9 Nearly Free Volunteer Retention Tactics Hardly Any Nonprofits Are Using

For nonprofits, your volunteers are like the loyal customers a business comes to rely on. And volunteers can leave in much the same manner as customers – without a word.

Your best volunteer ever can pull a Keyzer Soze with no warning. Like that, she’s gone.

More common for nonprofits is the continuous churn of volunteers that puts a major strain on the resources (time) of already-strapped staffs.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could keep volunteers, even if they moved to a different city? It’s possible, and in more ways than one.

Here are nine ways your nonprofit can retain greater numbers of volunteers and for longer periods of time.

9 Simple Ways to Retain More Volunteers

1. Thank Them (By Phone)

You certainly expected to see thanking your volunteers on this list. Duh. But how you thank them is what matters more. Phone is better than in writing. Why? Because it’s more relational, and more relational is always better than less relational.

Always. That’s a universal Principle of Fundraising.

Why? Because volunteering is volunteering. It’s free. You’re getting free labor. Free labor is illegal in the business world. The movie industry has taken steps toward even eliminating free internships.

You’re exploiting a legal loophole afforded to nonprofits. And not only is it free, but they’re giving it to you of their own choosing!

Your volunteers are amazing people. That’s worth a phone call. Wouldn’t you like to be thanked for giving up hours and days of your time for free?

I volunteer at a lot of fundraising events. And one thing I pay attention to is how they treat me. Not just at the event, but before it and after it. Some do a terrific job of thanking me afterward. Others – it’s like I never gave up 6 hours of my day all for their benefit.

Does calling them take more time? Depends, actually. How many volunteers do you need to call? How often? If you do an envelope folding party, how long does it take to call and thank this small handful of people? How long would it take to write them an email?

When you add up all the micro-tasks required to pull both of these off and presume that some of your calls won’t get answered which means all you have to do is leave a 30-second voicemail, the time differential is negligible. Especially when compared against the effect.

Those sacrificial volunteers will feel more valued, more known, and more connected to you, your mission, and your people if someone calls to thank them. Take the time.

2. Don’t Overwork Them

This list of how to keep more volunteers has things to do, and things to not do. This is the second most important one to not do (you’ll get the most important in a moment).

Your volunteers are busy people. Just like you.

So if someone gives up a Saturday morning for you, or makes a bunch of phone calls on your behalf, or helps out at an event, they gave up precious time on their schedule, just for you.

So don’t call them a week later and ask more of them. Wait a while. Stay in communication through your newsletter and other means. But don’t ask too much of them.

When you really need their help, they’ll again make a priority to help.

3. Thank Them (by Mail)

There are dozens of ways to thank people, and I would recommend varying your approach for people who volunteer multiple times.

For bigger sacrifices of time and perhaps money, you should thank these extra selfless volunteers in more than one way. Sending a thank you card signed by your staff is a simple task that costs very little, but says a lot.

4. Ask Them to Recruit Friends and Family

This is an advanced volunteer thank you tactic. Hardly anyone uses it, but it’s one of the most powerful because it utilizes the “ownership effect.”

If someone helps out alone, they’ll feel good about it. If they get thanked, they feel a little better. But if they get other people to volunteer next time, now they’re not just helping you out. They’re asking people to help US out.

Your nonprofit and your cause have now become theirs. Now, they own it. And once someone from their circle of influence gets hooked and wants to come to everything, even if the first person wants to stop, their legacy remains. This is one way you can keep your volunteers even after they leave. You’re keeping the other people who would never have been there otherwise.

5. Thank Them (Okay! I get it!)

Okay, I won’t keep doing this.

But do you realize how many ways you have at your disposal to thank your volunteers, and thereby keep them coming back?

You can use email. Again, don’t only do email. But you can do email and regular mail together. Hit them with it twice in case they miss one of them.

You can also thank them in person next time you see them. Nothing is more relationally powerful than looking someone in the eye and saying ‘Thank you.’ Even better, throw in a gift. It doesn’t matter how small. It’s the thought that counts. Yes – it really is.

How often are people fed negative messages from other people or the media? Every single day. How often do we speak negative messages over ourselves? Even more often.

When you thank your volunteers verbally, you are breaking against the tide of negativity that washes over them the rest of the time.

They will remember you for that.

Still, other ways to thank volunteers: Recognize them publicly, like at a live event. Honor them for their work so others see it. Put them in your newsletter. Public recognition is one of the best ways to endear another person to you.

Husbands and wives can do this for each other too (and should….)

6. Ask for Feedback

Show you value their opinion and perspective by asking them how your nonprofit can improve.

“What can we do better?”

Ask in such a way that they will feel respected and heard. What they say might really surprise you. In that case, you benefit twice. Once because the volunteer will stick around for longer. And again because you just learned a way to improve something else in your organization.

7. Appreciate Them

Appreciating is different from thanking.

This is different in my view because appreciation is an immediate reward for value given.

At a live event, for instance, you aren’t going to let your volunteers starve, right? But you don’t want them paying for their own food either.

They should be fed by you so they feel valued and will be at high energy and maximum performance. For events requiring a lot of labor or mental attention (which most do), food is especially important.

You can also give them pins, buttons, T-shirts, and other mementos that make them feel special and part of the team. These things also have the additional benefit of spreading your brand.

8. Follow Up on the No-Shows

If someone doesn’t show up, that’s bad for several reasons. If they keep not showing up and you never know why then something has happened.

Maybe they moved and just didn’t tell you. Maybe someone is sick. Or, maybe they just got busier or their work schedule changed.

The reason doesn’t matter.

The simple act of following up does.

Again, this is about relationship-building. Volunteers are not tools. They are not numbers in your CRM. They are people helping you and getting nothing in return.

So if you stop hearing from them, follow up and find out why? And don’t say, “We haven’t seen you for a while! Want to come help us again?”

Instead, ask, “We haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything alright?”

Care about them, just like you care about the people (or animals) you’re serving.

9. Don’t Give Inappropriate Tasks

The single best way to burn out a volunteer is to ask them to do something that you should be paying someone to do.

The best example of this is social media.

Managing a social media account is a job.  It is a not a task for volunteers. If you aren’t convinced about this, I have a dare for you:

I dare you to find me two nonprofits – anywhere in the entire world – who have been using the same volunteer to manage their social media for more than two years.

If you can find me two, I will write you a free fundraising letter.

I don’t believe you can even find one who has been doing it for six months, let alone two years.

And by “manage social media,” I don’t mean posting once every month when they get sent something from you and finally do it a week later.

I mean managing your social media. That means, they are running the show, sending out consistent messages, interacting with people who engage with your pages, independently sending links to your site now and then. Taking initiative, so you can deal with other things.

That’s what social media management means.

This is not a task for volunteers. It’s a job.

And any task requiring ongoing and consistent work is inappropriate to assign to volunteers. You can try to prove me wrong if you don’t want to believe it. But the number of people who will persist and endure for the long run in any task requiring regular output and responsibility is exceedingly small.

Because they have lives.

This is How to Keep Your Volunteers Even If They Move

Earlier I mentioned that you can do this through legacy volunteers – people who volunteer with you because another volunteer recruited them.

But in other cases, they might keep helping you from afar. I know one volunteer who moved 1000 miles away from the organization she had been working with. But she was so committed, that even from there, she is still doing things to help them.

Granted, they are different things. But she is helping.

Put these 9 easy and inexpensive tactics to work, and you’ll keep volunteers working with you longer than ever before.

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