There is no single strategy to volunteer success

Have you ever wished you could find that one single strategy to help you with some aspect of your volunteer program? A “silver bullet”?

In October, I went on holiday to Malta. It was a challenging route for me to get there. I drove from my city of Kamloops to North Vancouver and left my truck with a friend. Then I took a bus, a boat (the Seabus) and the Canada Line rapid transit (subway) train to get to the airport. From there, I took two different planes, one from Vancouver to Frankfurt and one from Frankfurt to Malta. Oh, and in the Frankfurt airport, I had to take another bus between terminals.

Finally, I had a friend pick me up at the Malta airport and drive me to where I was staying. Not including walking a lot, that meant that it took eight different vehicles to get me there—planes, trains and automobiles…and a boat plus my feet. All of them were necessary.

What has this got to do with volunteering strategies, you ask? Many times when I talk with clients or potential clients I am asked to give them a way to recruit volunteers, or the best way to engage volunteers. They are often looking for a single strategy that will get them what they need. Unfortunately, it is only in exceptional circumstances that one strategy will be fully effective. To be successful in recruitment a leader of volunteers needs to employ multiple, often very different, strategies. Simply holding an open house will bring in few volunteers. Posting on social media will bring in a few and so will word of mouth. Each on its own has limited effectiveness.

When those and other strategies are used in combination though, an organization can bring in all the volunteers they need.

I understand, your time is limited. It’s a lot easier to focus on one key method rather than putting time and effort into five or six. Doing so, however, means you have to keep repeating the process. You have to continuously post on social media, for example, to bring a couple people in each time. And the law of diminishing returns comes into play here. After a while, most or all of the people that you are able to reach through one particular strategy will have seen your appeal and the ones who are interested will have already applied.

So, the more often you use that single strategy, the less effective it becomes. You end up spending more time with fewer results than you would if you used multiple strategies.

I’ve just spoken about recruitment so far, but the same principle holds true for many aspects of volunteer management.

Do you need to gather feedback from volunteers? Sending out a survey is one way you can try. You should also set up an online forum on the volunteer page of your website. Have a suggestion box at your building. And… and… and…

I’ve often written about the four ways to show volunteers you appreciate them. Each one of the four ways encompasses several different specific strategies. Again, counting on only one way, regardless of how effective it is at first, will take more time and bring in fewer results in the long-term.

Using more than a single strategy can also improve your program’s DEI. Most organizations right now are trying to ensure they are meeting or exceeding the diversity, equity and inclusion rates for their community.

As people from different cultures and/or world views tend to have differing habits and ways of communicating, using only one way to engage with them (recruiting, communicating, appreciating, etc) will leave out those that operate differently. That can mean that you aren’t tapping into pools of potential volunteers or current volunteers feel they don’t belong or aren’t appreciated. Neither scenario will benefit your program.

There is no one, single, fully successful strategy in leading volunteers. The more methods you use in whatever aspect of your program you’re struggling with, the more likely it is that it will be successful for you and accessible for all.

Take the time up front to develop those multiple methods and employ them all regularly. Once the initial work is done, you’ll find that various strategies will give you that silver bullet you’re looking for.

If you need help, let me know.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.