Raise awareness
How to Recruit Volunteers Online?
Vee Team
February 12, 2021
It’s impossible to overstate the value volunteers can bring to nonprofit organizations. When individuals are committed to donating their time and energy to a meaningful cause, and their skills are aligned with the goal to be accomplished, the potential impact of their work becomes limitless. Vee is the tool that will help connect you with the best volunteers for your project.
With access to Vee’s network, nonprofits can find motivated, qualified volunteers to carry their efforts forward. Here, we’ll outline some Vee best practices to navigate our network and optimize your experience. Think of this as your guide for how to work smarter — not harder — when it comes to volunteer recruitment on Vee.
Tip: Got a couple of options for volunteering? Divide them into different missions.
After logging in to Vee, the first thing volunteers will see is the name of the activity you’re hosting. Your title makes your first impression: as such, you should be thoughtful and intentional when naming the activities you list on Vee.
Remember that volunteers will be looking for projects that are relevant to them and their experience, so be sure to use a title that clearly describes the volunteer's role. The name of your activity should reflect who you’re looking for and what they’ll be doing — ideally in a concise, familiar manner.
Examples of a good title are “Food Pantry Organizer” or “Social Media Strategist”.
The description of your activity should give potential volunteers a clear idea of your goals and expectations. This is the place to briefly summarize the mission of your organization and elaborate on the scope of the project at hand. Try to outline how the ideal candidate would be able to help your efforts.
Always make sure that your volunteers know what they are signing up for and what they can expect from the activity. The more information the volunteers are given, the easier it will be for them to decide whether they can adequately fulfill your volunteering needs, and the more likely it will be that you find well-suited volunteers.
Avoid a vague explanation, like “tutor required three times a month.” Instead, try something more specific, like: "Using our online software, volunteers will help high school juniors prepare for the SAT every other week.”
We recommend that you avoid using language like "the volunteer" or "the right candidate," and instead talk directly to your audience. Imagine talking to the person on the other side of the app: tell them about your cause, and more importantly, how they can contribute. Help them visualize themselves working on your project. Making the process more personal will encourage them to join.
Depending on your organization’s need, you might need volunteers for a specific one-time task, a continuous role, or you might post an open call for any help they can give. As such, the next step will be choosing whether the posted activity is for a one-time event or a request for ongoing volunteering.
One-time activities will have a fixed time and duration, like “October 15 3:00 - 6:00 PM.” Examples of one-time events include activities like an annual beach cleanup or clothing distribution around the holidays.
Ongoing volunteering is for activities in which the volunteer has no fixed timetable or cannot be expected to commit to the timetable in advance. For example, you might need to coordinate scheduling or conduct an interview with potential volunteers before you can confirm their application. Projects like graphic design or ongoing mentorship programs fall into this category.
Vee also provides a Team Events tab in the dashboard. While Vee is open to individuals and groups from all areas, the Team Events section is only open to paying customers, such as our corporate partners, to be able to do personalized group volunteering. If you have any in-person, group activities that can occur at a flexible date, this is the place to post them.
The process of creating a Team Event is very similar to creating a regular activity. In addition to inputting the address, title/description, and photo, you will also be asked to input a range of volunteers that can participate in the activity (ex. 10-20), as well as anything that will be provided (ex. gloves) or must be brought by participants (ex. hat). Companies can request a date to come and volunteer with you, and you can either confirm or deny their request, as well as suggest other dates and times.
For in-person volunteer activities, please ensure that you list the specific location where the task will occur, like “Downtown Springfield Community Garden.” For remote or virtual volunteering opportunities, simply select the option titled "Remote Activity."
With COVID still playing a large role in remote work, we understand that in-person volunteering may not be an option for certain nonprofits at this point and we completely respect that. With that said, most volunteers are interested in having a personal/face to face connection with both the nonprofit and beneficiaries of their work. If there are any in-person opportunities at your nonprofit, we highly encourage you to post those.
This section is where you will tell volunteers how to get in touch with the project coordinator for this specific activity. Make sure this is always populated with the most up-to-date information to ensure you don’t miss out on participants due to basic miscommunication.
Important note: Please make sure the contact person for your activity is also listed as an admin on your Vee account. You can add as many admins from your organization as you would like under the settings feature at the top right-hand corner of your dashboard.
Vee's algorithm has been designed to help find the perfect match between prospective volunteers and available roles. Use our filtering and optimization tools to achieve better and more accurate results than are available through traditional means.
Here you can list any requirements you have for potential volunteers, like preferred age, sex, technical qualifications, language skills, and anything else relevant to the project.
Along with the activity title you’ve chosen, you will need to include an image relevant to the project. This will be one of the first things a volunteer will see when viewing available activities, so use it to your advantage — as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. We recommend the use of an eye-grabbing photo that can speak for itself, ideally of your organization in action. Keep in mind that your organization's logo won't appear in the picture.
If visuals aren’t your strength, Vee also provides a gallery of stock images you can use.
Vee allows you to tag a number of causes and categories that your activity may fall into, like “education” or “environment.” Tagging each request helps draw in the right kind of volunteers who are genuinely eager about your mission. Our algorithm will leverage these tags when matching your volunteer roles to the individuals most interested in a given request. Note that there is no limit to the number of tags you can add, but to get the best exposure to the right audience, please choose only the categories that fit your specific activity.
After following the above steps, you’re now ready to post your listing to Vee. Click "Create," publish your activity, and get ready to make a change!
Good luck!
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