Most frequently asked questions!
The Volaby team are always here to support you and your volunteers to achieve the greatest impact possible. This week, we answer some of your most frequent questions and suggest ways you can minimise the barriers to onboarding and volunteer participation.
1. How can we get more volunteers to sign up?
More often than not, potential volunteers can’t find a clear pathway to express their interest in volunteering and get discouraged. How do volunteers find your organisation? And how do they become a volunteer?
To maximise the traffic to your sign up page (or any expressions of interest forms you might have), we recommend the following:
- Include URL links to your sign up forms on your website and any volunteer related social media posts (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Include instructions for bookmarking your links on their device(s) (click this link to use ours for Volaby users) in your onboarding process (this can be added to your website or sent via email)
- Include this links in all volunteer communications sent to volunteers (i.e. anywhere a volunteer touches/sees your organisation, a simple Volaby link should help direct them back!).
For those using Volaby:
your organisation has a unique sign up URL (just need to grab it at the top!), sending your potential volunteers straight into the process of becoming a volunteer or signing if existing. Every URL is unique and will depend on the name of the volunteering organisation.
2. How do we give our volunteers all the information they need, in a timely and succinct way?
Many first time volunteers don’t know what to expect from an organisation, and this can stop them from signing up to an activity or committing to their roster. Informed volunteers are more likely to commit to a task. Here are something that we have found super helpful:
- Create a “Welcome Pack” for new volunteers when they join. With information about your organisation (in particular the volunteering operations), important numbers, emails or URL links to website they might need to use (you can also use this to set
- Create a monthly Newsletter – the more concise the better! Let them know what is new, what is interesting, something new to learn from and what they need to know moving forward!
For those using Volaby:
When using the onboarding process and activity function in Volaby, you can add the right information at the right times. To ensure your volunteers are feeling confident turning up to volunteer, we suggest you:
- Include a description for any task in the Volunteer Profile: Describe any task which is not self explanatory to someone outside your organisation. This might include defining what a ‘team leader’ is or where a volunteer can find their ‘receipt number’ for sign up costs.
- Add a description to your Activity: consider including a detailed description of the activity, what a volunteer needs to wear or bring with them, where to park, what to expect, emergency contact details of the activity manager, or what time to arrive for the activity.
3. How can we improve our impact data and reporting capability?
Demonstrating the immense value of organisational volunteering to your donors, supporter, senior leaders and Board starts with accurate and timely data collection. How does your organisation collect and present volunteer data and activity?
It may be worth establishing a best practice reporting process for your organisation. The first step in establishing this, determining who collects the data, and when. If you choose to have volunteers submit reports, this is a conversation best had as part of orientation so they are aware of this responsibility. Alternatively, management can fill in the reports. Regardless of who is submitting, the most important part of achieving quality and timely reporting, is determining who is responsible from the outset.
For those using Volaby:
You could consider delegating one volunteer to submit the report consistently (a team leader) or establish a method of rotating the responsibility so every volunteer has a turn. Setting up this practice and informing volunteers about it, prior to the activity taking place, will save confusion and inconsistency in reporting.
Who can submit a report in Volaby? Volunteers, managers and admins can submit a report. It is important to remember that only volunteers who have been rostered on to a specific activity, can submit a report for that specific activity.
Who can edit a report in Volaby? It is important to note that only Admins (with the highest level of permission) can create and edit reports. If a volunteer has already submitted a report for an Activity, another volunteer is unable to edit the report.
Have we missed something? Click here to let us know your questions and we will keep answering them in upcoming Volaby Voice editions!