Today’s youth are ambitious, compassionate, and interconnected, making them excellent candidates for volunteer work and community outreach projects. In this comprehensive guide to high school volunteer recruitment, we unpack what motivates teenagers to volunteer, how organizations can build dependable teams of young, capable workers, and what keeps them engaged long-term.
Reasons High Schoolers Would Want to Volunteer
To encourage young people to volunteer for your organization, you should first understand why they would be interested in high school volunteer opportunities. Teenagers volunteer for several reasons, including personal convictions, social bonding, and bolstering their future careers. Outreach programs appeal to high schoolers because these students can:
1. Earn Valuable Experience and Skills
With more access to globalized media than ever through the internet, young people are increasingly aware of the wide, complex world awaiting them outside the classroom. They also come to understand that school alone cannot prepare them for the challenges and opportunities that await them after they graduate.
This awareness motivates young people to gain unique experience and build valuable skills through charity work and volunteering.
2. Satisfy Graduation Requirements
Some school districts require young people to complete a certain number of community service hours, called “service learning,” before graduating.
For example, public high school students in the District of Columbia must complete 75 hours of social outreach to earn their diplomas, which will increase to 100 hours in 2025. Maryland public schools also require 75 hours of service learning from their potential high school graduates.
3. Connect and Give Back to the Community
Young people have a strong sense of social responsibility. Studies have shown that the number of young volunteers is growing, so the demand for high school volunteer opportunities should increase alongside them.
Teen volunteering injects a whopping $34 billion into the United States economy, benefitting nonprofits, at-risk communities, the country as a whole, and the well-being of teens themselves.
4. Spend Time With Like-Minded Peers
Much research has been done into how volunteering helps young people thrive. Community service brings volunteers together, reducing the risk of isolation and depression and encouraging them to integrate more with society. This is especially important for at-risk youth.
Volunteers have opportunities to build healthy relationships with their fellow high school students, which is crucial for teenagers’ mental health.
5. Enhance Their Resumes and College Applications
High school students know they need stellar resumes to find work in today’s competitive job market. They’re also under pressure to impress admissions offices with their achievements to get into their college of choice. Volunteer programs for high school students look great on higher education applications and can even be a deciding factor for admission.
Tips for Recruiting Young Volunteers in High Schools
Young people are generally motivated, energized, and raring to make a difference in their communities, so they make exceptional volunteers. High school volunteer recruitment can be easy with the right tools and know-how. By following five simple steps, you can build a strong community of students who are passionate about your cause:
1. Partner With High School Volunteer Programs and Associations
Reach out to high school principals or vice principals about their school districts’ specific service learning regulations. Find out what volunteer programs already exist for high school students and discuss how your organization can join in.
School administration can also help you connect with other staff members, like guidance counselors and student leadership mentors, who will act as a bridge between your organization and students keen on volunteering.
Student associations are useful starting points that help you connect with teenagers who care about your specific mission. Some examples include:
- Sports teams: Volunteering, particularly through physical activity, is a brilliant team-building exercise for newly formed sports teams such as basketball, volleyball, soccer, and football.
- Leadership groups: Provide student leaders with the opportunity to learn valuable skills about collaboration, empathy, and community through volunteer work helping social causes.
- Activity clubs: Match your cause to a club — for example, cooking clubs may enjoy volunteering at soup kitchens, while art clubs could facilitate at-risk children’s arts and crafts initiatives.
2. Participate in High School Events and Host Your Own
Work with school administration to attend student events, such as career days, book fairs, markets, and awareness presentations on topics related to your organization. Set up a visually interesting booth, provide information about your initiative, speak directly with students, and make signing up for volunteering easy and quick.
3. Spread Your Message and Recruit Volunteers Online
If you’re interested in recruiting young volunteers, you need a good internet presence, both on social media and through a streamlined volunteer management tool. Staging your cause online comes with many benefits:
- Social media: With a well-maintained Instagram and TikTok account, you can establish your organization as legitimate, post recruitment advertisements, educate young people about your worthy cause, and encourage shares through engaging content. More shares mean more eyes on your high school volunteer opportunities and better community awareness of your worthy cause.
- Volunteer management software: All-in-one volunteer management software is crucial for quick and easy recruitment. Paper sign-up sheets are perishable, prone to errors, and difficult to edit and share. With online volunteer logistics applications, you can create and customize digital application forms and store them in the cloud. Students can then share your sign-up link with their friends and family, expanding your pool of potential recruits.
4. Provide Incentives and Tokens of Recognition
Students are more likely to sign up for your volunteer opportunities if they know they’ll be appreciated and recognized for their hard work. Whether they accrue school credits, receive certificates, win awards, or get a shoutout on social media, recognition will be a wonderful motivator for them to sign up and stay on. These incentives also expand your horizons, welcoming students who perhaps wouldn’t volunteer for goodwill alone.
5. Engage Youth Volunteers
Students will gravitate toward programs that align with their personal interests, career goals, and what their friends and online role models are doing. This knowledge is very useful when recruiting young volunteers, as it helps you target specific groups that are more likely to feel passionate about your cause. Environmental protection, racial and gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and mental health are some key areas of concern to Generation Z and the emerging Generation Alpha.
How to Boost High School Volunteer Engagement
Engaging youth volunteers is paramount if you want your team to stay consistent, actively involved, and motivated. To keep young volunteers engaged, you must balance social connection, growth opportunities, fulfillment, rewards, and convenience. Ways to keep young volunteers engaged include:
- Building a thriving social media community: Public posts that display students’ good work for the community, animals, or environment instill pride, motivation, and a sense of belonging.
- Offering flexible volunteering hours: High school students often have busy schedules, so give them some wiggle room to fit your cause into their calendar.
- Providing training, feedback, and guidance: Show high school volunteers how to accomplish a task best, encourage perseverance, and help them when they struggle.
- Celebrating their wins and making work fun:Gamify volunteer work and organize friendly competition. When your youth volunteers do an awesome job, let them know!
- Explaining the value of their efforts: Discuss the real-world applications of their hard work. Explain how they’re helping the community and building a better future and why that matters so much.
Manage Your High School Volunteers With Volgistics
Take your organization to new heights with Volgistics, the online volunteer management software revolutionizing how you store, manage, use, and interpret crucial volunteer data. For over 25 years, we’ve provided team leaders with tools to optimize their volunteer strategy. From recruitment to scheduling and detailed reports, Volgistics offers nonprofits, museums, social services, and many more valued clients a massive efficiency upgrade.
To get started, sign up for a free trial of this software today, or contact us online for more information. If you’re curious about how Volgistics works, you can always register for a live demonstration and receive a guided tour through its many useful features.