Recruiting Volunteers To Serve in Difficult, Dangerous or Controversial Roles

Some volunteering is perceived as difficult AND dangerous, such as fire fighting, search and rescue, volunteering with incarcerated people in a jail or prison or volunteering with people who are formerly-incarcerated.

Some volunteering is perceived as controversial, such as providing water stations in the dessert for people entering a country illegally and can die from dehydration, or defending a women's health clinic patients from protesters, or various protest and activism roles.

Difficult, dangerous and/or controversial roles actually appeal to many people who want to volunteer: they feel strongly about the cause, or they want to do something substantial and challenging. But other roles may seem too intimidating to new recruits, like mentoring a young person going through the foster care system, working with young people in the juvenile justice system, working with people with intellectual disabilities, or working with seniors.

How do you recruit for roles that might seem difficult, dangerous, even controversial? How do you recruit for a subject area or role that might provoke an initial reaction of fear among potential volunteers?

Advice:

• First, realize that there are elements of the volunteer role that are appealing to potential volunteers. Many people want a challenge, they want something that's going to require a significant investment because they want an experience that's going to make a real impact, a real difference, not just be a vanity volunteering photo of Instagram or a number of volunteering hours on a university application. Think about recruitment images, text and other messaging that might appeal to a person looking for that kind of challenge or experience.

• Emphasize and detail all of the training and support volunteers in these roles get, before and during their volunteer service. Do new volunteers get mentored and coached by veteran volunteers? Do volunteers get to take a break? Is all of this information on your web site about volunteering with your program, and do you talk about this in meetings with potential volunteers?

• Pitch the idea of doing a story about these volunteers to a local television station. Local TV stations are always hungry for human interest stories, especially if you line up everyone you want to speak already, schedule the day and time the interviews will take place and have lots of ideas for things they could film while they are at your location, so they can put together a visual story.

• Consider interviewing people who have benefited from your program, talking about the difference these volunteers have made for them. Recruiting volunteers to record such interviews and splice them together in a snazzy video is as easy as posting a recruitment message specifically to VolunteerMatch or some other recruitment platform for such. In fact, I could do it with just my smart phone or a conversation with clients on a web conferencing platform I could use to record, like Zoom. Such a video will not only help you recruit volunteers but can also reinvigorate employees and current volunteers about their work for your organization. Share that video on your website, on YouTube, and at all speaking engagements and open houses.

• Create and share a video of volunteers talking about why they volunteer and the benefits they receive from doing so. Share that video on your website, on YouTube, and at all speaking engagements and open houses.

• Encourage volunteers to blog about their experiences, and regularly profile these volunteers and thank them on your web site and on social media.

• Offer to speak at meetings of Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis, or any other benevolent societies, as well as social groups and communities of faith. You could show a video of volunteers talking about their experience, or clients talking about their experience. You may want your educational program to specifically combat fear about your work or your clients. 

• Meet with a city council member and play your short video for that person. Ask if there is a city council meeting where you could give official testimony and show your short video as a part of the official agenda of the meeting. If you can present the video and a short speech during a city council meeting, that introduces all of the city council members, many key members of city staff and local reporters to your work. Do the same with a representative of your county government.  

• Think about professions or university degrees that attract the kind of people you think would make good candidates for these volunteering roles. Is there a way to connect with people in those professions, or people retired from those professions, about this volunteering opportunity?

• Have an open house or a meeting-our-people-on-the-front-lines event, where people can meet and talk with current volunteers firsthand. It doesn't have to be called a recruitment event - you can call it a celebration - but a recruitment event is what it is as well: an event meant to bring people in who might end up wanting to volunteer themselves. Encourage volunteers to invite family, friends of family members and their own friends to such an event. Volunteers can absolutely talk about difficulties, but should emphasize why they volunteer and the benefits they receive from doing so.

• Remember that volunteers at your organization already in non-intensive, not-so-difficult roles might eventually "graduate" to these more difficult roles. Let them know, regularly, that this is an option for them to explore. 
  

• Are volunteers allowed to take breaks? Can they volunteer in such an intensive role for a certain number of months and then take a mental health break, not volunteering at all for a while or volunteering in something not-so-intensive? 
  

• Invite potential volunteers to no-obligation ask-us-anything meetings where they can ask absolutely any question about the program, where you openly discuss the very best, and very worst, that can happen, where you discuss how new volunteers are supported and guided, how all volunteers are supported and guided, how problems are addressed, etc.

• Train all board members and all staff on how to recruit for these positions specifically. They should know how to talk about these programs in a way that is encouraging, clear and accurate. Don't just tell them to recruit for these positions: make sure they have sat through the same pitch you make to benevolent societies, social groups, communities of faith, etc. 

And, as with any volunteering tasks, intense or not, there is certain information about volunteering at your organization that MUST be on your web site if you want to attract volunteers and keep them.

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