The theme for this years’ International Volunteer Manager’s Day (IVMDay 2021) is ‘What is Excellence? – Pushing us beyond the ordinary’. When I think of excellence in our field and the actions which push volunteer programs beyond the ordinary, I think of engagement with our volunteer communities.

At its core, engaging volunteers requires building strong relationships which create positive outcomes for ourselves as individuals, the volunteers, our organisations, and our communities more broadly. The danger is insincere engagement is easy to spot and can be deeply harmful in undermining our volunteer programs. As such, this blog post explores some of the considerations and methods for developing and facilitating meaningful engagement with our volunteer communities.

Setting a Clear Purpose and Understanding Context

An important starting point when planning engagement with volunteers is to determine the purpose for the engagement. What is it you are looking to achieve and what benefit will your volunteers gain from the engagement? Are you looking to communicate or consult, are you seeking input or advocacy? Are you trying to influence and initiate change or reinforce existing behaviours and practices? Having a vision of the outcomes you are seeking to achieve by way of a clear purpose allows for targeted decision making to craft the most appropriate approach and engagement strategies.

Equally, understanding the context is just as important to ensure you are engaging in the most effective way for the specific audience. Some questions to consider include the following:

• What level of awareness do the volunteers have about this topic?
• What is being discussed?
• How important is this topic to your organisation?
• How important is this topic to this group of volunteers?
• Are there specific people or groups who need to be included in this engagement?
• What are the key outcomes required for this engagement?
• What is the current climate like (supportive, adversarial etc.)?
• Will your message likely be viewed favorably or unfavorably?

Facilitating Workshops

Delivering facilitated workshops is a forum we often find ourselves in as Leaders of Volunteers which presents as an opportunity to achieve meaningful engagement with our volunteer communities. Workshops can be a versatile and effective avenue for engaging volunteers, and if delivered poorly, can also leave a room full of volunteers feeling disengaged. Some ideas to help foster meaningful  engagement when delivering workshops include:

• Strategic Direction: Involving volunteers and employees in workshops to develop the goals and actions of your organisation’s next volunteer strategy.
• Voice of the Volunteer: Bringing volunteers together to understand what is working well with their volunteering (or specific role), areas for improvement and potential improvements to implement.
• Role or organisation changes: Utilising workshops to inform volunteers about a specific change which is going to take place and provide opportunities for volunteers to ask questions.

Forming a Volunteer Advisory Committee

Establishing a Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC) is a valuable method to engage with volunteers. A VAC is a committee of volunteers who are representatives of a cross-section of volunteer roles. Where possible a VAC will represent the diversity of your volunteer program.  The purpose of a VAC is to be an avenue to consult with volunteers regarding matters which impact them. Additionally, a VAC will advise on and support the improvement of processes which impact volunteer engagement and volunteer roles.

A VAC provides an opportunity for volunteers to be involved in and to collaborate with your organisation regarding their volunteering experience and additional benefits include:

• Providing volunteers with a voice: A VAC provides volunteers with a voice, enabling a two-way flow of information, advice, and ideas. It provides an opportunity for the volunteer perspective to be heard and to gain their advocacy for improvement initiatives.
• Providing leadership opportunities: VAC members are given an invaluable opportunity to develop their leadership skills.
• Activating volunteer recognition: A VAC is a demonstration to your volunteers that their opinions, ideas, and experiences are valued.
• Cultivating a volunteer community: By giving volunteers an avenue to reach out to their peers, increasing engagement and connectedness.
• Raising the profile of volunteers: Sharing the minutes and outcomes of the VAC meetings with all volunteers, employees, and your leadership team can increase awareness of the roles performed and contributions made by volunteers in support of the
  organisation’s mission.
• Better decision making: By listening to the volunteer perspective, an organisation has an opportunity to make informed decisions and mitigate risk.

Conducting a Volunteer Survey

Conducting regular volunteer surveys is a useful avenue to engage with volunteers. Surveys can be an effective method to identify opportunities for improvement and to generate ideas. Some tips to consider include:

• Set the purpose: Understand and communicate the reason why you are conducting a volunteer survey. Is the survey to track volunteer satisfaction, to identify improvement avenues, to evaluate a project or to better understand the volunteer experience? Communicating the purpose of the volunteer survey will increase the chances of your volunteers participating.
• Write for your audience: Think about the volunteers who will receive your survey and tailor your writing style so that it is clear, concise, and easy to read. Use simple, common language which everyone will understand and avoid jargon, buzz words and acronyms.
• Promotion: For your volunteer survey to be a valid representation of the views and experiences of your organisation’s volunteers, you will need as many people responding as possible. To boost the number of survey respondents, promote the survey through numerous formats including e-newsletters, in person reminders, Facebook groups, a reminder email and through mentor volunteers or VAC members.
• Analyse the data: What is the data telling you? When filtering across the different roles are there any differences in volunteer satisfaction or tenure? What themes are appearing? What recommendations is the data informing?
• Reporting and advocating: Develop a survey report which includes recommendations. Share the report with the volunteers, leadership team, Board and employees and present key findings to your leadership team.
• Implementing recommendations: Where possible feed recommendations into annual plans as a continuous improvement opportunity.

Further Reading

If you found this topic interesting, I recommend you explore the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), the leading public participation (community and stakeholder engagement) association in the world.  IAP2 promotes and improves the practice of public participation by delivering training, providing resources and networking opportunities and by sharing the principles of effective community and
stakeholder engagement.

Additionally, if you enjoyed this blog post, you may also like the following blog posts which also focus on avenues for meaningful engagement with volunteers:

• Applying a Customer Mindset to a Volunteer Program
• How to Cultivate a Passionate Volunteer Community
• Appreciate Your Volunteers Through Integration