What are the most effective strategies to keep volunteers engaged with your organization's mission?

To recruit and retain good volunteers, you need to make them feel apart of the organization, and utilize their skill sets to get the best work from them. It starts with building a clear expectation and communication for each volunteer you recruit.

Meaning is a key motivator for many volunteers. To keep them engaged, leaders can help to fuel that sense of meaning. They need to feel they really matter and their work makes a difference, and having that need met can be very motivating. Anything leaders can do for them along those lines will help to keep them engaged. That might include simply giving them time, appreciation, recognition, job crafting, and building clarity of purpose.

Knowing your service makes a change!. Whether it’s for a day, a week or longer, the satisfaction in knowing you were a part of CHANGE motivates fellow volunteers or future volunteers.

This is a very valid point, understanding the interests and goals of the volunteers is key in the roles and contributions they will make to any organisation. This interaction helps in identifying potential skills and areas of interests and enables you to harness them appropriately

Identifying effective volunteers for your organization is to be clear about the vision, mission, and goals of your organization and how those items translates in the actual work that volunteers are tasked with. The end result is a clear and concise jib description outlining the tasks and impact of each service opportunity. During the application phase, you should include personal interviews to learn more about prospective volunteers and what their motivation and reasons are for choosing your organization. Ask detailed questions such as what do they hope to achieve through service and what type of service would they not want to engage in. It's better to know whether your agency is a good fit before they begin.

1. Meaningful Tasks: Assign volunteers tasks that match their skills and interests. Provide clear instructions and seek their feedback to ensure their roles stay meaningful. 2. Engage with Society: Let volunteers see the impact of their work through field visits, success stories, and community events. Foster collaboration between volunteers and the beneficiaries. 3. Community Appreciation: Recognize volunteers publicly, offer certificates or awards, host appreciation events, and share feedback from beneficiaries to show their contributions are valued. This boosts motivation and commitment.

The best ideas often come from the front line - the people doing the work and interacting with beneficiaries. To ensure these ideas are heard and considered: 1. Create an easy way for volunteers to submit ideas or share them 2. Have an open door policy so people know they can bring new things up 3. Consistently ask for people’s ideas, to demonstrate that the policy is not just for show When volunteer’s ideas are heard, they feel part of the action and develop a stronger bond to you, the leadership, and the organization.

Often volunteers are unfamiliar with aspects of an organization outside of their particular area of interest and involvement. You should invest in educating and informing volunteers about the entire organization and how the various departments and resources work together to strengthen their work. Having more of a 360-degree understanding of an agency provides volunteers with a deeper affinity and connection and translates into a longer relationship between your volunteers and the organization.

One thing I have found helpful as a SAR Team Manager is to build relationships with volunteers both new and experienced and also to encourage others to do so. Volunteers attend/joun for many reasons, but to help and feel valued is at the core of all volunteers. To build relationships between members ensures comraderie and an understanding of both the organization and the mission goals as well as how to best to achieve them by fostering new ideas and promoting mentorship within the group.