Subject: How do we keep volunteers enthusiastic?
Hi,
I'm Charity Director at the Information Technologists' Company, the 100th City of London Livery Company. We run a very successful programme called IT4Communities.The programme provides a channel for the IT industry to help develop the capacity of UK charities and voluntary organisations, by putting IT professionals who want to volunteer their professional skills together with charities who need IT help. At present the service is free to charities and volunteers and since 2002 it has delivered £3.2 million, in volunteer time, to organisations across the charity sector. see www.it4communities.org.uk.
We are looking for ways to encourage our volunteers to be more engaged with us ( or for us to become more engaged with them!). As the service is managed over the internet, we don't really know our volunteers and of the 5,300 people on our database only about 10% do much volunteering. This is sad as, on average, as we always have more charity projects than volunteers to help them. Also, IT projects tend to only use one volunteer at a time, so volunteering can be a slightly lonely activity.
We think we need to create more of a sense of community, so that our active volunteers can pass their enthusiasm on to the less active and so that the volunteers can share experiences and support each other where necessary. We also want them to sread the word about what we do and help us grow. So we need them to feel that they are part of our organisation.
Does anyone have successful experiences of building a sense of belonging in their volunteer community - bearing in mind that we are very much a virtual organisation we have volunteers all over the UK and even a couple in Australia (who do their projects remotely)?
Thanks
Caroline
This comment was last edited on Feb 12, 2010
Hi Caroline,
great that you want to connect your volunteers. I think it is important that they feel part of something and can understand the contribution they are making. However, not everyone will want to connect with others, preferring to be isolated. So I think there are four goals:
- telling them about the organisation / their part in it
- helping them talk with others
- developing their skills
- turning them into ambassadors for your organisation.
Here are some ideas:
- regular email newsletter - updates about projects, new opportunities, volunteer profiles, IT quiz, competetions, volunteer of the month
- create a space for online communities on facebook (or equivalent) - could you find a volunteer to create and maintain this?, your own site or in second life
- online chat between new volunteers / established volunteers
- free training to develop volunteer's skills - online training / masterclass / surgery run by staff or super techie volunteer
- are your volunteers proud of what they do? Why not build a widgit / graphic for people to put on their websites / CVs to say 'I volunteer for IT4Communities'
- use the 10% - what do they want / how could they help build the community?
It might also be worth cleaning your data - write to all on the database asking whether they still want to be part of your community.
Am sure there are hundreds of other ideas out there and examples of what other people have done. Hope this helps as a starter for ten. Do let us know how you get on. Good luck!
This comment was last edited on Feb 12, 2010
Hi Caroline-
MelBelle has a lot of great information there.
I would add that you should first send out a simple survey to your volunteers asking them:
1. Where do they go online to connect with friends and family
2. Where would they want to connect with other volunteers (the same online spaces as #1 or on your website, etc.)
3. What else they would like from your organization (additional training, volunteer networking events, promotion like badges-either virtual or real- or other graphics, etc.)
Then you can have the information you need to decide if a Facebook group, a wiki, a customized Ning, or something else is the most appropriate for the group; and then go from there!
Also, CharityFocus is a virtual organization that coordinates volunteers to assist charities with IT needs. You may want to check it out and see how they are using the My Charity Focus part of their website to connect volunteers and grow the active network.
This comment was last edited on Feb 12, 2010
Each person volunter themselves for different reasons and a charity must try to connect these reasons with the charity though it will not be possible in every situation. The fundamental aspects of motivating volunteers is to respect volunteer and make them feel a part of the charity. Last week, I was speaking to a friend who is volunteering to a charity. She was surprised to find the level of low respect for volunteer among charity staff as well as making volunteers demotivated though simple office procedure. In this instance, the charity is spedning a lot of money (in my friends view) for unnecessary items but when it come to reimbusre volunteers travel expenses they could not decide how to do this in four months. Though my friend does not bother to get reimbursement but the the process make her sick. Often, I found that the charities are always focused about what they can get from volunteers but not vice versa and this infact create a condition of exploiting volunteers.
Golam Morshed
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