To wrap up the week of before, during, and now after tasks for every volunteer opportunity at your nonprofit,I have identified three “musts” tasks for you to check off that are listed below. These posts are filled with suggestions for you, but, they also have been proven by our DonorLynk team to bring about the results you seek. Thanking the volunteer, surveying them, and then working hard to retain them can only improve your volunteer base, and attract first time volunteers to invest long term with your organization.
THANK YOU
Thankfulness never goes out of style. Following their time spent at a volunteer opportunity, use the automation available in a CRM (like Salesforce) to fire out a carefully crafted thank you message to all volunteers. Based on connections made on site, we encourage you to include pictures or video from the day, and thoughts as it relates to conversations had about their investment in your nonprofit.
SURVEY SENT
A few days following your thank you and their volunteering, send a survey to all volunteers, something with no more than 10 questions, to gauge their experience as a volunteer with your nonprofit. Just as your thank yous are kept in a CRM, store survey results here as well. This way, you have a reference point for what is working vs. falling flat with volunteers.
VOLUNTEER RETENTION
Now that the volunteer has volunteered, been connected with, been thanked and surveyed, it is now time to put all these good notes and memories together to retain this volunteer. Much like donor retention, understand that every volunteer is different so your retention strategy will need to be adapted frequently. Use a data management system to put your volunteer retention plan into a workflow, and assign certain groups of volunteers to different staff, so that it does not all fall on one person to check in with your dedicated volunteers.
DonorLynk fully understands the ins and outs of the many, many ways there are to manage your volunteers. We’re excited to learn the way YOU do things, and improve upon that! Contact us at 615-988-4600.
Marianna Woodruff is Director of Brand Awareness at DonorLynk, LLC. DonorLynk aims to provide nonprofits with tailored solutions that work for you, not against you.