3 Online Volunteer Recruitment Strategies Every Nonprofit Should Try
Maintaining a roster of reliable volunteers can be a challenge. In fact, 42% of surveyed nonprofit professionals report difficulty finding or attracting volunteers — especially those with the right skills for their organization’s needs.
If your nonprofit needs volunteers with specific skills and abilities, you might consider specialized volunteer recruitment strategies to reach them – but this doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to invest in new, expensive tools or outreach.
Your nonprofits existing social media channels and web presence – when leveraged strategically – can help you attract new, skilled volunteers. It all starts by defining the passionate doers and changemakers you want to rally around your cause, and then developing a plan to reach these individuals via your existing channels.
Use personas to find volunteers with the traits you’re looking for
The best way to start looking for volunteers is to define the type of skilled volunteers that you need. You can do this by creating ideal volunteer profiles, just like you might create ideal candidate profiles.
Start by meeting with everyone who’s going to be working with the potential new volunteers. Work together to define as many attributes an ideal volunteer might have. For instance, you could consider:
Skills
Education and certifications
Personal and professional experiences
Location
Age
Professional ambitions and needs
Personal interests and values
Other pages they follow
- Connections in common with your nonprofit or nonprofit team
Once you’ve put together a list of these qualities, use them to guide your online search. For example, you can search LinkedIn by job titles, experience, skills, industries, and more. Since LinkedIn members are more likely to be interested in volunteering than non-LinkedIn members, it’s a great place to start. You can also boost your search efforts with LinkedIn Recruiter, which allows you to use even more advanced search features and reach out directly to high-potential candidates.
Refine your ideal volunteer profiles by identifying candidates who match your criteria and noting common traits. Explore their networks to discover like-minded individuals and continuously improve your search.
Leverage your employer brand to attract volunteers
Your employer brand defines what you offer and why employees enjoy working with you, making it a key asset for attracting talent. When thoughtfully refined and applied, it can set you apart in recruiting volunteers, too. The heart of your employer brand is your employee value proposition (EVP). Your EVP is an overview of the benefits of working with your nonprofit.
As you leverage your employer brand to appeal to volunteers, consider coming up with a “volunteer value proposition,” (or VVP), specifically for reaching this target audience. Key elements might include:
Professional development opportunities and resources you offer volunteers
Hands-on experience volunteers could list on their resume
Opportunities to meet other like-minded people
- A chance to contribute meaningfully to a worthy cause
Once you’ve developed a compelling volunteer value proposition, you’ll be ready to use it as a foundation for all your content meant to engage or attract volunteers. For example, you could create regular posts celebrating your volunteers to thank them for their help, or interviewing them about their connection to your cause. You could include a “why you should volunteer with us” section in your volunteer applications that talks about how you give back to your volunteers. If you choose to invest in a LinkedIn Career Page, you can create a “Life” tab on your Page that lets you show off your organization’s culture, talent, and volunteer brand.
Maintain relationships with your volunteers online
A great way to show appreciation for your existing volunteers – while attracting potential new supporters – is by showcasing the contributions and impact of your current volunteer pool.
Whenever you share employer brand content that features volunteers (with their permission, of course), tag them in the post. Encourage your team members and volunteers to share these posts within their own networks to spread the love and drive more engagement. When a former or current volunteer shares or comments on the posts, take the opportunity to start a conversation. As the conversation develops, you could reach out with an upcoming volunteer opportunity and explain why they might be interested.
The more you use your online presence to foster a community, the more connected your volunteers will feel with your nonprofit. Do what you can to make your volunteers feel like the genuine, valued partners they are; and in the meantime, new potential volunteers will notice that pride whenever they come across your nonprofit online.
If you’re interested in taking your volunteer recruitment strategies to the next level with LinkedIn, learn more about discounts we offer to nonprofits to help them hire talent and volunteers.
