Can you afford to miss out on the enthusiasm and energy of the youth today? Although, this isn’t a one-way street, many teenagers and younger adults need volunteering experience to help them with future employment to broaden their social networks and develop key life skills. Volunteering in youth boosts academic achievements, health and well-being and teens who participate in an organization that strives to make a difference are more likely to say they will attend higher education. 

Despite the many benefits volunteering can clearly have on our young people, organisations still struggle to engage this audience. But hopefully, after reading this you might be able to capture some of that enthusiasm and energy for your organisation!

Be a Known Presence

Visibility for any organisation is always going to be a contributing factor for success, no matter how big or small your organisation is. So, getting on the radar of teens and young adults can help increase your reputation and volunteer numbers. Here are a few ways you can do this…

• Attending or hosting events in further and higher education facilities will certainly heighten your visibility and will help get you talking to this youth demographic. Many universities have events and partnerships with 3rd sector and community businesses. For example, some universities will have connections with their city councils to help find students volunteering roles. 
• Connect with social media managers at colleges and universities, as most universities have a large social following of past and present students, any posts on their socials are sure to get a loud response.
• Getting current young volunteers to post their experiences with the organisation to help increase awareness. Using personalised hashtags (#) with your organisation’s name will help increase your popularity amongst the youth. 
• Be prepared, post your opportunities well in advance. Post on to local volunteering sites, and with colleges and universities. Try to find where your audience’s presence is.
• Be sure to state teenagers and young adults are welcome, they tend to like that!

Speak The Language of The Enigma

Don’t worry, we’re not going to be teaching you youth slang, ‘WYD’ and ‘LOL’ are firmly not on today’s agenda. However, social media is a major form of entertainment for young and old with ‘almost 4.57 billion active users globally in April 2020′. That’s ‘9 out of 10 teenagers aged 13-17 [who] use social media platforms’.

Social media is a huge way to keep in contact with this generation, here’s how…

• Most young people, including myself, would much prefer to do everything via our phones, book a table, book tickets and sign up for volunteering roles. Giving teens this opportunity will increase your amount of volunteers. 
• Reaching out on social media is one of the best ways to interact with teens. With Facebook being the highest used platform with 77.3% of 15 – 25-year-olds using it, to Twitter being the least-used platform with 48.6% using it. Create your social media pages on the most popular sites so you can reach out to the youth of today. 
• Know your audience. Create events and opportunities specifically designed for teens and young adults. Having a role which is attractive to the younger crowd will give you that boost in numbers you need.

Stay Engaging

Getting the youth market to fixate on something is tricky. Most young people tend to lose interest when something becomes well… boring. So engaging is essential and can help retain younger volunteers and recruit new ones. Take a look below at ways you can do this.

• Give young people a voice. Allow younger volunteers to be a part of the team when planning. This will help give your organisation a better insight into the mindset of your younger volunteers.
• Teens and young adults tend to prefer working more creatively, so motivate them, let them develop new ideas and be supportive of the things they want to try. Always encourage, be open and create an environment where their ideas are respected.
• Make events and opportunities fun! It’s simple. You could include music, time to socialise, creative activities and the chance to work with friends. Use your existing youth volunteers and imagination to help make your event or opportunity more fun.
• Sell your opportunity or event as interesting and exciting. Gloss it up a little, identify key roles and outline the responsibilities that the volunteers will have and how it may help that volunteer develop that all-important experience they desire. 

Pulling Down The Barriers

Finding time to get to know your volunteers can be tricky especially when you have a million and one other things to do. getting to know your younger volunteers might seem a bit tricky, working out how you can relate, but here are some simple ideas you could try.

• Get to know your volunteers. You can do this by saving 10 minutes to talk to one or two volunteers. Get to know what they like and don’t like, what interests them, and why they are there. 
• Communication is key. Be available and be welcoming.
• Update and make yourself a known social presence. Create a mailing list of youth volunteers who might want to be emailed, and send out a weekly email or blog sharing stories of success and great efforts. 

How TeamKinetic Can Help You!

So, I can only assume you are wondering how on earth you will be able to do all of this and still manage ALL other volunteers. Well, TeamKinetic is here to help. With TeamKinetic you will be able to manage all of your volunteers in one convenient space, giving you more time to focus on promoting to new volunteers. 

You can also:

• Create and manage opportunities
• Send bulk emails to certain groups
• Gain unlimited volunteer registration (no cap)
• Internal email communications
• Volunteer opportunity feedback
• DBS checks
• Reward and recognise your volunteers

The software gives your volunteers the chance to sign up online to volunteer roles, log their own hours and leave feedback. They can also then post via socials the volunteering they have done which will attract more volunteers. 

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