[RESOURCE] Volunteer Management: Hiring and Orientation

by Meg Davis

 

This is part three of our manual on volunteer management. 

 

Now that you have a plan for the volunteers, the next task is to find them, which you can do by talking up your volunteer program in social situations, giving out flyers, sending out emails, posting an ad on your website, or holding volunteer recruitment meetings.

When you have found someone who is interested in volunteering, you should have a set of steps that you can follow for interviewing and “hiring” the volunteer. The steps should be a procedure that is the same for each person, whether the volunteer is someone you just met on the street, or a friend you’ve known for 20 years. Making everyone follow similar steps for recruitment, and having everyone begin and start at the same time, creates an ethic of fairness in the organization and avoids the impression that the organization is run by cliques (more about that in our section on management).

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[RESOURCE] Volunteer Management: Planning the Schedule

By Meg Davis

Before you begin recruiting volunteers, you should come up with an outline of the projects you need help with, and create a schedule that involves a few different volunteering opportunities. Different organizations have different schedules for their volunteer programs. Because Asia Catalyst volunteers are mostly students, we usually follow a four-month
term.

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[RESOURCE] Managing Your Volunteers

by Meg Davis

One of the issues groups ask us about often is how to recruit and manage volunteers. Based on our experience (a lot of our work is done by student interns), and some manuals we consulted online, we are putting together a manual on volunteer management and posting chapters from it to this blog. Please share your own suggestions by posting a comment.

 

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