New Brunswick Non-Profit housing Association Annual Conference - 2012 Presented by Michele Brideau

1. Renewing your volunteer
base and engaging youth

2. Engaging and Motivating Volunteers
Volunteering is a gift of time, talent, skills and
experience.
Understanding why people choose to volunteer is
key to recruiting them
What are your volunteer recruitment challenges?

3. Reasons people volunteer
• Contribution to the community
• Sharing their skills
• Affected by cause
• Exploring self
• Networking
• Joining with friends
• Faith
• Job opportunities

4. Interesting Statistics
 93% of Atlantic Canadians volunteer to make a
difference
82% volunteer to share their skills and experience
63% volunteer because they are personally affected
by a cause
56% volunteer to learn new skills
53% volunteer to network and get to know new
people
25% volunteer for religious reasons and to access
new job opportunities

5. Using the top 8 Reasons
• List your volunteer task and opportunities
• Do they match up with the top 8 reasons?
• How can you improve your odds ?

6. Vision and Mission
• Here is a good place to start!
• Do you have a vision and mission
statement?
• Mission is what you do best every day
• Vision is what the future looks like
because you do your mission
exceedingly well.

7. Recruiting Volunteers
• Start close to home
• Volunteers want to contribute in their own
community
• Have an open house
• Get the word out – use local newspapers and
TV.
• Make room for social media

8. Creating new partnerships
• Build relationships with schools
• Start a referral program
• Use bulletin boards
• No. 1 reason people don’t volunteer?
• No one asked them to.
• A new twist on the business card!

9. Your organization’s elevator pitch
• Combine mission and vision statement
• Make it interesting and brief
• Print it out a copy for staff, board and other
volunteers
• Combine it with recruitment business card
• Offer incentives

10. Engaging Younger Volunteers

11. Engaging Younger Volunteers
• Younger volunteer to gain job experience and
new skills
• Younger people also volunteer with friends
• Younger people like to be asked to put their
own skills to work for others.
• Many colleges and universities in N.B. now
have mandatory leadership/volunteer
programs

12. Recruiting Younger Volunteers
• Facebook
• Twitter, Tumblr
• Texting
• Partnering with Schools
• Partnering with established Youth groups
• Making your environment Youth Friendly

13. Social Media
• Do you Facebook?
• Do you Tweet?
• Is your website up to date?
• Do you text?
• Social media is free but also takes time.

14. Getting started with Social media
• Facebook is your best option to start
• You must have a personal account to open a
Facebook page
• Does anyone in your office use Facebook?
• Include this in a future job description.

15. Myths and Facts
• Young people won’t go for it
• Older people are afraid of young people
• Two generations won’t be able to talk
• Respect will be an issue
• Older people are all the same
• Teenagers are trouble
• Older people are all senile

16. What it can do for you
• Younger volunteers can increase your
volunteer pool,
• It can bring in the expertise you need to
accomplish projects or other initiatives
• It is additional fundraising capacity
• It creates an enriching work environment
• It is good for the community

17. 5 powerful questions
• Why do you volunteer?
• Why do you want to volunteer with us?
• What do you wish to learn?
• How much time can you give?
• What would you like to do here?

18. Their vision VS your mission
• Volunteers quit most often because ‘’it wasn’t
what they expected’’.
• Make sure to ask the right questions
• Check in with volunteers
• Have volunteer leaders and/or coordinator
• Have position descriptions
• Be honest about what your organization needs

19. Volunteer Expectations
• Volunteers expect to be respected
• Volunteers expect to be informed
• Volunteers expect flexibility
• Volunteers expect recognition
• What are you doing to ensure these expectations are
being met???

20. Benefits
• Beyond the warm and fuzzies
• Learning new skills
• Meeting new people
• Participating on projects
• Being part of the decision making process
• Being part of a team
• References
• Networking opportunities

21. Retaining your Volunteers
•Best practices for managing
the volunteers you have
and keeping them starts
with good human
resources practices.

22. After recruitment comes retention
• Keeping track of your volunteers
• Interview each one or have someone from
your board or staff do this.
• Screening is required when volunteers work
with children or vulnerable clientele
• References are a good way to get to know
someone.
• Be straight forward

23. Tools to retain
• A system to track volunteer hours
• A quick way to reach volunteers
• A description of volunteer opportunities
• A business recruitment card
• Flexible schedules
• A volunteer coordinator
• Trial period
• A volunteer hand book

24. Orientation of Volunteers
• Create a volunteer handbook
• Do introduce them to everyone
• Offer a tour of the premises
• Give them a contact person, email or phone
number
• Include benefits, recognition and rewards

25. Benefits * Recognition * Rewards
• Yes, people volunteer to give freely of their
time, talents, skills and experience.
• However, everyone enjoys to thanked,
recognized and rewarded for their
contribution.
• What does your organization do?

26. Communicating with Volunteers
• A sense of belonging and loyalty comes from
knowing what’s going on and being part of
something.
• How often does your organization
communicate with volunteers
• How do you communicate with volunteers
• Social media, email and texting

27. Building bridges
• Between volunteers, staff and board members
• People who know each other work better
together.
• Bringing the cause and the people who work
behind the scenes together is a great combo.

28. Dealing with conflict
• And other problems that will come up
• Follow up immediately after complaint
• Write everything down
• Meet everyone concerned separately
• Ask the same questions
• Apply corrective measures
• Follow-up with everyone and communicate
clearly.

29. Getting started

30. People volunteer with and for…
•Organizations they
know!
•Tell your stories and
share your history.

31. Top 3 action items
•What can you do to
get started on
recruiting the
volunteers you need?

32. Any Questions ?