The TopClass Blog

Since we’re in National Volunteer Week (April 21-27), it’s a good time to revisit a challenge that keeps coming up in association community discussions. Is recruiting volunteers and SMEs for online education programs becoming more difficult?

If your association’s experience aligns with the ASAE Research Foundation’s findings, the answer is “no.” In 78% of associations, the number of volunteers over the past five years has increased or remained stable. Members taking part in the research said the pandemic didn’t affect their volunteer participation. 

But if your association struggles with volunteer recruitment, these results probably make you wonder what your association is doing wrong. Is your industry that different? 

In this post, we’ll look at factors that affect volunteer recruitment and retention as well as strategies that help associations improve the volunteer experience.  

What volunteers want

Most associations have enough volunteers, but their volunteers aren’t willing to dedicate as many hours as before. It’s more difficult to recruit volunteers for chapter leader, board, and committee positions or to assist as a SME with course development. 

Volunteers are still most interested in giving back to their industry. They strongly prefer tasks that suit their skills and offer a meaningful experience.

Why your association isn’t recruiting enough volunteers

The problem could be you or the volunteer. Let’s look at the factors you can control. 

Increase awareness. Do members know where to find information about volunteering—from 20-minute microvolunteering tasks to board service? Dedicate a section of your website to volunteering. Describes every type of volunteering activity you offer, with job descriptions that include required skills, experience, and time commitment.

Be extremely transparent. Explain how members are chosen for volunteer service. In each job description, describe how it fits into the bigger picture and advances the mission.

Sell the benefits. Don’t assume members know the benefits of volunteering. Add benefits to the job description. For education volunteers, explain how they can apply new design, instructor, or coaching skills in their workplace. Tie volunteering to membership and career goals. Sell it as an extracurricular activity that looks great on a LinkedIn profile.

Play up the social aspect of volunteering. Because many volunteer activities involve other people, they can reduce the sense of isolation experienced by many remote workers, especially younger ones. 

What type of volunteer experiences should you offer?

Unlearn what you know about volunteer roles. Imagine how trained volunteers could help improve your educational programs. 

Of course, you’ll always need SMEs to help you design and deliver live and on-demand courses. In many associations, volunteers are taking on new roles:

• Cohort program facilitators, coaches, mentors, or advisors
• Online course guest instructors
• Online course teaching assistants
• Online course mentors
• Online course beta testers
• Webinar chat moderators
• Virtual conference chat moderators
• Virtual discussion group facilitators
• On-call online learning coaches
• Learning pathway advisors 
• Member advisory groups

Many of these roles require training, but imagine how rewarding it would be for a volunteer to help someone advance their career and play a role in helping them change their life.

Strategies for recruiting volunteers and SMEs for online education programs

Give volunteers a sense of direction and purpose

Clarify the volunteer’s role and emphasize its impact. Make sure they know what they’re supposed to be doing, how to do it, why they’re doing it, and how they’re making a difference.

Prevent volunteer stress and burnout 

Evaluate and reduce volunteer workloads. They already have a full-time job and other personal/professional responsibilities. Remember, the research says many of them aren’t as willing to commit as many hours to volunteering as they used to.

Revamp job descriptions. Reduce time requirements by splitting work between more people. Delegate tasks to microvolunteers.

Peggy Hoffman of Mariner Management suggests helping volunteers set priorities and delegate work. Help them refocus by reminding them why they volunteer. Encourage them to take a break now and then. 

It takes time to work with volunteers individually, but they’re giving up their time freely for your association. They’re worth your time.

Give volunteers support throughout their journey

Onboard volunteers. Use automated onboarding campaigns to introduce volunteers to the information and resources they need to succeed. Keep everything short so they can digest it in less than five minutes.

Assign a mentor. Match volunteers with someone who’s done the same/similar job before and who will check in to see how they’re doing, answer questions, and offer advice.

Provide training. Teach volunteers the skills they need to succeed in their current role at work and earn promotions, including leadership skills.

Teach the teachers. Never assume your SMEs know how to teach, even if they have experience teaching in other environments. Thankfully, a free solution is at hand from Tagoras/Leading Learning, a one-hour video, Presenting for Impact. The video itself also models the instructional design elements you should include in every educational program. Require all conference and webinar presenters to watch it too.

Train staff. In my decade working in associations, I never saw anyone receive volunteer management training. We just figured it out, but the results varied. Peggy Hoffman said, “The readiness of staff has a significant impact on the effectiveness of volunteers.” Staff who work with volunteers also need training. 

Connect volunteers. People join associations to connect with others and belong to a community. Give volunteers a niche community of their own so they can find their people and expand their network. 

Regularly communicate. Send a special newsletter to keep volunteers in the loop with what’s happening in the association.

Check in with volunteers. Peggy suggests personal check-ins. Find out what they think of their volunteering and how they’re balancing work, home, and association responsibilities. See if anything is making the role challenging and how you can support them.

Assess volunteer effectiveness and satisfaction

One theme kept coming up in the Foundation report: the need for a method and metrics to assess volunteer effectiveness and satisfaction. Most associations don’t assess their volunteer program. “The reluctance to fully embrace assessment may be a combination of orthodoxies that volunteers don’t want to be assessed and that it’s simply inappropriate to assess them (i.e., ‘they give their time’).”

Volunteer motivation will increase if they see a clear measure of their effectiveness. What metrics define effective performance? What does a volunteer need to do to help your team meet its goals or help a program meet its goals? How can you measure that? 

Don’t just say it, demonstrate your appreciation

Once a year during National Volunteer Week isn’t good enough. Peggy recommends treating volunteers like VIPs.

SMEs are a special case because of their heavier time commitment. Bring this elite group together occasionally. One of my LinkedIn connections is a SME for her HR association who recently spent a weekend away with fellow SMEs working on courses and credentialing programs and receiving training. She described it as invigorating, rewarding, and productive, and said, “It was great catching up with old friends and making new ones.”

Keep volunteers updated on association business and direction. Demonstrate your appreciation by asking for their feedback on volunteering: frequency, mode, time commitment, duration, times of year, and what they want to get out of it. 

Ask for their opinions, not only about volunteering, but other topics too. Just remember they’re not typical members. But what if the typical member was a volunteer, and not the other way around? Just imagine what your online education programs could offer.