Are you supporting your volunteers the right way?

This isn’t really a revelation to anyone in the charity sector, or at least it shouldn’t be, but volunteers are the spine of the non-profit World. Whilst large charities such as Oxfam or British Red Cross may employ thousands, and whilst a number of charities have staff budgets well into the millions of pounds, volunteers both in the office and on the front line remain the foot soldiers who get most of the jobs done.

It’s also worth saying from the outset that most charities and non-profits both value and support their volunteers.

But today we’re going to ask if you’re supporting your volunteers the right way?

The profile of the ‘average’ volunteer is an impossible one to accurately portray. For every older person who donates their time in their retirement, their is an 18 year old looking to gain experience ahead of a career. For every person who gives their time solely due to passion for the cause, there are others who wants to bolster their CV or simply do something to occupy their free time. For every volunteer that gives an hour here or there when they can, there are volunteers who push the European Working Time Directive to its limits! There simply isn’t anything even close to ‘a typical volunteer’.

And this is perhaps the reason why we’re asking the question, are you supporting your volunteers the right way? Let’s take it as read that whoever you are reading this, and whatever kind of non-profit you run, if you have volunteers you should be doing the following as a minimum.

- Treating them with the same respect you’d give a paid employee.

- Making sure they know you appreciate the work they do.

- Communicating with them regularly to make sure they’re OK with the work they’re doing.

- Never, ever taking them for granted.

Many reading this will probably be saying “Well obviously. I don’t need a blog to tell me to treat my volunteers with respect!”. And we can understand that. But what we’re asking today is, if we agree there’s lots of different types of volunteers, then surely we agree how we manage these volunteers should be different. We’re not here today to criticise or try to tell any non-profit how to run their own business, but we are going to ask some questions and leave the reader to answer them, honestly, in their own time.

Have you had a face to face chat with all your volunteers to talk to them about why they volunteer for you, and what their motivations are? If you haven’t and you don’t know why they’re working for you, can you honestly say you’re looking out for their best interests?

If you have any volunteers who you’d reasonably expect to move on to another career step at some point, have you offered them every opportunity you can to enhance their CV and professional abilities? This might include giving them opportunities to undertake formal training of some kind, or maybe offer them the chance to take up a broader set of roles in the organisation that they can use to bolster their experience profile?

If you have any volunteers who are often willing to work unsociable hours, or come in at short notice, have you taken sufficient steps to check in on their mental health wellbeing? Being willing to give your life and soul to a cause as a volunteer is both admirable and often a positive thing for the person. But have you fully considered the possibility they’re looking for something to fill their life to offset something less than positive elsewhere? If you haven’t checked in on them, you can’t know for sure.

If you don’t have regular face to face contact with some of your volunteers, either because of the nature of the work they do or due to COVID19, do you make the effort to connect with them either via video, email or phone on a scheduled basis?

These questions will be something that comes naturally to many organisations, and we applaud every single one of them today. But remembering that there are many different types of volunteers just emphasises the principle that there should be many different types of approach to how you manage those volunteers.

A volunteer management plan should be varied, dynamic and flexible… Just like the amazing people who volunteer to support the important work you do!