4 School Volunteer Management Best Practices for Success
Volunteer coordination is essential for every fundraising event. Informed and proactive volunteers make a difference, especially in the world of school fundraising. However, with busy school schedules, managing volunteers can be a challenge.
Schools run into a handful of roadblocks with volunteer management such as inspiring volunteer interest, delegating tasks, and retaining volunteers. If you’re implementing a new volunteer program or tweaking an existing one, it’s important to be strategic with your program set up to avoid these common pain points.
To help you identify and maintain an effective school volunteer pool, we’ll go over these tips:
Generate Volunteer Interest
Communicate Clear Volunteer Requirements
Provide Adequate Training Materials
Express Gratitude
Volunteer coordination takes time to get just right, and with each fundraising event, you’ll learn more about specific tactics that work for your school’s volunteer base. However, as your volunteer base changes, it’s still important to stick to the same priorities: volunteer recruitment, communications, empowerment, and recognition.
With that in mind, let’s explore some practical ways to implement these priorities into your volunteer management program to maximize your school fundraising results.
1. Generate Volunteer Interest
When scouting for volunteers, it’s helpful to keep your audience’s interests in mind. Why should parents, school staff, and students volunteer for your fundraising event? What sort of incentives will this volunteer experience offer?
When volunteers have a stake in your fundraiser, they’re much more likely to provide enthusiastic and consistent support. For increased parent and teacher participation, consider offering these incentives:
A volunteer parking space or carpool pass. For parents especially, carpool passes are major time savers for morning and afternoon routines. If you’re running a more involved fundraiser, you can offer these parking spaces or carpool passes as incentives for the volunteer of the month.
Free admission and food. This incentive is a no-brainer but can make a big impact if a volunteer and their family know that their participation will result in a free meal.
Teacher gift basket. Because they are uniquely invested in your school, teacher volunteer perspectives matter. Attract teacher volunteer participation by putting together a personalized, thoughtful gift basket full of useful classroom supplies as a special thank you for teacher volunteers.
Childcare. Offer flexible after-school childcare to give parents more time to volunteer. When you provide a childcare solution upfront, parents are much more likely to consider volunteering at your school fundraiser.
After getting teachers and parents onboard, adjust your approach to generate student interest. Depending on the type of school fundraiser, students can fulfill different volunteer needs in a way that can benefit them, too. For increased student participation, consider offering these incentives:
Appeal to their college application needs. With stiff enrollment competition, high school students need a way to stand out on their college applications, and a wide range of community service and volunteer experience can add that extra edge.
Ask them to brainstorm ideas with your team. Encourage students to design a school fundraiser their way and consider their input. This could mean having them vote for ideas that they think are the most engaging like an obstacle course event or trivia competition.
Make volunteering fun. Incorporate games and competitions into your regular volunteer meetings to engage students and give them a break from their academic routines. Or, host a volunteer kickoff social to inspire support and add an extra layer of fun.
Finally, to encourage more student engagement, you can mention that breaking up demanding academic schedules with meaningful volunteering can help protect against burnout. Plus, committing to regular volunteer time can help students develop healthy social awareness habits that will contribute to their personal growth.
2. Communicate Clear Volunteer Requirements
Successful volunteer management begins with volunteer recruitment. Spell out what exactly is required from each volunteer, so volunteers can be best prepared and know what’s expected of them when they sign up.
It’s a good idea to connect individual volunteer strengths to appropriate tasks to keep volunteers engaged and motivated. For instance, if you know a volunteer has marketing experience, you can assign them to create flyers and advertise your fundraiser on social media.
To give you a closer idea of specified volunteer roles, let’s use the example of a silent auction fundraiser. To pull off a silent auction, you’ll need to delegate a variety of volunteer roles, such as:
Item Procurement Lead. This leader will be responsible for overseeing a team of auction item procurers and recording item prices to meet fundraising needs.
Ticket Sales Lead. This volunteer will be responsible for setting ticket prices, selling tickets online, and managing incoming registrations.
Volunteer Manager. Designate a volunteer to oversee all volunteer responsibilities, provide fundraising updates, and answer questions.
Venue Manager. Select a volunteer to manage silent auction decorations, venue selection, and overall auction theme.
Software Lead. Decide on a leader who will manage necessary silent auction software to streamline incoming bids and keep payment information in one secure place.
Schoolauction.net suggests brainstorming top auction item picks with your volunteer team to determine your auction procurement strategy. Then, you should delegate procuring the different items among multiple volunteers. That way, the job of choosing and procuring auction items does not fall on just one person.
Keep in mind that each school fundraiser will require different volunteer roles, just remember to communicate your fundraising needs to volunteers upfront and consider their preferences when assigning positions.
3. Provide Adequate Training Materials
To centralize all of your volunteer information, consider creating a volunteer handbook. This handbook can be located online or printed out for each volunteer to reference. If your school runs similar fundraising events each year, it’s helpful to have the fundraiser basics laid out so previous supporters can pass the baton to new volunteers.
Your volunteer handbook doesn’t need to be lengthy, it just needs to provide relevant information to reduce general confusion and save your volunteer program coordinator sometime when getting new volunteers ready to step into their roles. Include essential items like:
Welcome letter. Express your appreciation and gratitude for the volunteer’s time and effort in a short section at the beginning of your handbook.
Contact information. Provide a directory with volunteer staff contact information, so volunteers know who to call for a specific question.
Event schedule. Lay out a rough idea of the event schedule. For instance, a gala might have scheduled time for a welcome and greeting, opening speeches, and dinner service.
Volunteer roles and responsibilities. Outline the volunteer roles so volunteers can get a better idea of the different fundraising responsibilities.
Conduct and behavior expectations. Discuss professional behavior expectations, and reiterate your school’s code of conduct.
Provide space at the end of your handbook for volunteer questions and suggestions. For instance, your online volunteer handbook could incorporate links to a fundraising idea survey to list out fresh campaigns or events for your next fundraiser.
By providing an opportunity to suggest future fundraising ideas, your volunteers will feel empowered to share their feedback. And, you never know, a volunteer’s suggestion to combine an online shopping fundraiser with your annual fun run could help your school exceed its fundraising goals.
4. Express Gratitude
Finally, remember to thank all supporters following your big fundraising event success. When you make an effort to express your appreciation, volunteers are much more likely to participate in the next school fundraiser.
According to Fundraising Letters, writing personal letters to each individual volunteer is a great way to express your gratitude. Or, you might also consider hosting a volunteer appreciation dinner complete with genuine speeches recognizing all of your volunteer’s hard work with a special emphasis on thanking those in leadership positions.
Be sure to mention the impact your volunteers made by following up with the amount your school raised because of their dedication. Without being too pushy, let them know of any other upcoming fundraising events and provide contact information for them to get in touch with any questions or concerns.
Final Thoughts on Volunteer Management for Success
School volunteer management does not need to be complicated. Approach managing volunteers mindfully to maintain consistent, clear communication throughout fundraising planning and the event day itself.
Send out a volunteer survey following your school fundraiser to gather feedback on how to improve the volunteer experience for your next event. Evaluate your volunteers’ answers and adjust your management practices accordingly.