Students are continuing to volunteer more and more as the years go on. But how can you continue to support the retention of your student volunteers during their time at university?
Get the opportunities right
Providing the right opportunities to present to your students, is of course, rule number one. Research shows that 95% of student volunteers are motivated by a desire to improve things or help people. This should be taken into account when providing opportunities for your students.
Try to remember that students have many different needs therefore a wide spectrum of opportunities will help recruit and retain them. It should also be noted that many students have other commitments running alongside their degrees. Commitments restrict the time students can volunteer, but by creating one of the opportunities, students have more flexibility and don’t have to commit to a specific time frame each week, making participation higher.
Engage
Engage students by promoting upcoming opportunities. Take advantage and use the connections in your university network as a platform to promote. For example, the student union, sports centre, and careers centre. This will then attract a wider range of students to your opportunities. Student union officer and also previous volunteers will also be able to spread the word of volunteering opportunities amongst students. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to get students volunteering.
Support and report
Consistent support and feedback will be essential to retaining your volunteers. Volunteers want to feel valued for their efforts.
Volunteers should be aware of who their first point of contact is and how to connect with them. Students first point of contact may be ambassadors, volunteer managers or the coordinators.
Besides members of staff and ambassadors, students should be given the option to join drop-in sessions with other student volunteers. This then allows students to meet and interact with new people who have similar interests.
But most importantly, just say thank you by any mean possible. You’d be amazed by the number of people who just forget those two magic words.
Keep students in the loop
Stay alert! Make sure to be in touch with interested volunteers within 24 hours of them making initial contact. To say thank you for showing interest in volunteering, and to let them know of any upcoming important dates which they could be apart of.
Don’t get beside yourself on no shows or last-minute drop-outs. Students are very busy, so continue to keep them in the loop for future volunteering opportunities.
Be meaningful and impactful, but you don’t need to be deadly serious all the time, loosen up a little. Create space for having a laugh and a banter.
If you want more information about how TeamKinetic’s volunteer management software can help you and your organisation, feel free to visit our website.
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