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Volunteer Management
Strategies for Greening Groups
Session One
Working With Volunteers
Recruiting Volunteers

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Volunteer Management:
Session One Workshop
Agenda
• Welcome and Introduction
• Introductory Activity
• Working With Volunteers
• Recruiting Volunteers

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Photograph: Eliza Mitchell

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Introductory Activity

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Working with
Volunteers

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“It's one thing to know that

your organization needs
additional help and that
volunteers are the likely
source. It's quite another thing
to figure out how to best
involve volunteers.”

-Norah McClintock, Volunteering

Numbers

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Project Plan
• Goals
• Objectives
• Prioritized task list

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Set Up Your System

• Volunteer coordinator
• Contact Person
• Tracking

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Determine and
Communicate Needs
• Project information
• How others can get involved

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Recruiting Volunteers

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Recruiting Volunteers
• Before You Begin to Recruit
• Identify Your Target Groups
• Target Your Recruitment
• Communicate With Your Target
• When Volunteers Step in the Door

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“... 73% of the total number of

volunteer hours contributed in
Canada is donated by less than
7% of all Canadians.”

-Larry McKeown, Volunteering in

Canada

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“Successful recruitment is
getting the right person in the
right job with the right skills at
the right time.”

-Lyn Fels, Getting Started -

Establishing a volunteer program

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Before You Begin to

Recruit
• Know what you need volunteers to do.
− What skills do you require and
when?
− Develop job descriptions

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Before You Begin to

Recruit
• Design volunteer positions for varying
levels of responsibility, commitment
and experience.

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“69% of Canadians who don't

volunteer cited lack of time as
the reason.”

-Norah McClintock, Quick Tips for

Volunteer Management

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Identify Your Target

Group
• Know who is most likely to volunteer

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Who Volunteers?
• Canadians in their middle years (35-54)
• Women, but men will put in more hours
• University educated: volunteering
increases with formal education
• Employed people, but unemployed
people will put in more hours
• Increasingly from the youth sector
(15-24)

-Larry McKeown, Who are

Canada's Volunteers

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Target Your Recruitment

• By activity
− Clubs, associations, and special
interest groups
− Specialty stores
− Universities and technical institutes
− Government organizations

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Target Your Recruitment

• By availability
• By location
• Through volunteer-focused
programming

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Target Your Recruitment

• By association

“More than 50% of people who

volunteer do so because they
are asked to by a friend,
co-worker or acquaintance.”

-Norah McClintock, Quick Tips for

Volunteer Management

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Communicate With
Your Target
• Develop a recruitment message.
− What you have to offer
− Appeal to volunteer's motivation

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What motivates greening

volunteers?
• Doing something to improve the
environment
• Community connections
• Building employment
relationships/experience

-Hands for Nature, Community

Greening Volunteerism Survey,
Evergreen.

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Sample Recruitment
Message

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Communicate With
Your Target
• Face-to-face contact
• Network, network, network
• Contact your Volunteer Centre
(www.volunteer.ca)
• Make full use of advertising and
publicity

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Example Promotional
Flyer

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Communicate With
Your Target
• Make full use of advertising and
publicity
− Post flyers
− Free Public Service Announcements,
human interest articles on radio,
television, newspapers, other
publications
− Internet:
www.evergreen.ca/en/resources/registry.html

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When Volunteers Step in

the Door
• Screen
− www.volunteer.ca

• Interview
• Provide Orientation
• Train Your Volunteers

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“An invitation to volunteer is a

strand in the thread that
connects. A program that says
'Welcome' in every way, over
the phone, in person, or in the
mail, invites a volunteer to be a
part. Volunteers who feel they
belong, return.”

-Sarah Elliston, as quoted in

Volunteer Management:
Mobilizing all the Resources of
the Community

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Resources on
Recruitment
Hands for Nature: A Volunteer
Management Handbook
(www.evergreen.ca/en/resources/docs/hands/)
A Guide to Volunteer Program
Management Resources - Volunteer
Canada (www.volunteer.ca)

Copyright © 2004 Evergreen and EcoSuperior

 Credits
Concept: Lucie Lavoie, Lois Lindsay, Samara Newman.
Principal Writer: Lucie Lavoie.
Editor: Samara Newman and Keith Treffy.
Reviewers: Lesley Curthoy, Linda Dupuis, Gary J. Michalak, Ellen Mortfield, Debby Morton.
Copyright 2004 Evergreen. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this resource for educational purposes is permit-
ted and encouraged, provided appropriate acknowledgement is given.

Copyright © 2004 Evergreen and EcoSuperior