How to enroll more volunteers

I recently hosted an event for my community and signed up 225 volunteers for a two-day fundraiser. I would love to share with you the steps I took to achieve this success.

First a note on creating success and building positive relationships, then we get down to business. My experience is that you can do all the right things, but if you don’t come from the right energy, you won’t experience positive results.

The most common energy that I see nonprofits, businesses, and entrepreneurs getting stuck in is despair. When this energy is behind all your actions, your actions become less powerful and can be perceived as predatory and selling. This is never the warm and inviting invitation you want to send to your community or prospects.

This means that your first order of business is to line up. I have other blog posts on how to do this if you are interested. When you achieve this alignment, you can gain a boost in trust, mutual benefit, and collaboration.

Now, a quick note on relationships to ensure your next event or endeavor is successful. Here’s the big secret: it’s all about relationships. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing or what you’re selling, it’s the relationship that matters. Investing authentically in the relationship by genuinely caring about the people you interact with (yes, every contact) will allow your business or organization to prosper. Besides taking care of your contacts, the second part of a relationship is sharing, being vulnerable, open and honest. Even in the professional world, I suggest you check your emails, letters, and phone scripts to include a space for you to share about yourself and learn more about your prospects.

Okay, and now we go to the actual ‘to do’ list to sign up volunteers:

1. Set up Signup Genius and list all your volunteer shifts in an organized way. Include as much detail as possible.
2. Email your event information and the Signup Genius link for your event to your existing volunteer email list.
3. List the description of your volunteer need on all the volunteer sites in your area (you can Google this to find the websites in your area). For my area, these are the two most popular, Volunteer Connect and Volunteer Match.
4. List your volunteer work on Craigslist (and any other “job seeker” site in your community. Be sure to check out Facebook Groups, as most communities have a closed Facebook group that you can join.
5. List your volunteer work in the local college job board. You can also reach out to any professor (in your niche) and ask if you can have 5 minutes of your class to talk about your mission and volunteer opportunities, or if they will distribute information for you.
6. Contact the organizations in your network (which also have volunteers) and ask them to email your contact list with their volunteer job descriptions.
7. Contact all service clubs (Rotary, Elks, Soroptimist, Kiwanis, etc.) with your request. These groups often look for ways to be actively involved in the community. If you plan well in advance, you can even come and speak at one of their meetings.
8. Depending on your organization’s mission statement, contacting churches can also be a great source for recruiting volunteers.
9. Create a poster to sign up volunteers. Make sure your organization’s mission statement is clear, communicates the feel of your event, and clearly explains how volunteers can help. Also, make sure you have your website and your contact information.
10. Get a list of the largest businesses in your city (usually available online or at your local library) and contact each business. You can offer additional benefits to your company by volunteering as a team (such as adding them to your website or showing them off on social media). You can also request that a poster be displayed in your break room.
11. Join local Facebook groups and then post about your event (including volunteer information) in the group. Communities often have specific groups designed to help others. These are great groups to post. So far, I have found a ‘Pay Forward’ Facebook group in every community where I have had a business coaching client.
12. Make 2 to 6 different funny pictures asking for volunteers (example here, here and here) to post on all your social media channels (repeatedly). You can also pay Facebook to promote these posts.
13. Email your contact list and ask them to republish or share previous Facebook posts on their personal and / or professional pages.
14. Create a Facebook event and chat about the event in the discussion area during the days / weeks leading up to the event. This is a great place to share quotes about volunteering, share your mission, or share photos of past events.
15. List the event on every event site in your area. You can Google the ones that are in your area. (Here are a few I use for Bend, Oregon) At the bottom of the list for each event, make sure you have your volunteer application information and your Sign-up Genius link.
16. Go door-to-door to smaller businesses in your area and speak with them in person to sign them up to volunteer for your event / fundraiser / organization.
17. Everyone loves stories about communities coming together for a cause. Write a press release with this topic as the backbone and send it to local newspapers and bloggers. Be sure to include how community members can volunteer in your organization.

Extra items!

1. Every time a volunteer signs up, send a quick email thanking them and letting them know how excited you are to meet and work with them.
2. Send thank you cards or make thank you phone calls to all of your volunteers after your event. Letters and emails work too, but they are less powerful. Be sure to save the contact information for all of your volunteers so that you can reach them the next time you need them!
3. Create social media posts acknowledging and thanking your volunteers publicly.

Feel free to contact me with any questions, suggestions, or just to share a story.

Good luck!