I would add to/echo/sparkle fingies Paul's fantastic list that advertising a volunteer program that includes training is a great tool. Like: volunteer at our shop and we'll teach you how to fix bikes for free or give you perks or both. Volunteer night, free admission to workshops, deal on used parts etc. A volunteer recruitment strategy that includes a transparent commitment to making thier time at the shop meaningful for them has worked well for me to foster a sense of commitment and belonging. Work trade or earn a bike, while not volunteerism in the purest sense, gets shit done and gives folks motivation. I like bicas' work trade deal.
Wrangle them vollies!
Lauren
Some thoughts relating to volunteers and promotion in general (can't say we do all of these effectively):
- Usually no single thing will do the trick, you just need to sort of saturate your area.
- Attract people with more fun things like bike rides, art shows, movies, etc. - once they know where you are and have met you, they are more likely to get hooked in.
- Set up booths at events
- Volunteers tend to be attracted by a variety of things, but one big one is the social aspect. Make time for "volunteer night" or something similar - there is continuity between volunteers and beneficiaries of our organization, it's not just "us helping them"
- Work with other organizations in the area. That way you get cross-promotion and cross-pollination of volunteers, and can share in the work of different tasks. Approach them and offer to lead something that maybe they've been wanting to do or is up their alley.
- Try to connect with news reporters in your area. Although I've found news reports can seem surprisingly ineffectual, they do help with that saturation effect, where people can say "oh yeah, I've heard of them".
- Make it known in a variety of ways that you are looking for volunteers and how they can help. Being more organized on your side helps volunteers find tasks that fit them.
- We have a meetup page and zero of our volunteers have come from there, perhaps your experience will be different. For a while about a quarter of people coming to our workshops came via the meetup page but now its less. That's partly because the page has been neglected, however.
- We're doing facebook, meetup, instagram, twitter, and flyering, in addition to our website and e-newsletter. It's all a bit much. I would recommend making sure you're doing each one well, consistently, and effectively, rather than doing more different things than you can handle.
- Use a volunteer information form like the one attached to find out the availability, skills, and interests of the people coming in.
- Volunteers are hugely valuable and worth major investment of time to get more. If you use a third of your time devoted to the project specifically to attract two more volunteers who each put in the same amount of work you do, you have increased your total productivity by 166% over if you had just stuck to doing things yourself.
Please note that I'm actually pretty bad at promoting stuff, mainly due to not prioritizing it adequately.
-Paul Nagel
The Bicycle Tree
shop: (714) 760-4681
811 N. Main St.
Santa Ana, CA 92701
http://www.thebicycletree.org
info@thebicycletree.org
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 21:11:59 -0500
From: bayley.vanderpoel@velocitycoop.org
To: thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
Subject: [TheThinkTank] Volunteer Recruitment
Hello,Bayley here from VeloCity Bicycle Coop in Alexandria, Va. I'm looking for advice recruiting new volunteers. Any general ideas to increase exposure of our bicycle coop is appreciated.Has anyone else used meetup.com to recruit volunteers? I started a group and it seems to be helping.Bayley
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