Have you ever had the experience of starting a new initiative and desperately trying to find volunteers to help? Whether it was finding volunteers to help plan a fundraising event, volunteer mentors, or finding volunteers to sit on a board committee, sometimes it’s like pulling teeth trying to find people who want to volunteer.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s undeniable that volunteers are a core part of nonprofit work. And when volunteers join our ranks, they offer immense value.
But, sometimes finding those volunteers can be challenging. If we’re lucky, volunteers find us and fall into our organizations. More often than not, nonprofits need to proactively seek out volunteers to help us meet our needs. So, the problem we’ll be addressing today is: how can nonprofits recruit volunteers?
Here’s what you can expect to take away from this episode…
⦿ How to align volunteer recruitment messages with volunteer motivations
⦿ An understanding of psychological ownership
⦿ How to promote feelings of psychological ownership among volunteers
SNEAK PEEK AT THE EPISODE…
⦿ [4:38] In terms of what we know, there are generally two methods for recruiting volunteers- messaging and word of mouth.
⦿ [7:37] Since then, there have been many, many investigations using this method, and so based on that data we have a pretty good idea that there are six motivations for volunteering.
⦿ [10:54] They found that as an individual’s education level increased, their perceived personal gain from volunteering decreased.
⦿ [13:22] Volunteers who are committed to a cause may be organization agnostic. Meaning they aren’t necessarily motivated by the one nonprofit, they are motivated by the overall cause.
⦿ [16:28] Going beyond these three core tenets of psychological ownership, some research does indicate that when something aligns with our self-identity, we are more likely to feel ownership.
⦿ [18:52] So essentially, the two go hand in hand- a positive volunteer experience increases feelings of psychological ownership, and psychological ownership causes a positive volunteer experience.
⦿ [22:13] We determined that if we want to recruit volunteers through messaging, we need our messages to align with motivations for volunteering, such as giving back and making a difference. That being said, we also want to think about who we are messaging.
⦿ [24:11] Just a word of advice, getting really specific with exactly who you are trying to recruit as volunteers can help you define a specific problem and allow you to define success.
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LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
⦿ Article: Evidence-based volunteer management: A review of the literature
⦿ Article: Motivations for volunteerism: Implications for engagement and recruitment
⦿ Article: The psychological contract and volunteering: A systematic review
⦿ Article: Feelings of ownership and volunteering: Examining psychological ownership as a volunteering motivation for nonprofit service organisations
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