A free resource for nonprofit organizations, NGOs, civil society organizations,
charities, schools, public sector agencies & other mission-based / caused-based agencies & initiatives
by Jayne Cravens
via coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)

Recruiting Local Volunteers To Increase Diversity Among the Ranks

An organization that wants to involve volunteers has a number of goals for such involvement. The primary goal, of course, is to best serve the mission of the organization -- volunteers may be the best people to engage in certain activities in order to meet that mission, and, therefore, those activities are reserved specifically to be done by volunteers. Another goal may be to get fresh ideas and perspectives that are different from paid employees and consultants. Still another goal may be to demonstrate to donors and the public that the community is welcomed to come in and experience the work of the organization first hand. Yet another goal may be to increase the number of people talking about your organization in the community, which could encourage people to donate funds to your organization or express support for such to their elected officials.

(I hope your answer regarding why to involve volunteers isn't "Because we have so much work to do and can't pay salaries in order for the work to be done." That would mean you are involving volunteers so you don't have to pay people, and that gets a lot of people's hackles up. For more, see Mission statements for your volunteer engagement)

An organization that has fundamental volunteer management procedures in place, allowing anyone who expresses interest in volunteering, and is qualified (and meets other basic requirements), to be placed quickly into the induction process and to be quickly put into an assignment, usually has no trouble with recruitment and retaining of volunteers. Such an organization may, in fact, have more people wanting to volunteer than they have assignments. But having plenty of volunteers to do all of the work that's been identified for them usually isn't enough to say a volunteering program is successful; another indicator of success is if your volunteers represent a variety of ages, education-levels, economic levels and other demographics, or are an accurate reflection of your local community. Most organizations don't want volunteers to be a homogeneous group; they want to reach a variety of people as volunteers (and donors and other supporters, for that matter).

As Volunteering Scotland says in its short document, Creating an inclusive volunteering environment:

Understanding the needs of all of your volunteers and making sure they feel valued and respected increases the likelihood of volunteers choosing to commit for longer periods of time. Openly communicating your values and strategies on equality, diversity and inclusion will also help you attract a wider pool of potential volunteers and skills. As a result, potential volunteers from minority groups will feel more at ease applying for volunteering opportunities in organisations that makes their commitment to inclusion known.

If you want to reach a diversity of potential donors, volunteers and other supporters, and if you want to target certain demographics not reached by the Internet (and, there are people not reached by the Internet), you must use some traditional tools for outreach, like TV and radio. The good news is that you can use many traditional outreach tools via the Internet: for instance, you can email your announcement or press release to various civic clubs, and they may, in turn, get that message into their printed materials. Or you can email your press release to a local radio program and it will be read over the airwaves. However, sending an email probably won't be enough to reach certain groups; you will have to build trust with some groups, and they will have to hear your message multiple times, not just once. That means face-to-face meetings, onsite presentations, and maybe even display booths at events sponsored by other organizations.

If you want to reach a specific cultural group -- people with a particular heritage -- then you have to know how members of that group get information. What communities of faith -- churches, temples, mosques, etc. -- serve the community you want to reach? Is there a newspaper or radio station (or individual radio program) that caters specifically to that group? Are there annual events hosted by or focused on members of this community? Does this group have its own chamber of commerce, business association, neighborhood association or civic clubs? What about a cultural center focused on people of a particular heritage? Use the Internet to start your search (look up keywords on Google.com, as well as looking at the web sites of your city and your city's chamber of commerce; compiling these resources is also a terrific task for a volunteer).

Are there demographics you want to reach that will be attending a large community event, like the county fair? A car show? A flower show? Organizers of these events may be willing to let you set up a display booth, for free or for a very low charge, to distribute information about your organization with the express purpose of recruiting volunteers (rather than soliciting financial donations, which could be seen by vendors and sponsors as competition for money).

What about trade and professional associations, unions, women's and men's clubs and civic associations? Is the membership of one of these groups made up of demographics that are under-represented among your volunteers? These groups may be happy to have a speaker from your organization make a brief presentation focused primarily on volunteering opportunities with your organization, or an item in their member newsletter.

Is there a historically black college, university or high school nearby? Are there associations or clubs of certain groups of students based on their shared ethnicity or culture at a nearby university or within your community, such as a local chapter of the NAACP or 100 Black Men of Chicago or the National Coalition of 100 Black Women? Such groups are a great source for volunteer recruitment.

I find these local groups through searches on Google, Duck Duck Go and MeetUp, as well as just paying attention when I watch and read the news, or just walking around a neighborhood and paying attention to signs and posters.

Again, just sending an email to these groups -- or becoming their fan on FaceBook or other online networking site and posting to their "wall" -- may not be enough to get volunteers from a group; you will have to build trust with some groups, and they will have to hear your message multiple times, not just once, and that takes face-to-face meetings, onsite presentations, and maybe even display booths at events sponsored by other organizations. Go to THEIR events, send them notes of congratulations when you see once of these organizations getting media attention or an award from the city or some other kind of recognition, meet for lunch - show you have interest in these organizations, not just that you want something from them.

Be up front about why you are contacting a particular group. It's okay, for instance, to say, "We would like to have more Hispanic/Latino volunteers and that's why we are contacting you." Ask for guidance in your outreach efforts. Ask what words and phrases to avoid in your messaging. If someone says you have been offensive in your messaging, get all of the details you can and apologize; if you continually come from a place of honesty, sincerity and transparency, missteps can be forgiven.

Be aware that a demographic group may not be unified; a community may be served by competing newspapers or organizations. There may be competition for leadership among representatives of different factions. Some groups united by heritage are split by religious differences. Do as much research as you can, ask questions, and do your best not to be perceived as favoring one faction over another.

Note that awareness is just part of what needs to be done to reach an audience; accommodation is also necessary. Things that prevent people from volunteering who want to include lack of transportation, lack of parking, lack of childcare and lack of availability during the times you have offered for meetings and service. What can you do regarding accommodations? Do you have information on your web site on how your organization or meeting site is reached by public transport? Do you have a way to organize carpools? Do you have volunteer orientations on different days, at various times? Can you offer parking discounts? Could you provide childcare? Could you provide volunteering activities that could be done as a family?

There can also be misunderstandings about what exactly you are asking for during volunteer recruitment:

Not everyone understands that volunteers are not paid.
Not everyone understands what benefits they might receive for volunteering (like skills development).
Not everyone understands that all volunteering opportunities aren't long-term, time-intensive commitments (and if that's all your organization offers in terms of volunteering, you should consider looking for additional ways to involve volunteers - in short-term, even one-time assignments, in online assignments, for one project with a start and end date, etc.).

For instance, I volunteered with a local Girl Scout service unit. When I talked to others about volunteering, they were sometimes shocked that one doesn't have to be a troop leader and doesn't have come to all Girl Scout events in order to volunteer. They were often shocked to learn I did most of my volunteering online from home (I was the communications coordinator, and could undertake most of my responsibilities from my desktop). And more than one person was surprised to discover that I received no payment, despite my saying from the very beginning that I was a volunteer.

It takes more than recruitment

In pursuit of creating a diverse volunteering base, you cannot rely only on recruitment. You also need to make sure that all those that support and lead volunteers - and that's employees, including senior staff, and volunteers alike - understand why your organization is committed to having a diverse corps of volunteers and committed to everyone feeling welcomed. Paid staff and volunteer attitudes and even behaviors may need to be addressed and adjusted. For instance, staff should be discouraged from referring to onsite volunteers as "real" volunteers in contrast to online volunteers - they are ALL "real" volunteers. You want all staff to think about their language and not use terms or phrases that could be offensive. For instance, it's inappropriate for a staff or volunteer to say, "I don't think people over 50 can learn to use computers" - that's a prejudice that can create a hostile work environment for people over 50.

Educate all staff, including volunteers, on an ongoing basis, about the importance and value of equality, respecting human rights and inclusion. Regularly ask all staff, including volunteers, what can be done to make them feel more comfortable at your organization.

Also, be conscious of unconscious segregation, where teams of volunteers are not diverse, such as all of your regular volunteers that work on IT-related projects, year after year, being all men that are the same age, or all volunteers regularly helping with outdoor projects, year after year, all being the same ages, from the same economic background, all the same areas, etc. If certain tasks seem to appeal most to certain people, such as evening opportunities appealing primarily to university students studying a particular subject, or week day morning shifts at a gift shop being staffed primarily by retired people, isn't at all a bad thing automatically. What you are looking for are divisions among volunteer teams that are happening intentionally or unintentionally based on gender, ethnic background, age, religion or belief, language, culture and class. Regular discussions with all staff about why people choose the volunteering assignments they do and how those opportunities are communicated can help discover if unconscious bias is leading to unintentional - or even intentional - segregation among or exclusion by volunteers.

Other resources you might find helpful:

Recruiting and Supporting Latino Volunteers

Pacific Northwest Extension, Oregon State University

Hispanic American Volunteering, by various authors, published in The Journal of Extension (JOE), the official refereed journal of the U.S. Cooperative Extension System.

"Recruiting Black and Hispanic volunteers: A qualitative study of organizations' experiences" by Susan Chambre. It's from 1982, and available only from the author or archived versions of the Journal of Volunteering Administration, a defunct publication still carried by some university libraries.

"The Relationship Between Recruiting Source and Employee Success: An Analysis By Race," from Personnel Psychology, Dec 2006.

Study: Businesses Can Do More to Attract, Retain Black Employees, from DiverseEducation.com.

Texas Court Appointed Special Advocate (Texas CASA) materials to help recruit and maintain a diversity of volunteers. Includes strategies to recruit from specific groups and communities, such as men, religious communities, Hispanics and Latinos, and State Agency Employees, as well as tips for recruiting a diversity of board members. These are Texas-specific, and provide great examples for those looking to develop their own plans.

Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse, Culturally Responsive Guardian ad Litem Volunteer Pool in Durham County, published in April 22, 2011. The Durham County Guardian ad Litem (GAL) Program works to ensure abused and neglected children have advocates in court, and is part of the National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Association, a large network of local and state agencies and organizations, which has encouraged its members to increase GAL and CASA volunteer diversity. National CASA encourages offices to recruit more volunteers that reflect ?the makeup of the children in the judicial system as well as the local community.

Case Studies for Recruiting and Involving Rural Volunteers and worksheets, templates and checklists for volunteer engagement in rural areas. These free resources were created by AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) working on projects that promote economic redevelopment, community engagement and environmental stewardship in rural areas that have been hit hard by economic downturns and environmental degradation in communities throughout seven states in the Appalachian coalfields, including Kentucky and West Virginia, and the hardrock mining belt of Colorado and New Mexico.

Also see

Make All Volunteering as Accessible as Possible: advantages for your program & how to do it
If you want access to the greatest amount of talent and resources that volunteers can possibly bring to your program, you have to make all volunteering as accessible as possible. That means looking for ways to accommodate a myriad of people who have different abilities, needs, personality types, work styles and available times for service. Accommodations a program can offer for potential and current volunteers include, but are not limited to: modifying policy and procedures, redesigning spaces and removing structural barriers (onsite as well as online), providing assistive devices, restructuring roles, modifying service schedules and substituting alternative activities.
Making certain volunteers feel unwelcomed because of your language and Do you welcome people with your language?, blogs I wrote after I observed a volunteer recognition event description on Facebook and a post on Facebook that implied something about firefighters.
Welcoming immigrants as volunteers at your organization, a blog about the advantages involving immigrants at your nonprofit, school or local government agency as volunteers.
Why you can’t find/keep volunteer firefighters, a blog about what happens when you don't use welcoming language and you don't ask questions of members of a group you want to recruit as volunteers.
Recruiting Volunteers: A Step-by-Step Guide to QUICKLY Getting the Volunteers You Want
These are simple, immediate things you can do to get volunteers.
Using Third Party Web Sites & Volunteer Matching Apps to Recruit Volunteers. There are lots and lots of web sites out there to help your organization recruit volunteers. You don't have to use them all, but you do need to make sure you use them correctly in order to get the maximum response to your posts.
Screening Volunteers for Attitude
When an organization involves volunteers in high-responsibility, long-term roles, volunteer turnover can be a program killer. Screening is vital to finding the right people for high-responsibility, long-term volunteer roles, particularly those where the volunteer will work with clients and the general public, and to screen out people who may be better in shorter-term assignments or assignments where they would not work with clients or the general public, or who would not be appropriate in any role at the organization.
Recruiting Mentors
(or any high-responsibility volunteers that will work with clients)
Recruitment is a mentality. Successful recruitment of volunteer mentors comes from a mentality that permeates the organization, one that prompts employees and volunteers to always be looking for opportunities for outreach and partnership, and where all employees and volunteers are advocates for the program, regardless of the tasks they undertake. This web page has specific recommendations to recruit mentors for youth, but these recommendations could be used for most any high-responsibility, high-commitment volunteer role working with clients, such as counselors or tutors.
Diagnosing the causes of volunteer recruitment problems
Before you hire a consultant, even me, to see what the problem is regarding why you don’t have enough volunteers, or the kinds of volunteers you want most, you might be able to diagnosis the problem yourself - this blog is meant to help you do that. The only catch is that you MUST be honest as you answer the questions listed here. Also, answering these questions is rarely a one-person exercise; you may think you know the answer, but you need to ask other staff members, including volunteers themselves, what their answers are to these assessment questions. This is one of the most popular blogs I've ever written.
Brilliant volunteer firefighter recruitment video from Germany
This video is a great example of how you can recruit "ordinary" people, and a diversity of people, to do amazing things.
Some people think they aren’t perfect enough to volunteer with you
Your messages about volunteers being "super heroes" can leave a lot of folks thinking they don't have anything worthwhile to offer your organization as a volunteer.
Creating Group Volunteering Activities
Details on not just what groups of volunteers can do in a two-hour, half-day or all-day event, but also just how much an organization or program will need to do to prepare a site for group volunteering. It's an expensive, time-consuming endeavor - are you ready? Is it worth it?
Initiatives opposed to some or all volunteering (unpaid work), and
online and print articles about or addressing controversies regarding volunteers replacing paid staff
This is a list of organizations and initiatives opposed to some kinds of volunteering (unpaid work), or ALL kinds of volunteering, including unpaid internships at nonprofit organizations / charities. It is also a list of online and print articles about or addressing controversies regarding volunteers replacing paid staff. Most of the links are to initiatives or actions in Europe or the USA. This list has been compiled to help researchers regarding volunteerism, as well as for policy makers and volunteerism advocates who want to avoid these kinds of controversies at nonprofit organizations and government agencies. This list is also compiled to refute those who believe that there are no such controversies (believe it or not, those people DO exist).

There are even more suggestions about how to use the Internet to recruit for diversity among volunteer ranks in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook.

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