Andy:
There must be lots of ways to recruit volunteers. This is so important
that I could go on for hours about this. Here are a few thoughts off the
top of my head, regarding how to find, recruit and retain volunteers:
LOCAL BIKE ENTHUSIASTS
The lowest hanging fruit is from bicycle enthusiasts. Typically your
existing volunteer base will include a number of people who belong to local
bike clubs or bike advocacy groups. Bicycle enthusiasts are the most
likely to already have bike repair skills. The ones who don't already have
them are usually VERY receptive to any opportunity to gain knowledge and
practice, under the guidance of your experienced volunteers.
Get your experienced volunteers to spread the word (either by mouth or
through bike club newsletters) that you are looking for new volunteers. Be
sure to explain your mission, and what skills are required of volunteers.
If you will teach new volunteers everything that they need to know (which
you should), be sure to say this.
CORPORATE VOLUNTEERS
Another possible way to recruit is through larger local corporations.
Believe it or not, many local companies have a desire to do good for their
local community by encouraging their employees to volunteer at non-profit
organizations. They may allow groups of employees to volunteer their labor
during work hours. Some of them may additionally donate to your nonprofit
shop a few hundred dollars per session, for you to lead these volunteer
sessions. The nicest of these also provide catered lunches for their
employees, plus a few of your own staff that lead the events.
Why would a company *pay* for you to provide a volunteer opportunity?
Reasons go far beyond supporting the local community. The company may gain
a public relations benefit if word gets out that they are paying for their
employees to volunteer during work hours. The group may see it as a
valuable team-building activity that benefits the company, as employees are
able to interact and get to know one another outside of the work
environment.
How do you find such corporate gigs? If none of your current volunteers
works at a nearby large-ish employer, ask around among your cyclist
community. You could also try cold-calling your local employers and try to
talk to someone in human resources or community relations, paying
special attention to those companies that make donations to the community,
sponsor local sports teams, or run advertising on the tv, radio, billboards
or a local newspaper. If a company has never sponsored such events, it
might be a good opportunity to stress the benefits to the employer that
result from sending their employees to your volunteer events.
As you reach out to corporations, it is important to have structured and
specific activities in mind. For example, "repairing bicycles to give to
local children in need" always sounds a lot better than "cleaning up and
reorganizing the shop" or repairing bikes to sell.
If you doubt me, and are skeptical of this advice, I urge you to ask some
older people, particularly those who have worked in management at your
local large companies. Large companies do want to build a positive image
in their communities, and some will want to support you by sending
employees your way as volunteers.
LOCAL VOLUNTEER GROUPS
We just talked about the corporate world. Where I live there are also
plenty of *community* organizations that want to send volunteers to worthy
non-profits. These could be church groups, adult service clubs (e.g.
Rotary), Boy Scouts looking for service projects, or high school kids who
may need to fulfill a community service requirement. Find out if any such
volunteer pools are in your area.
In many locations there are also organizations whose sole purpose is to
match up volunteers with volunteer opportunities. When I googled "group
connecting volunteers with nonprofits" I got back a list of such
organizations, including VolunteerMatch, Taproot, Catchfire, and Goodera.
In my area we have a local VA hospital. Someone organized a group of
veterans who use the VA hospital, to come and volunteer at our nonprofit
shop. Your shop might wish to return the favor to them by supplying the VA
with low-cost repaired bicycles to give to patients who are rehabilitating
an injury. You can create a virtuous cycle!
Think carefully about this next suggestion. There may be convicted
criminals needing to complete community service hours that were ordered as
part of their sentencing. You might well have concerns about violent
offenders or thieves, but there might still be a class of offenders that
you would be comfortable with, who deserve a chance to become productive
volunteers and members of society. At the same time, you need to balance a
desire for volunteers against the possibility that convicted criminals
might make your existing valued volunteers uneasy, and drive them away. It
might be hard to retain volunteers who are there because a judge is forcing
them to be there.
PUBLICITY
There are doubtlessly people in your local community who would happily
volunteer with you, if only they knew that you existed. Consider doing
something to raise your shop's profile.
For example, if you have a local Bike To Work Day, perhaps you can sponsor
an Energizer station. In advance of Bike To Work Day you could hold a free
bike check and free minor repairs. If your shop is out of the way, try
enlisting local public libraries to provide space, advertising, and
credibility: many libraries have an event calendar for lectures and
activities on their premises.
Local newspapers may be willing to publicize your volunteer events in a
community calendar. Some experts say that you should write a press release
and send it to your local newspapers. Personally, when I asked a seasoned
local news reporter, she told me not to bother writing a press
release because any decent writer is going to want to interview you and
write their own copy. You could always ask each local newspaper how they
would like to proceed.
If your shop doesn't already have a website and business cards, get them!
Nothing builds credibility more than being able to hand someone a business
card that has your shop's contact information and a URL where people can go
to for more information about who you are, your benefit to the community,
and how they can help by donating labor, bikes, or money.
PREREQUISITES
Before you bring in a bunch of new volunteers, you need to have a few
things in order. Most importantly, you need trained volunteers to lead and
train new volunteers through planned activites. Generally, you also need
structured programs, to help you pitch your volunteer opportunities to
prospective client groups that could send volunteers to you.
One of the biggest challenges at my local community bike shop is not
getting volunteers, but rather keeping them: very few new volunteers come
back at all, let alone with any regularly. A few years ago, at the Bike!
Bike! in Los Angleles, there was an excellent session on volunteer
retention. My biggest takeaway is that people volunteer for various
reasons. People who come alone probably want to meet other like-minded
people. People who come from churches and service groups especially want
to produce something tangible, such as several completed repair projects
that will be donated back into the community. Other people may want to
learn and practice new skills, or share a rewarding activity with a family
member.
It usually takes a concerted effort to greet new volunteers, make them feel
welcome, teach them so they can feel productive, and meet their various
needs for learning and accomplishment. Please brief your existing
volunteers who will be helping you to put on these new volunteer events.
Remember people's names. When each new volunteer leaves, make sure to call
them by name and tell them how much you enjoyed having them and you would
love to have them return for the next volunteer activity. As they leave,
remind them of the date and time for this next volunteer session. Have a
sign-up list where you collect names, phone numbers, and email addresses,
so that you can follow up with more words of thanks and notification about
future volunteer events.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
There are plenty of things you can do to recruit and retain new
volunteers. These are just some methods that happen to work in my local
community. There are bound to be other things that work well in other
places. Please discuss and feel free to disagree.
The most critical overriding concern should be volunteer retention. It's
easy to get someone to come once, but what you really want are volunteers
who come back again and again. With some thought you can plan for this and
improve your number of repeat volunteers.
