Why Volunteer Programs Must Prioritize Volunteer Experience

You think a lot about what your volunteers do, but how often do you think about how they feel? Volunteer experience is one of the most critical—and often overlooked—elements of volunteer management. And when you prioritize the volunteer experience, it benefits every aspect of your organization. Read on to learn how you can build positive volunteer experiences while improving your return on investment and helping your nonprofit achieve its mission.

What is the Volunteer Experience?

The volunteer experience refers to how volunteers perceive their work with your organization. Do they enjoy volunteering with you? Do they feel connected to your nonprofit and inspired by your mission? Or do they feel disengaged, underappreciated, and/or burnt out?

As a nonprofit, part of your job is making sure that volunteers have a positive experience across the entire volunteer lifecycle, from recruitment and onboarding to engagement and retention. When volunteers are enjoying themselves, they are more likely to continue working with you. And these committed, reliable, and productive team members give your organization the resources it needs to sustain and even expand its impact.

The Benefits of Prioritizing the Volunteer Experience

Providing a strong volunteer experience doesn’t just make things better for your volunteers; it has direct benefits for your organization.

Prioritizing the volunteer experience enhances:

· Onboarding and Training. Start the volunteer relationship off on the right foot with smooth onboarding and training. When new recruits understand exactly what is required of them and how your volunteer program works, they will be better positioned for rewarding and impactful involvement.

· Volunteer Engagement. Volunteers who have a positive experience become more invested in your organization. High engagement levels mean that volunteer shifts get filled more easily and you don’t have to struggle to staff events.

· Beneficiary Experience. Volunteer experience also has an impact on beneficiary experience. Engaged, active volunteers are more reliable, they produce higher quality work, and they are better representatives of your organization’s values. Your beneficiaries will appreciate the increased efficiency, efficacy, and enthusiasm that your volunteer base provides.

· Volunteer Retention. When people are enjoying themselves, they are less likely to leave, so volunteer experience plays a big role in volunteer retention. Cultivating a strong volunteer experience turns one-time volunteers into long-term supporters and valuable assets, while avoiding volunteer turnover, understaffing, and extra recruiting costs.

· Community Reputation. Satisfied volunteers become community ambassadors, organically sharing your mission with the people around them. This word-of-mouth marketing can be absolutely vital to improving your reputation in the community, increasing organizational reach, and driving donations.

· Fundraising Campaigns. A strong volunteer experience increases your chances of volunteer-to-donor conversion. Volunteer contributions are 10x larger on average than those from non-affiliated donors, so creating an environment where volunteers feel moved to contribute can really elevate your fundraising efforts. Even if a volunteer is not in the position to give financially, they will likely share your fundraising campaign with their network and encourage others to donate.

· Organizational Capacity. An active, enthusiastic volunteer base makes it easier to scale your organizational capacity. That extra manpower allows you to expand programs with confidence, while also freeing up your paid staff member to focus on higher level tasks related to long-term goals and growth.

· Return on Investment. Your organization invests time, energy, and money into every volunteer. High volunteer turnover rates mean that your organization is seeing minimal or even no return on investment—on top of needing to spend even more resources on recruiting new volunteers.

Simply put, when you prioritize the volunteer experience, you position your entire organization for success.

The Symptoms of Poor Volunteer Experience

No volunteer manager wants their volunteers to have a negative experience, but with limited resources and so many irons on the fire, volunteer satisfaction can easily get overlooked. While a single disgruntled volunteer may indeed be an outlier, volunteer mismanagement can quickly snowball into larger issues for your volunteer program and your organization at large.

So, can you tell whether your volunteer experience has been suffering? Keep an eye out for these symptoms of a poor volunteer experience:

· You frequently lose volunteers during onboarding and training.

· Volunteer seem confused about their job requirements and/or the program’s policies.

· Your volunteer manager consistently struggles to staff events and fill open positions.

· Volunteers aren’t up to-date on organizational news or volunteer opportunities, and they don’t know where to direct their questions.

· Volunteers feel underappreciated, dissatisfied, and/or unimportant.

· Volunteers rarely donate to the organization or advocate for it with others.

· Your volunteer program consistently exceeds its budget.

· Your volunteer turnover rates are high.

If you notice any of these signs, it’s time to reconsider your approach and look to volunteer management software to help you solve some of these challenges.

Strategies to Enhance the Volunteer Experience

Whether your volunteer program is struggling or expanding, incorporating these strategies can enhance the volunteer experience and ensure long-term sustainability.

Streamline Onboarding

Prioritize the volunteer experience from day one. Be warm, welcoming, and friendly throughout the recruitment process. Then, when new volunteers are ready to commit to your organization, make sure you’re ready for them. Make onboarding as simple as possible with dedicated landing pages, comprehensive training, and leadership office hours. The easier you can make it for volunteers to join your organization, the better your retention rates will be.

Set Clear Expectations and Policies

When volunteers are uncertain what is expected of them, they are less productive on the job, and they are more likely to have a negative experience. Define volunteer roles and their associated responsibilities upfront, clearly outline standard procedures, and share key organizational policies. You should communicate this information verbally during training, but you should also provide volunteers with a volunteer handbook for future reference.

Communicate Regularly

Communication is key to the volunteer experience. Volunteers need to stay up-to-date on new opportunities and organizational events in order to feel engaged and involved. Communication also plays a major role in mitigating poor volunteer experiences. If you have a challenging volunteer who is struggling to fit in or meet expectations, reach out sooner rather than later. Having an open and honest conversation can help you address the volunteer’s situation in a constructive way while building meaningful relationships.

Provide Professional Development Opportunities

From collaboration to organization, volunteering involves a lot of transferrable skills. Enhance your volunteer’s experiences by offering professional development opportunities that they can support both their personal and careers goals. Try offering upskilling workshops, continued training sessions, and mentorship programs. Volunteering is also incredibly valuable on resumes, so provide volunteers with the option to take on leadership roles and offer to serve as an application reference.

Conduct Regular Volunteer Surveys

Volunteer surveys are the best way to gather feedback directly from your volunteer base, and they can give you invaluable information for improving the volunteer experience. Many volunteers are reluctant to provide unprompted opinions, so their concerns often go unheard. Conducting regular volunteer surveys gives your volunteer base the chance to be heard and sets a precedent for honest, constructive criticism. Focus your surveys on specific events and metrics to get the most meaningful feedback. Then, act on your findings to show volunteers you care about their experience!

Recognize Your Volunteers’ Efforts

Volunteering is rewarding on its own, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reward your volunteer base! Build volunteer recognition into your program at every level with verbal praise, social media shout-outs, written thank you notes, points-based reward systems, and formal awards. Even a simple “thank you” can go a long way to creating an outstanding volunteer experience.

Build Community

Volunteering is not a solo activity, so build a strong, supportive community that your volunteers enjoy being part of! Organize both formal and informal team-building events, like game nights, coffee breaks, and volunteer appreciation parties, that encourage your volunteers to socialize with each other. When you strengthen the bonds between your volunteers, you also strengthen their connection to your nonprofit.

Demonstrate Impact

Your volunteers want to make a difference in the world, so show them what their hard work is accomplishing! Regularly share volunteer impact data with your volunteer base through social media, newsletters, and program meetings. Combine compelling statistics with emotionally engaging case studies to give your volunteers a strong, well-rounded picture of their impact.

Leverage Technology

Leverage technology to streamline operations and improve your volunteer’s experience. Volunteer management software is a win-win for nonprofits. For volunteer managers, volunteer management software automates tasks like event management, communication, database maintenance, and report generation—freeing up paid staff members to focus on more nuanced elements of the program. Optimized volunteer management already improves the volunteer experience, but volunteer management software also gives volunteers more ownership over their experience with self-scheduling, online check-in, hour tracking, and automated reminders.

The Real-World Impact of a Great Volunteer Experience

How do these volunteer experience strategies translate to real-world impact? Mercy Chefs, a nonprofit that provides meals to victims of natural disasters and humanitarian crises, shows how prioritizing the volunteer experience can drive results.

Volunteer coordinator Molly MacDonald implemented a multi-pronged strategy to improve Mercy Chefs’ volunteer experience. She started using VolunteerHub, a volunteer management software, to streamline operations. Molly wanted a software solution that could boost engagement through self-service options, user-friendly interfaces, and better data management. She also took advantage of the platform to create a rewards system that recognized their top-performing “superstar” volunteers.

The positive feedback was immediate! Mercy Chefs’ volunteers went out of their way to call Mary and let her know how much they enjoyed the changes she’d made. But the results weren’t just anecdotal. With VolunteerHub, Mercy Chefs mobilized 6000 volunteers to serve over 25 million meals all over the world. By finding an easy-to-use software solution, Mary re-energized her volunteer base and expanded Mercy Chefs’ impact.

As Mercy Chefs demonstrates, a positive volunteer experience directly impacts your organizational mission. When your volunteers are satisfied, they can contribute more to your nonprofit—resulting in more funding, stronger community ties, and expanded impact.

Carefully evaluate your program to discover how you can improve the volunteer experience and implement strategies like satisfaction surveys, professional development opportunities, and volunteer management software to take your organization to the next level. You’ll see results immediately—while laying the groundwork for long-term success

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