According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, Americans spend over 7.8 hours volunteering their time at a variety of nonprofits. That adds up to an estimated value of $184 billion dollars! Volunteers are an important cornerstone of many nonprofits and proper volunteer management is critical to a successful volunteer program.
The men and women that donate their time through volunteering can have a big impact on your organization’s success and bottom line. Because of their importance to nonprofits, proper volunteer management is important for a number of reasons listed here.
Engaging your volunteers with relevant opportunities is important if you want to keep them coming back to volunteer again and again. When managing volunteers, it’s important to note more than just name, phone number, and email address, you want to get a list of their skills, interests, and availability so that you’re able to offer volunteers opportunities that resonate strongly. When you offer your volunteers relevant jobs at times when they’re available, they’ll be more likely to increase their participation with your organization.
To build off increased participation, with more volunteer prospects come more opportunities for you to interact with your volunteers on a more personal level. Using software to assign volunteers and build a schedule will keep the administrative portion of volunteer management at a minimum and the time spent strengthening your ties to the volunteer community at a maximum.
Once you build those strong relationships in your community, you’re able to turn volunteers into champions for your cause. Of course, your volunteers are passionate enough to sign up to volunteer in the first place, but what you really want are people who not only donate their time, but they’re also vocal champions in the community at large.
Proper volunteer management results in new relationships of many kinds for your organization. Existing volunteers that are engaged and excited about your cause are more likely to encourage others to donate or sign up to volunteer as well. If you use an integrated donor relationship management software, you can also track how volunteers are coming to your organization and send thank you emails to those who are recruiting new donors for your nonprofit.
According to research, two-thirds of volunteers donate money as well as their time to support nonprofit organizations. On top of the in-kind gift of donated time, your organization could be soliciting monetary donations as well. If you’re properly managing your volunteers, then you likely have an engaged, excited group of untapped potential donors right in front of you.
Proper volunteer management is about so much more than good organization (although that’s also a big selling point!), when your organization manages its volunteer base well, the returns on the initial investment it takes to build a solid volunteer database add up quickly!