Jonathan Poisner discussed trends in volunteerism, best practices for recruiting and managing volunteers including personal recruitment, recognition, and using volunteers to recruit others. He emphasized the importance of volunteer programs, systems to support volunteers, and moving volunteers to higher levels of engagement over time.

1. Volunteer Management
Presented by Jonathan Poisner
For the State Environment
Leadership Program
October 2011

2. A BOUT J ONATHAN P OISNER
S TRATEGIC C ONSULTING
Services:
 Strategic and Campaign Planning
 Facilitation
 Coalition Development
 Fundraising
 Communications
 Organizational Development
 Executive Transitions
 Executive Coaching

3. M Y EXPERIENCE WITH
VOLUNTEERS
 Before I became an Executive Director, I was a
grassroots organizer for the Sierra Club.
 When I became Executive Director at the Oregon
League of Conservation Voters in 1997, we had
maybe 50 volunteers, counting the board and
others.
 By 2008, we had more than 1000 volunteers do
some activity for OLCV in the calendar year.
 This took a sustained commitment to a volunteer
program and we learned some things along the
way that I’ll be sharing in this webinar.

4. W HAT WE ’ RE GOING
TO COVER
 Why Volunteers
 Recruiting Volunteers
 Managing Volunteers

5. W HY DO YOU WANT
VOLUNTEERS ?
 Important to know why since can
influence what type of program you set
up.
 Two important questions:
 What do you most want out of your
volunteers?
 What level of volunteer do you need?

6. W HAT DO YOU M OST WANT
OUT OF YOUR V OLUNTEERS
 My top potential reasons:
 To do the work staff just can’t get around
to doing (either back-end or
programmatic)
 62.8 million adults volunteering almost 8.1 billion
hours in local and national organizations in
2010, Source: VolunteeringinAmerica.gov.
 To be authentic voices
 As sources of local knowledge
 As sources of specialized expertise

7. W HAT LEVEL VOLUNTEER DO
YOU NEED ?
 Level 1: Participants
 Level 2: Activity Leaders
 Level 3: Organizational Leaders

8. R ECRUITING VOLUNTEERS
 Trends in
volunteerism
 Why people
volunteer
 Where to find
potential volunteers
 Techniques for
recruitment

9. T RENDS IN V OLUNTEERISM
 Participant volunteerism is up
 Organizational volunteerism is down
 Internships are up
 Bookmark interns as a special class of volunteers
and talk about it at the end of the webinar
Source: volunteeringinamerica.gov

10. W HY PEOPLE VOLUNTEER
 Concern about the issue
 Ideological or
 More directly personal
 Social connection
 Learn a skill/network (technical or
leadership)
 Personal connection to a staff member/other
volunteer

11. W HERE DO YOU FIND
POTENTIAL VOLUNTEERS ?
 People you meet and know
 List of supporters and donors
 Volunteer lists from allied or partner organizations
or political campaigns
 Tabling or clip boarding at local community
events or college campuses
 Online volunteer/community announcement web
sites and email lists.
 Via partnerships (e.g. with a church social justice
committee).

12. R ECRUITING PARTICIPANTS
 Personal asks are the #1 key.
 Supplement personal asks with online asks that
stress social benefits combined with urgency.
 The online is often priming the personal ask
 Or getting people at the right moment.
 Be specific. Potential volunteers respond better to
being asked to do a specific task at a specific time
for a specific purpose than a general “can you
volunteer.”
 Role play – have a script and practice it, but sound
authentic.

13. R ECRUITING PARTICIPANTS
continued
 Thank them right away – express gratitude.
 Ensure they understand what they need to. They should
be able to answer the questions: What am I going to be
doing? Where will I be doing it? When do I need to be
there? How long will I be doing it for?
 Turn participants into recruiters – always ask them if
they have two other friends who they can bring along.
 Do reminders. Day before at least an email. Better yet
are reminder calls – which can also be a volunteer task.
 Plan for a flake factor – of up to half for large-scale
volunteer activities, even with reminders.

14. R ECRUITING ACTIVITY LEADERS
 Personal asks from participants who show
promise, preferably in-person
 Personal asks of those with specialized skills to
be activity leaders.
 What happens in a leadership volunteer
recruitment meeting
 Form a personal relationship.
 Find out the why
 Set clear expectations

15. R ECRUITING
ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERS
 Definitely in-person meetings
 Even more detail on the expectations
 More of a mutual decision than pure
recruitment
 Don’t limit this to just board members
– think about whether there are other
long-term organizational roles for
which a leader can be recruited.

16. M ANAGING VOLUNTEERS
 Why do volunteers stay
 Best practices for managing volunteers
 Designing your volunteer program
 Systems that make volunteer
management easier

17. W HY DO VOLUNTEERS STAY ?
Statistics show around 1/3 of all
volunteers stop volunteering for a
specific group in the following year.
Top two reasons people continue:
 They like you.
 They are getting what they most want
out of the volunteering.

18. B EST PRACTICES FOR
VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT
 Recognition/Thanks
 Training
 Match to correct organizational activity
 Culture that welcomes new volunteers
 Allocate resources to support them
 Solicit their input sincerely
 Create opportunities for social
networking

19. D ESIGNING YOUR P ROGRAM
 Don’t underestimate the staff time necessary
 Create a volunteer recruitment/management
plan. Don’t do this ad hoc.
 Be conscious about moving people up to
higher levels. Have opportunities at all three
levels.
 Be creative in meeting organizational needs
with activity leaders if you can’t find enough
organizational volunteers.

20. Invest in Necessary Systems
 Databases matter
 Track potential volunteers and
volunteer interests
 Track volunteer activity
 Lists of past participants MUCH more
valuable than list of those potentially
interested
 Link to online sign-up is a big plus.

21. S PECIAL TOPIC :
INTERNSHIPS
 Increasingly accepted by young
professionals
 Recruit through college career
placement, through college
departments, and through job search
websites.
 Commit time for personnel
management of interns.

22. TO CONTACT ME :
 www.poisner.com – for email newsletter signup
 Twitter.com/jpoisner
 Via phone: 503-490-1234
 Via email: jonathan@poisner.com