How to Master Volunteer Recruitment

Volunteers can make the biggest difference for some nonprofits when it comes to reaching their goals.

It is important to create a great list of volunteers you can count on to help get you across the finish line.

Although building a volunteer list can be tricky, we’ll give you six of the most effective volunteer recruitment methods you can use for your nonprofit!

Use email to recruit volunteers

Emails are an effective and free way to send out a mass request for volunteers.

If you have collected a list of supporters, asking them to take action and become a volunteer is a natural next step that they may be willing to take for your organization.

Some best practices and elements to include in your email to ensure its success are testimonies from other volunteers and success stories about accomplishing your goals.

Another is to try and match your organization’s branding in your email to ensure the supporter of who is sending them messages.

Also, include multiple calls to action in the text that will ultimately lead to a volunteer recruitment page. That means there are plenty of opportunities for readers to click the link and sign up to volunteer.

Text messaging for volunteer recruitment

An additional form of communication that you should consider for volunteer recruitment is text messages.

Text messages have proven to be a successful way to connect with supporters and ask for volunteers. There are two ways you can go about doing so, mass text and peer-to-peer texting.

Peer-to-peer texting allows your staff and existing volunteers can reach out to supporters with personal appeals to help your organization.

They can have personal conversations to better engage your potential volunteers and explain to them why they should contribute their time to your organization.

A mass texting service is great for sending out an appeal with a sign up link, or sending out reminders to supporters to sign up for an event.

This is a less personal approach, but is good for widespread messages that don’t require a direct response from the volunteer.

Make sure you have a well-designed landing page

A great way to collect information on your potential volunteer is by creating a landing page dedicated to recruiting volunteers.

You can then publish this page on different mediums to collect new signups and capitalize on interested supporters.

According to Volunteer Pro, when creating your webpage, there are a few things to keep in mind to optimize for higher conversion rates.

1. Include strong images on your page that give a good impression.
2. Include elements that build trust like testimonials or impact statements from past volunteers.
3. Add additional information by linking to other pages. There is no need to dump all information on one page. If you already have the information located somewhere else, add a link into the page.
4. Insert a clear call-to-action. Create a compelling message on why they should volunteer for your nonprofit, and ask the reader to sign up!

Anedot has a perfect solution for this! You can make lead pages that allow you to easily customize your page and collect the data you need for free!

→ Learn more about how Anedot can help your nonprofit.

Take advantage of social media

If your nonprofit already has social media followers, this can be an inexpensive way to recruit new volunteers.

All you need is a plan, some creative graphics, and a compelling message to be able to gain new volunteers for free!

You’ll be most successful if you create a social media strategy that targets the audience you want to volunteer and tailor your message accordingly.

Get familiar with your audience and learn what messages they respond best to and on which platforms.

→ Check out these 6 tips to jumpstart your nonprofit's social media marketing strategy!

Learn how to create a digital ad campaign

Ads are a great way of capturing the attention of people who may be searching for volunteer opportunities online.

Paid ads on social platforms like Linkedin and Facebook can put your volunteering opportunities in front of the people you want to reach.

There is a lot of strategy on how to create the best digital ads campaigns for your nonprofit. It can be very intricate or a more general plan, but having a direction for your digital marketing is essential to its success.

There are a few key things to keep in mind when creating your digital ad campaign to recruit volunteers.

Create ads that target the three reasons why people donate:

• For a cause
• By location
• The work they’ll be doing

If you create different ads sets that cater to those three components of your event, you will likely see higher conversion rates!

Pro-tip: If your nonprofit is tight on funds, you don’t need to skip the ad. Google’s Ad grants initiative gives registered nonprofits $10,000 in in-kind advertising.

Don’t forget about flyers and leaflets

Flyers and leaflets are an easy and relatively inexpensive way to spread the word about your volunteer opportunity.

If you are a local charity looking for volunteers, then strategically placing flyers or handing out leaflets could be a useful tool for you. You can even attach the digital version of the flyer to emails and ask your supporters to pass it along to their friends and family.

When creating a flyer or leaflet, make sure to give a brief description of who your organization is and what your mission includes.

You should also include details of the volunteer opportunity, so the volunteer will know what will be asked of them and when and where it will take place.

And finally, make sure you include your contact information, like a phone number or email address, where they can contact you for more details or to sign up.