Top Tips For Volunteer Recruitment and Management
These tips were shared as part of the Resilient Communities Series, a collection of free online workshops created in partnership between All The Elements and YHA Outdoor Citizens. The event series was funded by Sport England Together Fund and inspired by the things you’ve told us you need to support and strengthen your work.
The event featured panelists Katy O'Neill Gutierrez Founder of Blaze Trails CIC, Lisa Badji of Black Girls Hike CIC, Tasha Thompson of Black Girls Do Run UK and Bryony Cross who is Volunteer Programmes Manager The Royal Parks.
In this blog post we’re highlighting some of their top tips for working with volunteers, you’ll also find the full event recording at the bottom of this page and all four events from the series on our YouTube.
What activities can volunteers help with?
There are many different ways you can ask volunteers to support your organisation. The panel were at different stages of working with volunteers, but they all highlighted the importance of volunteers in their work.
For Tasha at Black Girls Do Run, the core team is made up entirely of volunteers, and therefore all volunteers are quite adaptable with what they do. “It looks like we just turn up and run and have a good time, but a lot of stuff goes on in the background to actually turn up and run and have a good time.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Royal Parks has over 2,500 registered volunteers alongside paid staff, and volunteer roles can be based around more specific tasks.
Some of the tasks volunteers might be involved in are:
Leading hikes and runs
Engagement with visitors
Horticultural activities like weeding
Scheduling events on a booking platform
Peer support
Social media posts
Making graphics
A take-away from the session is that there is no one-size-fits-all! Think about why you might have volunteers as part of your organisation.
It’s also worth thinking about the aspects you don’t want volunteers doing. Lisa said with Black Girls Hike she’s “trying to make sure that on the backend I'm doing the boring stuff… so that they [the volunteers] can really focus on creating that lovely experience”.
What are the benefits of volunteering?
It’s probably obvious that volunteers can help you, but there are also many benefits for the volunteers. “Volunteering should be, as much as possible, an equitable exchange” says Bryony, “you as an organisation are getting input from someone, but that volunteer is getting something back too”.
All the panel mentioned the mental and emotional benefits of contributing to a community. “Being a volunteer of Black Girls Hike is an amazing way to connect with other black women from all walks of life, from all levels of experience in the outdoors” Lisa said.
Other benefits can relate to learning skills as part of personal development. Katy said this was especially true for Blaze Trails as people were in a transition period. “If you're on parental leave of any form, having the opportunity to learn new skills and feel effective, building that self-efficacy has a huge impact for people's confidence… it offers them the chance to skill up in areas they didn't have before, just purely by volunteering.”
And sometimes you might be able to offer more tangible benefits, such as gear or qualifications. For example, Black Girls Hike very recently became a training provider, and Lisa said she hopes a staple volunteer benefit can be “amazing quality training that they might not have been able to access and also training that's tailored to them and their needs where they live”.
Recruiting volunteers
Being clear on these benefits can help you when looking for volunteers. The panel was asked how they went about recruiting help. “Our first port of call for volunteers is going to be within our community” says Tasha “they understand and they're already part of it.”. Who within your community ends up volunteering will be based on what you ask for. “I think most of the skills that we need are already in our community, so we don't necessarily need to go outside of it.”
But the panel stressed that it was important to be really clear from the start about what a volunteer can expect from volunteering with you. This is especially true when trying to recruit from outside your core community. This is more likely with a bigger organisation, where people may have different reasons or expectations for volunteering. Bryony said “we have to be really clear about what volunteering with us is going to be like to really just ensure that everyone's happy when they're volunteering with us.”
When asking for volunteers, try to give as much information as possible. Bryony also mentioned the importance of language, and the legal aspects of volunteer work. Using the word “role” instead of “job” separates it from paid work, and “it would be nice if” rather than “you are expected to” shows respect to your volunteer.
Getting organised
When you work with a larger number of volunteers, the panel suggested putting in processes and systems. Katy said “because we've got so many organisers now it's even too much for an Excel sheet”. It can be useful to invest in some Volunteer Management Software. “And what's brilliant about having that system is that because I'm now not the only person managing our volunteers - we've got colleagues now that do that as well - it means that as a team, we can keep track of everybody that we're supporting in one place” Katie also pointed out that using specific software is also better for aspects such as emergency contacts if something were to happen and following data protection and GDPR rules.
Some software that were mentioned are:
Hubspot
Team Kinetic
AirTable
Another suggestion for getting organised was having FAQ documents or guides for information that is needed a lot. You can give these to new volunteers to digest in their own time.
However, if you’re only working with a few volunteers it might be easier to keep it simple! Tasha offered an alternative option sharing “We just use WhatsApp” because there are “only five of us in the group, so it works at the moment.”
Managing Volunteers
Having organisation tools and systems in place can be really useful with managing the logistics of volunteers, but the panel also talked about the importance of personal connection and communication. This can be one of the most challenging aspects, especially as the amount of volunteers grows. “My advice is just be clear and just really communicate with your volunteers” says Bryony.
This can take time to make sure the communication is personal. “I'd say as well as the practical stuff and the admin, it's really about taking the time with the volunteers and having that personal connection so they felt that they can always contact us for help” said Katy. But she went on to say, “That does mean that we then have to have the core team to be able to support that” and warned about the dangers of over-committing. “Honestly for about two years every evening on the phone with a different person around the country coaching them... And that got too much”.
This relates to another aspect of managing volunteers mentioned by Tasha, which is remembering that “it's volunteering, so what you can give sometimes differs. So sometimes when the volunteers can't commit to doing X, Y, Z, it lands on one person.” Having back up plans in place can help to mitigate when volunteers don’t have the same capacity week on week.
Health and safety considerations
That duty of care to volunteers extends to physical health and safety as well. “The law… I think it can put people off getting volunteers” Bryony said, but it’s important when working with anyone to have the proper paperwork for aspects like risk assessments.
The NCVO https://www.ncvo.org.uk/#/ (The National Council for Voluntary Organisations) provides resources and training on these aspects to charities, community groups, voluntary organisations and social enterprises working for the benefit of others. Membership is free if your annual turnover is less than £30,000.
Final advice from the panel
Before the end of the conversation, the panel were invited to end with their key piece of advice. This is what they said:
“...whether you have a few volunteers or a lot of volunteers, just enjoy it! It is so, so valuable working with people who have loads of different skills and ideas, and I've learned so much from my volunteers, and I think a lot of our programmes have improved and developed because of our volunteers. So really listen to your volunteers because they bring new perspectives and they make your programmes and your organisations better. Definitely… So that's me just saying I love my job” - Bryony
“I would say don't be afraid of things not being perfect because people just enjoy community and what you're about, what you stand for, what you're trying to do. And we can get so caught up in perfectionism and having things in place before we can do things. I'm a very big believer in starting where you are and using what you have and just growing from there.” - Tasha
“I think that I massively underestimated just how much our volunteers would care about stuff that I maybe thought was a bit boring or things that I thought they wouldn't want to be updated on. And actually our volunteers care so deeply about the new partnerships we're involved in. Just operationally, how's it going at Black Girls Hike? They care about our team, the visibility that we get in the press. So that's definitely something for me is to make sure that I'm being super transparent about how I communicate, and also to not be afraid of asking volunteers for their views and help and advice… We have almost 9,000 members of Black Girls Hike. There's a lot of people, but that group of 30 really tell us so much about what they're experiencing on the ground, and that for me is the best way to make my decisions about how I choose to go forward and do my volunteer management.” - Lisa
“Ultimately we're all volunteers. Most of my time I get paid a very small amount. Most of my time is voluntary. So asking for help, being really open about that and honest and saying, I don't really have the answers, but I think we go down this route, could you help? And allowing other people to run with some of that.
The other thing I think, which might be a controversial point, is that I also don't want people to always remain volunteers. And I think particularly coming from the point that all of our volunteers are women, when it comes to the nonprofit sector and to volunteers generally the vast majority are women who are doing more unpaid labour… if you are trying to grow as an organisation and be sustainable, some of your core team won't always be able to be volunteers. It's also about acknowledging that and trying to pay them their value of what they put in because sure enough, there will be corporates and big charities that will be paying people full-time wages to do these jobs. So if we can try as small organisations to try and do that as well.” - Katy
A huge thank you to our panel for their time and knowledge and to all who attended. Listen to the full conversation through the recording below! If you have further questions about volunteering please do reach out through our contact page or email hello@alltheelements.co
