Volunteer Management: Turning Passion Into Long-Term Support

Association volunteers are key to delivering member value. From your board to your committee chairs to your conference speakers, association volunteers go above and beyond what people typically consider when they think of volunteers.

Volunteers are the people who truly power your organization. After all, volunteers perform 20-25% of an association’s work on average.

With that in mind, you need to do more than just manage volunteers. Instead, you must cultivate an enriching, positive volunteer experience that encourages high-quality work and helps retain their long-term support. Explore strategies for creating a reliable volunteer base that fuels your mission.

1. Create volunteer job descriptions.

If you want volunteers to take their roles seriously, treat them like actual jobs. Volunteer job descriptions formalize the recruitment process and help volunteers find opportunities that align with their expertise. Additionally, developing these descriptions allows you to clarify expectations for each role from the beginning, ensuring consistency and alignment between volunteers and volunteer managers.

These descriptions should include elements like:

• Role title
• Time commitment
• Key responsibilities

For example, let’s say you’re looking to recruit new members for your conference committee. The job description for this role may look something like this:

Role Title: Conference Committee Member

Time Commitment: 

• 2-3 hours per month for the 12 months leading up to the conference
• 10 hours for speaker proposal review
• 8 hours for the day of the conference

Key Responsibilities

• Brainstorming conference theme
• Advising on event budget
• Recruiting speakers
• Reviewing speaker proposals
• Acting as a session moderator
• Debriefing the event

This volunteer job description lets potential candidates know exactly how much time they’d need to dedicate and what they’d need to do, preventing any miscommunications about the role’s responsibilities.

2. Develop a formal onboarding process.

Once new volunteers sign up, teach them about your association so they know the context under which they’re operating. Help them feel more connected to your mission and informed about your association’s work. Develop an onboarding packet with the following information:

• Your mission and strategic plan. Summarize your mission so volunteers know what they’re working to support. Your strategic plan can also provide more in-depth information about how your association pursues its mission.
• Introduction to your board and staff members. Include quick bios and photos of key stakeholders at your association. Highlight which specific board and staff members each volunteer will work with.
• Goals related to their role. Let’s say you just recruited new members for your professional development committee. You may explain that this committee’s current goal is to launch a new networking program for members.

Additionally, give volunteers a calendar with key dates for your association as a whole and their specific roles. For instance, if your professional development committee has already planned the timeline for your new networking program, include the launch date.

3. Connect volunteer tasks to your mission.

Research shows that 39% of association volunteers think a better understanding of how their work fits into the association’s broader context would improve their experience. Remind volunteers that their work matters. Some tasks may seem menial or unimportant, but even small actions serve your mission.

Explain the deeper meaning behind volunteers’ work. While it may seem obvious to your membership committee that their role is to recruit, onboard, and retain members, they may not realize that many members rely on your association to identify new job opportunities, helping them further their careers and provide for their families.

Share member testimonials and stories to illustrate volunteer impact. For instance, you may tell the story of a member who found your association through your membership committee’s outreach efforts and ended up starting a successful new business venture with a fellow member. This type of story helps volunteers connect their work to real outcomes and better understand how they contribute to your association’s community.

4. Recognize volunteers often.

Volunteering can be a thankless job, but your association has the power to change that. Recognizing association volunteers’ hard work and dedication shows that you appreciate them and are invested in keeping them around.

Use a combination of public and private recognition strategies to thank volunteers, such as:

• Newsletter spotlights
• Awards
• Social media shoutouts
• Handwritten thank-you notes
• Thank-you calls
• Gifts

Align your appreciation tactics with volunteers’ preferences. For example, while one volunteer may enjoy having their photo and quote in your monthly newsletter, another volunteer may feel more touched by a personal thank-you call.

5. Don’t be afraid to ask them for donations.

Did you know that 85% of volunteers also donate to the organizations they volunteer with? Many associations overlook volunteers as financial contributors, but they’ve already shown dedication to your organization. Even if some started volunteering as a way to contribute nonmonetarily, they may feel more open to donating after becoming a volunteer.

Start by acknowledging their gift of time and seeing if they’d be open to giving financially with an appeal that opens like:

You are one of our most dedicated supporters, having donated over 100 hours of your time to our association in the past year alone. Given your in-depth understanding of our mission, we wanted to see if you’d be interested in joining our new giving circle as a founding member.

Instead of making a stark distinction between volunteers and donors, an appeal like this recognizes the value of volunteer support and asks volunteers to extend their current commitment, focusing on the difference they’ll make instead of the transaction itself.

If volunteers aren’t receptive to donating at this time, that’s okay—but you’ll never know until you ask. Just make sure to note which volunteers have expressed disinterest in giving in your volunteer management software to avoid reaching out to them with another request.

6. Solicit feedback.

Keeping volunteers engaged requires personalizing the volunteer experience as much as possible. Soliciting feedback shows you care about each volunteer’s individual experience and want to make it worthwhile. Use volunteer surveys to:

• Check in with how they’re doing. Have volunteers rate their current experience at your organization and whether they’d recommend it to a friend or colleague.
• See if there are any challenges they’re facing. Let volunteers open up about roadblocks within their roles so you can reach out to them to solve any issues together.
• Ask if they have any new ideas or suggestions for improvement. For example, a conference committee volunteer may suggest extending the speaker proposal submission timeline to provide more time for potential speakers to prepare between conferences.
• Collect their task preferences. Ask volunteers if there are any tasks they particularly enjoy or if they feel they’d be better suited for another role.

Once you’ve collected volunteer feedback, Bloomerang Fundraising’s volunteer management guide recommends “highlighting the changes you’ll make in response to their input” to show them that you’ve deeply considered their answers.

As volunteers become more invested in their roles and your organization, include them in the volunteer recruitment and onboarding processes as much as possible. Seeing how much current volunteers enjoy partnering with your association will inspire prospective volunteers to participate and become long-term contributors to your mission themselves.

Need help with your volunteer recruitment plan or your association’s strategic plan? Contact us today to see how we can help your association change the world.