parents trying to balance work and home life are less likely to volunteer. However, if you offer them opportunities to volunteer alongside their kids, that likelihood might increase.
·        Aging Population: Babyboomers are getting older. There's now a huge pool of active seniors with skills, mobility, and time, people in their 50s and 60s who've taken early retirement. Even in our 70s and 80s, Canadians are much healthier than we used to be. Have you targeted seniors to become volunteers? Keep in mind that lack of transportation, small print on application forms and recruitment materials, and background checks required may be barriers.
·        Demographic Changes: Our population is becoming much more diverse. Are you reaching people in all cultural groups? This is a challenge that we're making a priority in Edmonton because of the increase in new immigrants coming to Canada. We're making a point of becoming more inclusive.

That means including both kids who need mentors and volunteers to become mentors from more diverse cultural backgrounds. We're also making a point of reaching both kids and volunteers with physical and mental disabilities. For example, why couldn't adults with mild brain injuries be In-School Mentors to kindergarten children? Again, barriers might include lack of transportation, background checks, and lack of acceptable personal ID required for those background checks. Appealing to immigrants may mean rewriting your materials using simple English.
·        The Economy: It's been said that the hot economy is deterring people from volunteering, especially during the day when we need In-School Mentors. Some say it's because people are working longer hours and are less likely to be able to get away during the day. Also, people who may not have to work for a living may now be doing so because of the signing bonuses, share options, and other enticements employers are offering.

Credit: Big Brothers Big Sisters Edmonton and area
 

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Last updated: July 15, 2010