I ran volunteer orientation for a few years at bike farm in Portland, Oregon. these are my take aways.
Ultimately, I only anticipated 10-20% of volunteers would become regulars within the space and challenged them to prove me wrong. As long as you turn that small subset into regulars, you’ve done your job.
I started every volunteer orientation with introductions and asking them why they wanted to volunteer with bike farm. It’s a fun way to get them talking, understand their motivation, directly address how they are in the right place and explain what differentiates our space by relating to them through my personal experience. If possible, I tried to have another volunteer support me to provide a contrasting/supporting perspective.
After waking them through the organizational structure I introduced them to every volunteer/staff member in the building and toured the space. This is to help them build connections within the organization and feel comfortable navigating the space. Additionally, I can’t be a friend to every new volunteer and I’m definitely not the best fit as a friend for every new volunteer but it’s very likely that if I can get them to connect with another established person in the space that they will feel more comfortable and want to return. The room is typically prepared to receive them and regularly interjects during the orientation to share their perspective and open the door to further communication. I have found that most people just want to volunteer to be part of a community and are drawn together by a mutual sense of purpose and interest in bikes, so my job is mostly just community building. Fostering connections is what makes the space compelling to return to. If all they care about is building technical skill, introduce them to that equivalent person in the org since you know who that is and they don’t.
I also used social media (IG) to highlight the fun we were having on shifts online. This was always referenced as a hook for why people showed up to volunteer orientation, they just thought it looked like a good time and wanted to join in.
Good luck out there!
Alison
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 9:39 PM Luke Box via TheThinkTank < thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org> wrote:
Make them useful ASAP. Teach them something, then give them a task to apply what they've learned. The reason people volunteer to teach people, isn't to teach people. They teach people, because it feels good to be useful. Focus less on what it is you're teaching and how you teach it, and more on providing volunteers an opportunity to put themselves to work. Challenge people and put them in situations where they're encouraged and allowed to make mistakes. Think about what it is you enjoy about volunteering, then provide that same opportunity to others.
On Tue, Aug 5, 2025 at 5:04 AM Geoff Smart via TheThinkTank < thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org> wrote:
Hi All,
In some but not all of our sessions we have an issue with volunteer retention. After surveying our volunteers and people who left after 3-4 sessions the consensus is that our 1 hour induction is not enough and that we need a more structured training and onboarding over multiple sessions for the cohort that for various reasons need more training and more interaction with staff and volunteers.
Has anyone had any luck with increasing retention using a more structured approach. If you have, we would appreciate any content or information you can share with us, and any other tips you may have to increase retention
Regards
*Geoff Smart* Chair Back2Bikes M : 0419 345 440 525 Williamstown Rd Port Melbourne 3207 https://www.google.com/maps/search/525+Williamstown+Rd+Port+Melbourne+3207?entry=gmail&source=g back2bikes.org.au _______________________________________________ TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
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