Volunteers are the heart of every nonprofit, bringing passion, time, and unique skills to your mission. Yet, the relationship between organizations and their volunteers is built on trust, respect, and shared purpose — not obligation. Volunteers who feel valued, supported, and truly connected to your cause become your most dedicated advocates. But fostering this kind of volunteer engagement takes more than good intentions — it requires thoughtful strategies and practical tools.
Discover 20 proven best practices that can help you attract, empower, and retain the volunteers who make your organization thrive.
Volunteer Engagement Tips
Successful volunteer engagement goes beyond funneling people with free time through your doors. With these engagement tips and tactics, volunteer managers can create more welcoming, motivational, and meaningful partnerships with volunteers that keep them returning.
1. Clearly Define Volunteer Roles and Titles
One of the top reasons employees quit is because they don’t understand the value of their role or what they contribute.
Broad responsibilities or shapeless positions weigh on your volunteers. Imagine yourself in their shoes, entering a new organization with only vague ideas behind the meaning of your work, what it’s for, and why you have to do it. Treating volunteers like perfunctory task bunnies is the quickest way to demotivate them. Conversely, creating clear, written volunteer roles that include stated priorities and responsibilities structures their volunteer hours and immediately grounds their work.
2. Build a Progression Pipeline
Progression pipelines show the tiered volunteer roles available at your organization. Each new tier comes with more responsibility as well as certain perks and amenities matching the impact of the role.
As a rule of thumb, start new or young volunteers off with small, manageable roles. (You don’t want to scare them off too quickly!) As they grow comfortable with your operations, practices, and technology, you can introduce new tasks and goals gradually.
For example, a new volunteer could be tasked with scheduling pre-written posts across social media for next month. A more seasoned volunteer can work with you to ideate those posts. A true veteran — someone who deeply understands your mission, values, and organization “personality” — can be tasked with answering direct messages and responding to comments online.
3. Develop an Orientation Program
Don’t allow new volunteers to show up to their first shift wide-eyed and empty-handed. Instead, create orientation programs geared toward specific volunteer roles and activities.
Volunteer orientation can be both online and in-person. Online training can review how to use equipment and technology or review organization compliance and legal standards. In-person training can include giving facility tours, introducing volunteers to staff, explaining your mission and values, and performing role walkthroughs. These activities can increase volunteer engagement from the start and help the volunteer feel equipped and comfortable.
4. Hold Feedback Sessions
Regular feedback sessions ensure everyone at your volunteer organization has a seat at the table. Evaluative meetings can be both formal or informal and include time for volunteer praise and constructive feedback. These meetings also allow the volunteers to express what they enjoy about the work and what could be improved on your end.
Conduct feedback sessions on an ongoing but sensible schedule. Doing so nurtures the trusting environment that’s central to high-functioning volunteer management programs in which all members give and receive mutual respect. It’s also a good idea to conduct exit interviews with departing volunteers, providing these same learning moments.
5. Use Technology to Streamline Volunteer Management
Modern volunteer management technology transforms how organizations coordinate, communicate with, and support their volunteers. With the right tools, you can simplify scheduling, improve communication, and ensure everyone stays connected and informed.
Solutions like Volgistics offer a suite of features designed for volunteer leaders and volunteers. For example, the VicNet secure online portal allows volunteers to update their profiles, manage their own schedules, and log service hours — empowering them to take ownership of their involvement. VicTouch is an on-site touchscreen workstation or kiosk. Volunteers can easily sign in and out, while managers have real-time access to attendance data.
For document management, VicDocs gives volunteer organizations the capacity to securely store and share important files — like applications, waivers, or licenses — directly within volunteer records.
Adopting up-to-date technology allows you to respond to volunteer inquiries quickly, share documents efficiently, and communicate through email or text from one centralized system. This saves time for staff and volunteers and helps build a more organized, responsive, and engaging volunteer experience.
6. Host Volunteer Meetings
Gathering all your volunteers together for regular group meetings is a coordination best practice that reinforces volunteer importance. These meetings allow you to communicate essential information and strategies, from upcoming event calendars to fundraising goals, staff changes, new policies, and more.
Regular meetings help ensure that everyone is informed and on the same page. Plus, hosting volunteer-only meetings like these encourages individuals to provide insights and suggestions about process changes.
7. Build and Use Project Briefs
Similar to what its name suggests, project briefs outline the details of an upcoming project or endeavor undertaken by your organization. Often, briefs are circulated amongst an organization’s staff yet rarely shared with the volunteers essential to its execution.
Make it a habit to send important project briefs to your entire volunteer roster. Sharing briefs is especially essential if action items on that brief involve volunteer participation or if a project is something new that your organization has never done before.
Volunteer Retention Best Practices
Postpandemic, formal volunteering in America has experienced a historic resurgence, with participation rates climbing over 22% between 2022 and 2023. Over 75 million Americans give their time through organizations, totaling nearly 5 billion hours of service. This increase highlights the renewed spirit of volunteerism and the reality that volunteers have more choices than ever about where to dedicate their energy.
As opportunities to serve expand, volunteer organizations can prioritize strategies that focus on the impact and meaning of service, allowing volunteers to experience the power of giving back. Building an environment where everyone feels their contribution matters inspires long-term commitment and creates a stronger, more resilient volunteer community.
8. Learn From How You Treat Staff
Give volunteers the same on-site perks you afford paid staff. That means breaks every 3-4 hours, time off for lunch, free office coffee and/snacks, access to computers and role-relevant equipment, and more.
Treating volunteers like staff also means engaging in scheduled feedback sessions as well as sharing project goals, action items, and strategic changes. Together, these efforts help volunteers develop stronger cognitive, social, and emotional connections to their work as well as your organization. As these connections grow, so will their dedication to their work with your organization.
9. Create Personalized Impact Reports
Many organizations publish annual impact reports for board members to review the objectives achieved that year, as well as the health and sustainability of the organization overall. These publications also serve to bolster grant proposals as well as to temperature check your organization’s future strategic goals.
Consider generating personalized impact reports for key volunteers. Tailor these documents to the work a given person did over the last year, and illustrate the impact that work had. Include key performance indicators (KPIs) as well as how you measured those metrics, to showcase the importance of that individual’s presence.
10. Offer Exclusive Volunteer Perks
Use your organization’s values as well as your best judgment to set up meaningful volunteer perks thanking individuals for their time.
Just avoid going overboard or straying into legally dubious volunteer gifts. Volunteer amenities do not need to break the bank. Gifts and perks can be as simple as bringing in doughnuts once a week, setting up a free book exchange, or having a snack basket. Items of small market value, paid-for lunches, and celebratory or holiday gifts are also not taxable and are creative ways to create a fun, inviting volunteer environment.
11. Consider Gamification
Gamification — adding gaming elements like points, badges, or leaderboards to your volunteer program — can be a powerful way to boost volunteer engagement and retention. When volunteers see their progress, earn recognition, and enjoy a bit of friendly competition, they’re more likely to stay involved and motivated.
Simple strategies like awarding points for completed tasks or logged hours and celebrating top contributors on a public leaderboard can make volunteering more rewarding and fun. Some organizations even allow volunteers to exchange points for branded gear or special opportunities. By making service meaningful and interactive, you help every volunteer feel valued — and give them a reason to keep coming back.
12. Ask Volunteers What They Like Doing
Inviting volunteers to have a say in the work they do shows attention, courtesy, and care beyond a status-quo volunteer experience.
Take time to learn the specific tasks or activities each volunteer is drawn to. Are their skills being put to good use? Do you even know what those skills are? If not, consider drafting a small online or print survey each volunteer completes to gain a greater understanding of their unique talents, from computer or web skills to writing, social media, bookkeeping, event planning, and more.
13. Appoint Brand Ambassadors
Select a handful of “brand ambassadors” from your most dedicated volunteers and staff. These individuals will make it a priority to boost your organization’s image via select relevant channels. For example, brand ambassadors can commit to livestreaming from your organization once a month, during an event or fundraiser or just a regular day in the office. Similarly, brand ambassadors can be in charge of sharing your event calendar online to help boost attendance.
14. Shout Your Thanks
Formal and informal volunteer recognition remains a top volunteer management best practice. Regardless of your organization’s size, budget, or volunteer roll numbers, it should be a priority to thank individuals who use their free time to serve you. Consider everything from thank you notes and videos to shout-outs on social media, small treat baskets, catered lunches, and annual volunteer award receptions.
Volunteer Management and Leadership Best Practices
Volunteer managers have a lot on their plates, especially at small nonprofits and organizations. In a single day, you’re tasked with finding and recruiting skilled volunteers, vetting, screening, and training them, managing volunteer schedules, mitigating no-shows, balancing budgets, coordinating and executing events — plus keeping everyone’s spirits high and work meaningful.
The best tips for managing volunteers reduce these workloads and aim to make the juggling act of administration far easier.
15. Manage a Thorough Volunteer Database
Digital volunteer databases streamline a significant portion of day-to-day volunteer tracking. As a central information repository for all things related to your volunteers, these systems save volunteer managers time and effort across the gamut of their responsibilities. Volunteer databases make it simple to assess availability, identify volunteer assignments, organize schedules, structure work tasks, and log completion. These same systems store volunteers’ preferred contact method, so you can quickly call, text, or email with schedule and task updates to keep workloads moving.
16. Leverage Community Partnerships
Building strong community partnerships is a cornerstone of successful volunteer organizations. Collaborating with local businesses, schools, and civic groups can unlock new resources and attract volunteers. These relationships increase your organization’s visibility and create opportunities for innovation and growth.
Corporate volunteer programs, in particular, offer far more than just extra hands. With corporate volunteering growing by 50% between 2021 and 2023, these volunteers benefit your organization with professional insights that drive strategic planning and capacity building. Additionally, corporate partners can provide access to funding, in-kind support, and extensive networks, opening doors to new collaborations and connections with influential community stakeholders.
17. Practice Omnichannel Recruitment
Reaching volunteers through multiple channels — like social media, email, and community events — helps you connect with diverse groups and fill key roles. Tailoring your outreach to different platforms means your message reaches volunteers of all ages and backgrounds, while tracking each channel’s effectiveness lets you refine your recruitment strategy for the best results.
Volgistics’ volunteer management software streamlines this process by allowing you to advertise assignments widely and automatically add applicants to your volunteer pool. Its recruiting features minimize manual data entry, making it easy to promote opportunities to new and existing volunteers. Plus, with integrated background screening through Verified First, Volgistics simplifies and strengthens your volunteer recruitment from start to finish.
18. Get on the Cloud
Cloud-based volunteer management systems require no in-house IT staff to install and maintain the database. They are managed by a third-party vendor who ensures quality security features, program flexibility, and task functionality for your organization’s needs. Best of all, these programs aren’t location contingent, meaning you can log into them from your mobile phone, on your laptop, at home, or working at your favorite coffee shop.
19. Optimize Your Website
Consider how your website may be helping or hindering your image and, therefore, your volunteer management program.
Does the language on every page convey trust, authority, enthusiasm, and energy? Is there a page dedicated to becoming a volunteer, including an easy-to-click online application and your contact information for questions? Optimized organization websites also contain simple but impactful ways to stay connected with prospective volunteers, such as a newsletter opt-in or direct links to social media pages. Offering these methods of staying connected is a key way to increase awareness and engagement, eventually courting higher volunteer conversion rates.
20. Set SMART Volunteer Goals
Setting clear, actionable goals is essential for effective volunteer management. The SMART framework — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound — helps organizations break down big objectives into practical steps that drive real progress. SMART goals provide structure, making it easier to track achievements and keep your team focused on what matters most.
With Volgistics, you can set and monitor SMART goals for your volunteer program using built-in tracking and reporting tools. Easily measure volunteer hours, participation rates, and assignment completion, so you always know where you stand and can adjust your strategies. By combining thoughtful goal-setting with Volgistics’ robust management features, you’ll turn your vision for volunteer impact into measurable results.
Get Your Free Volgistics Software Trial
Ready to fine-tune how you manage your volunteer program for greater engagement, retention, and success? The right volunteer management platform can help you get there.
Volgistics is the industry leader in technology for volunteer leaders like you who are searching for better management software. See the benefits for yourself with a no-obligation 30-day free trial of our volunteer system or reach out to schedule a live software demonstration.