Placing Volunteers: Getting it Right

Once you have candidates Placing Volunteers is your next action. You want to be sure each volunteer is in the right job.

Just because someone is willing doesn’t mean they are right for the job – even when it’s a job they don’t get paid for.

Volunteers may also need to meet mandated criteria, especially if they will be working with children.

Not everyone will have experience related to the task, that’s often OK but they should have an interest in your mission, the willingness to learn and a positive attitude. Although many people volunteer to share their skills (marketing, fundraising, accounting…) others may want to do something that is new to them. They may be interested in the challenge or see it as an opportunity to explore new career possibilities. Consider these examples:

The lawyer by day who wants to work with children at night.

Or the retired teacher who wants to try his hand at event planning.

Chances are they will bring a new perspective and be a positive addition; if you are concerned you can always match a novice with an experienced person or start out slow and see how it goes.

Orientation
An orientation is an important first step in Volunteer Placement. You have a few options:

1. Have all prospective volunteers attend a Tour. As you will see, at Nonprofit Champion we are big fans of tours. Many of your volunteers will come to you after having been on a Tour, but for those who haven’t it is an excellent introduction and overview of your work and goals.
2. Create a standard orientation for all volunteers as a substitute for or addition to your Tour.
3. Offer a position-specific orientation and training. This will be necessary for roles that require extensive training.
4. If you are really small or if the volunteer role is very specific and/or important, you may do a one-on-one orientation.

The orientation does double duty: the volunteer gets to know you, the organization, your goals and their role and you get to know the volunteer. When you are placing volunteers take as much time to get to know them as you can. You should be looking at the immediate need and the longer term:

Does the volunteer have the interest, skills and time to fill the role that is now open?

What skills, experience or connections do they have that might be useful for other projects or needs?

You can gather this information through an interview or application. Start a file on each person right away so you have the information when you need it. Make sure the person supervising or monitoring the volunteer’s work updates the file on a regular basis. This will be handy for so many reasons (including honoring the volunteer for their work).

Maintain an updated list of volunteer positions; be sure to include any fundraising, event or other Team Team positions. Share the list so everyone knows what the opportunities are and encourage others to add to it.

Placing Volunteers is the second action in the Cycle of Volunteer Management