Being a volunteer manager involves coordinating volunteer schedules, providing guidance through difficult situations, and setting volunteers up to find success. Ultimately, successful volunteer management stems from your ability to guide volunteers through their training to ensure they have the skills they need to perform their roles.
The volunteer training process includes how to perform specific tasks, such as the exact process for entering information into a database, and general information about how to be a successful volunteer, such as how to behave in an emergency situation.
To improve the training experience, follow these best practices to manage your volunteers during this process.
Use a volunteer management platform.
To assist volunteers throughout their training, ensure you know where each volunteer is in the onboarding process. With a volunteer management platform, you can track volunteers from their initial sign-up to their last shift.
Look for a volunteer management solution with the following features:
- Choose a volunteer management platform that comes with sign-up form templates and registration features. Embed sign-up forms into your website and integrate your content management system (CMS) with your volunteer management platform. Then, whenever a volunteer candidate completes a sign-up form, their data will be added automatically to your volunteer management system.
- Use scheduling and calendar tools to plan onboarding meetings and jump straight into assigning volunteers shifts after they complete their training. Look for tools that allow you to create repeating shifts and mass edit volunteer hours to reconcile them with events and activities.
- Stay in touch with volunteers throughout the training process to encourage them and answer any questions. Use a volunteer management platform that allows you to create email lists to group your volunteers based on relevant characteristics, such as where they are in their training.
Additionally, consider investing in a learning management system (LMS) that you can use to host online training modules. To integrate your LMS, volunteer management system, CMS, and other software, consider working with a technology partner familiar with your platforms. Integrating your solutions allows data to flow smoothly from one system to another, improving your information management and reducing data silos.
Establish volunteer policies.
As mentioned, the volunteer training process should include information on completing specific tasks and performing as a successful volunteer. You can help accomplish the latter by establishing clear volunteer policies early in training.
These policies include everything from stating that volunteers are expected to show up for their shifts on time to who to contact in an emergency. For particularly important policies, you may include a short quiz in your training to verify that volunteers read through and understand your policies.
You can make your policies clear and reinforce them by following these practices:
- Create a volunteer handbook. Double the Donation’s guide to volunteer management states that one of the five steps for effective volunteer management is preparing volunteers for success by providing them with the necessary resources and materials. Create a volunteer handbook that volunteers can refer to that includes your expectations for volunteer behavior and performance. This can be a physical booklet or a virtual PDF.
- Establish expectations during recruitment. In your volunteer recruitment materials, include information about what qualifications volunteers should have, the tasks they will be responsible for, and your organization’s expectations. This might include a description of your work environment and values, a brief outline of the volunteer process, and information on how volunteers who fall below expectations can improve. To keep your volunteer description positive and emphasize the benefits of volunteering, add information about what volunteers will gain in exchange for working with your nonprofit, such as skills they can bring to the workplace.
- Practice consistency. Maintain transparency and fairness by implementing your policies consistently. Ensuring your policies are aligned with your organizational values will create a sense of cohesion for volunteers and increase their trust in your nonprofit.
As volunteers complete their training, take note of any questions or feedback they provide on your policies. Their concerns and ideas can help you refine and develop new policies.
Create help channels.
While training to work with your nonprofit, volunteers may have questions about their training or your volunteer program. Ensure these volunteers know where to go to seek help and can find answers quickly by establishing help channels.
A few ways to ensure your volunteers find the help they need include:
- Adding a FAQ section to your handbook. In your volunteer handbook, add an FAQ that answers common volunteer questions, such as what to do if a volunteer needs to cancel a shift, needs help completing a training course, or is unsure what next steps to take after completing their training. Consider adding this information to your website on pages about your volunteer program, so potential volunteers interested in signing up will understand your expectations upfront.
- Creating self-service channels. Experienced volunteers can answer many of your new volunteers’ questions. Fíonta recommends using a tool like Salesforce Experience Cloud to create a community-based website where volunteers are encouraged to reach out to one another. Message boards on these platforms prompt volunteers to help each other with questions they may have during the training process while also providing an online place to chat and make friends before meeting up to volunteer in person.
- Providing contact information. Occasionally, volunteers will have questions they must bring directly to a volunteer manager. For example, a volunteer with an allergy to bees would need to get in touch with their volunteer supervisor to inform them about their EpiPen and ensure someone at the volunteer site would be able to administer it. To collect this important information and ensure it stays organized, consider creating a designated email specifically for volunteers to message with questions.
Designated help channels can be especially useful if volunteers operate remotely for part or all of their training. Easy to find, informative help reduces frustrations and ensures remote volunteers feel connected to your organization even while they are physically distant.
Your volunteers provide their time and effort to help your nonprofit. Set them up for success by facilitating a successful training process that empowers them with the skills they need and makes reaching out for help easy. After completing your training, send out volunteer thank you letters to congratulate them and officially welcome them to your volunteer program.
