{"id":912,"date":"2016-06-08T12:29:21","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T11:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teamkineticuk.wordpress.com\/?p=912"},"modified":"2022-06-13T11:54:05","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T10:54:05","slug":"how-you-can-turn-every-week-into-international-volunteer-week-and-why-you-should","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teamkinetic.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/06\/how-you-can-turn-every-week-into-international-volunteer-week-and-why-you-should\/","title":{"rendered":"How you can turn every week into international volunteer week, and why you should!"},"content":{"rendered":"

While there are many types of volunteer opportunities, they all share something in common: the people donating their time want to be acknowledged for their hard work. Showing your appreciation to every volunteer can be difficult, especially across a large organisation. H<\/span>ow do you acknowledge the varying contributions they make? How do you even know?<\/span><\/p>\n

To start, your organisation needs to create a plan for thanking volunteers \u2014 no matter how many hours they contribute to your cause.<\/span><\/p>\n

Think about it: when an organisation hosts a <\/span>crowdfunding campaign<\/span><\/a>, they create a strategy for how they\u2019re going to acknowledge donors. From sending out thank-you letters via email to showing their appreciation on social media, there are multiple ways organisations thank donors. And the same techniques can be used to show volunteers you care. <\/span><\/p>\n

Through the support of volunteer management tools, you\u2019ll have a record of supportes who have volunteered. Use that knowledge to send out thank-you letters soon after a volunteer has donated their time. <\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, if you recently held a fundraising event with help of your volunteer workforce, you should show your gratitude publically by posting a thank you on social media.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, your organisation must look at how you are recognising volunteers within your senior management team and resource volunteering within your operational teams. D<\/span>o you have a person or persons with a responsibility for volunteering within your organisation at each level of management?<\/span><\/p>\n

It starts from the top. I<\/span>s there an acknowledgement at board level as to the importance of valuing volunteers? Bearing in mind you\u2019re a voluntary organisation! That would be a great place to start. We know that <\/span>when <\/span>volunteering is valued within an organisation\u2019s culture<\/span>,<\/span> you are much more likely to see amazing <\/span>results<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you have some sort of volunteer management in place, you need to consider how you identify and recognise those people who are the <\/span>\u201cdiamonds\u201d<\/span><\/a> for your organisation. These are the future volunteer leaders, those volunteers that operate over a wide range and number of volunteers and that inspire and mentor other volunteers.<\/span><\/p>\n

To spot these volunteer leader candidates, develop a role in your organisation that examines your volunteer workforce. This role identifies the data and information you need to capture, and understands what motivates your volunteers and then uses that knowledge to facilitate and enable volunteer experiences that are fulfilling and rewarding. <\/span>Read about our experiences in data insight<\/span><\/a> and what we consider to be the most valuable data or take a look at <\/span>the work of Join In<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve identified volunteers that could potentially become leaders, it\u2019s important to keep them engaged in your nonprofit. That way, your organisation can cultivate them into leaders who can manage and motivate others. <\/span><\/p>\n

DonationForce has a guide on donor engagement <\/span><\/a>to help you keep donors and volunteers involved in our organisation through incentives and competitions. <\/span><\/p>\n

Keep in mind: i<\/span>t is easy for organisations to fall into the trap of offering great rewards and incentives, but the key <\/span>is to invest in the right people r<\/span>ather than spreading it too thinly across too many individuals. Incentivisation is part of a successful volunteer team, but you need to know what your return on investment is going to be. Who are you spending on? What do you expect in return? Are you investing wisely? Having data on volunteer retention, cost per conversion, being able to map <\/span>an individual\u2019s <\/span>pathway from starting out as a helper through to running a county executive or becoming a head coach. This data ensures that you remain focused on finding those \u201cdiamonds\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally and we think most importantly you need to look at how you grow from a centrally administered and controlled volunteer programme, to one that is owned by the volunteers, <\/span>clubs, <\/span>and participants themselves. Any expanding and successful volunteer programme is partly the result of a <\/span>groundswell<\/span> of people from the bottom, not diktats from the top, you need to build volunteer leader infrastructure (by that I mean find great, motivated people and provide them with support, training and resources) that facilitates and enables your existing volunteers to help to offer more amazing, exciting opportunities to the next wave of volunteers. This is the virtuous circle of volunteer investment.<\/span><\/p>\n

So to recap we think the most important things you can do to help your volunteer programme grow all year round is to;<\/span><\/p>\n