Realign Community Benefits

Your members need to evolve. What they were looking for when they joined your community may no longer be relevant to them now. Consistently providing members with value is key to getting them to renew their memberships.

Survey your members every six to twelve months on the challenges they currently face and how your community could be improved.?Surveying members gives you critical information from your target audience and also demonstrates that you are serious about meeting their needs. Map your members’ current needs with what your community offers to identify any gaps and areas of improvement.

Take things a step further by creating a rating system to determine how well each of your community's current features aligns with your mission and your members’ needs, how much it costs to run, its ROI for the organization, and how many unique members use it. And, don't hesitate to cut any features that no longer serve your members or the organization.

An online community offers an exclusive and branded private space for your volunteers to communicate with each other and your non-profit organization.?You can streamline all communication with your volunteers, sharing news, updates, and documents directly in the community.?

You can also segment volunteers into different groups and tailor the content you offer based on criteria indicated in their profile, such as location, team, and affinities.?By sharing the content that matters most to each volunteer, you can offer a more personalized and meaningful experience, stay top-of-mind, and drive volunteer engagement.

Online communities empower volunteers to directly reach out to your organization with questions, ideas, feedback, and more. By encouraging authentic two-way communication between your organization and volunteers, you demonstrate that you listen and care about what they have to say on a human level. Volunteers will understand that they have an essential role within your organization, strengthening their relationship with you and, ultimately, their loyalty to your organization.

You can respond directly to volunteers' wants, needs, and ideas while gleaning their unique perspectives to improve your organization and the volunteer experience. You can also encourage volunteers to share their experiences and insights with others in the community (more on this below).

Online communities unite people around a shared purpose in a safe and caring environment and often make us feel as though we are a part of something greater than ourselves. They provide volunteers unique opportunities to learn from, inspire, and encourage each other.

Volunteers can connect on both a local and global level to share best practices and help each other excel in their volunteer roles.

Say one of your teams is running outstanding fundraising events; you could encourage them to share their tips for success to help and inspire other teams in the community.?Some of your volunteers may want to develop specific new skills to grow personally or take on more responsibility. You may also have events and projects that require specialized volunteers.

You can use your online community to train volunteers by running training webinars directly within the community. You can store all training materials in the online community's media center, including training recordings and guides. You could also empower your most engaged volunteers to lead training sessions for the community. By allowing them to shape the direction of your programs, they become a more invested part of your organization.

An online community can be used to help recruit more volunteers. By enabling non-members to view past events and activities displayed in your online community, you can give them a taste of what life is like as a volunteer in your organization and encourage them to sign up!

An online community can help you manage your volunteer data and identify your most engaged volunteers. You can offer your super volunteers rewards for their loyalty by giving them special access in the community or more responsibilities such as inviting them to serve as volunteer ambassadors to help recruit other volunteers. Equally, you can also identify your least active volunteers and set up a strategy to re-engage them.

Virtual communities have blossomed in recent years and an increasing number of organizations are creating them to support their business goals.