If you run a nonprofit, you likely rely heavily on volunteers to keep doing what you’ve been doing. However, managing volunteers can be challenging at times, and you want to make sure you can trust your volunteers to get the job done. Given that formal volunteer rates have dropped in recent years, you also want to create a welcoming, rewarding work environment that keeps volunteers coming back.
One effective way to improve your relationship with volunteers is through proper communication strategies.
Why Is Communication With Volunteers Essential?
Properly communicating with volunteers has many benefits, creating a positive experience for everyone involved. Clearly communicating with volunteers means they know what to do and how to do it, as well as who to turn to if they need assistance. Additionally, communicating with volunteers helps them feel welcome and at ease with the organization, helping you establish a lasting relationship.
With that in mind, effective communication also has some benefits for your organization. In 2023, the average value of a volunteer working one hour was $33.49. By clearly communicating with volunteers, you can get the most out of their volunteer time by ensuring they understand their roles. Further, communicating with your volunteers will help them feel valued, which can improve volunteer retention.
5 Volunteer Communication Strategies You Can Implement
How can you build an effective communication strategy that resonates with your volunteers? Here are five methods of volunteer communication to try:
1. Be Consistent
While running a nonprofit takes considerable time and effort, consistency in your volunteer communications is essential. Even the best communication plans will be ineffective if messages are infrequent or sporadic. So, be sure to:
- Use communication methods with purpose: If you use a variety of communication methods with no rhyme or reason, messages can reach different volunteers at different times and leave them confused. That’s not to say that you should limit your methods of volunteer communication to only one form, but when communicating essential details, try to keep it consistent. For example, you might send out schedules via email and keep more urgent communications to text messages and phone calls.
- Communicate regularly: Don’t leave volunteers in the dark. If something changes that affects your volunteer program, let them know. Consider a monthly newsletter to keep volunteers involved.
- Stick to important information: Once you have your volunteers’ contact information, it can be tempting to send them everything — including promotional material. Unnecessary emails and messages could lead to them missing important information, so consider having a separate database for your volunteers so that they only get essential information.
- Give volunteers enough notice: Whenever possible, give volunteers sufficient time to make decisions about when and where they can volunteer. Don’t wait until the day before or the day of a volunteering event to send out messages — keep volunteers in the loop.
2. Use Social Media
While direct communication like emails and texts are ideal for contacting certain volunteers to arrange scheduling and answer questions, you can also leverage social media for mass announcements that aren’t urgent or tailored to specific individuals. For example, if you’re hosting a special event or you’re lacking volunteers for a particular day and want to get more people involved, posting on social media is an excellent way to get the message out to a broader range of people without flooding their inboxes.
It’s also a smart way to communicate with people who are interested in volunteering for your organization. If you’re searching for new volunteers to round out your current team, posting on websites like LinkedIn can help you connect with them and keep them informed about opportunities that might interest them.
3. Prioritize Feedback
The right communication can result in both volunteer and organizational growth. A continuous feedback loop from both sides can help you improve your volunteer program.
By providing volunteers with feedback about their work, you can offer them valuable insights into areas of improvement. Additionally, you can give them positive words of encouragement about their strengths that instill confidence and help them feel like they have a place in your nonprofit. This type of communication is essential for building a positive volunteer workforce.
Similarly, you should ask for volunteer feedback — create a suggestion box and have volunteers complete anonymous surveys. Take the information into consideration as you make changes to the volunteering process or your overall nonprofit.
4. Keep It Positive
There are many reasons why you may need to communicate with volunteers. Often, people fall into the trap of only communicating when they need something from their volunteers or their volunteers have done something incorrectly, and the organization wants to let them know.
While all types of communication are important, you shouldn’t neglect the importance of positive communication. If a volunteer has stepped up and gone above and beyond, send them a message letting them know you recognize and appreciate their effort. These tidbits of positive communication can uplift volunteers and keep them motivated to continue doing great work.
5. Use Volunteer Management Software
Remember that you don’t need to spend ages trying to keep track of your volunteers and communicate with them effectively. One of the best volunteer communication tips is to use modern tools to make dispersing and receiving information easy for yourself and your volunteer team. Thanks to technological advancements, you can use software to take much of the weight off your shoulders.
For example, Volgistics is a volunteer management software that can help you properly communicate with your volunteers, all while saving time and effort so you can pay attention to other areas of your organization. Some key features of Volgistics software include:
- Volunteer profiles: Easily see volunteer information so that you don’t need to contact them for their details every time you want to get in touch.
- Reporting: The reporting feature makes it easy to see volunteer hours and reduces back-and-forth about how much time a volunteer has spent at your organization.
- Scheduling: Organize your volunteers quickly and efficiently without the need for unnecessary extra communication.
- Recruiting: Easy application forms allow volunteers to give you all the information you need in one convenient place, so you don’t need to follow up.
- Sign-in kiosk: There’s no need to manually track each volunteer’s working hours. The sign-in kiosk tracks volunteer hours with a simple clock.
- Email and text messaging: Through the software, you can always stay in touch with your volunteers via email and text.
Improve Volunteer Management With Software That Works for You
Keeping your volunteers in the know with clear updates and new information is fundamental. By facilitating proper volunteer communication throughout your nonprofit, you can ensure volunteers understand their roles, stay updated on the organization, and feel excited about helping out in the future.
Today, it’s easier than ever to streamline communication with a platform like Volgistics. As a scalable solution that simplifies communication, Volgistics allows your nonprofit to stay in touch with volunteers, even as your organization grows. Plus, you get plenty of support along the way to make the process easy.
If you want to improve your volunteer communication while also experiencing Volgistics’ other benefits, like storing important documents, having volunteer checklists, and overseeing managers across different locations, sign up for a free 30-day trial today!
