When you’re recruiting volunteers for a project, it’s nearly unavoidable that you’ll have to write a position description for the position you’re recruiting volunteers for. Recruiting volunteers face-to-face is great, but you might not find all of the volunteers your organization needs while you’re waiting in line at the grocery store.
The position description for the volunteer position you’re recruiting for might be the first contact a potential volunteer has with your organization, here are some tips for making it great!
Have a great headline. Do you read a newspaper article if the headline doesn’t interest you? Make sure the first thing that a volunteer sees on the position description is interesting and exciting. If you’re recruiting a volunteer to help socialize animals at a shelter, “Animal Shelter Volunteer” could work for a headline, but what about “Wet Nose Looking For A Dry Nose,” or “Share Your Life With Someone Who Has Nine?”
Introduce your organization. Don’t assume that everyone knows about your organization. Let volunteers know what you do and how you benefit the community. If you can avoid it, don’t copy and paste your mission statement into the description. While it’s important to share your mission with volunteers, try sharing it in a way that’s playful and exciting. If your mission statement is written that way, great!
Make it exciting! Take a look at some job postings. It’s rare that a job posting is anything more than facts about the position (the Photojojo folks laugh in the face of boring job descriptions). That’s not to say that you should make things up about the volunteer position, or that facts aren’t important, but you can put a great spin on the facts. Have a little fun writing the position – it’s ok; volunteering isn’t serious business all of the time.
Who is your ideal volunteer? Everyone should answer this questions along the lines of “someone who is extremely skilled, has eight arms, sixty hours a week to volunteer, is psychic, and can travel through space and time at will.” We all want a volunteer like this, right? Why not share your idea of an ideal volunteer, even if it’s outrageous, and build that into your position description? Do you need someone with eight arms? Ask for it, and then be open that you’re really looking for four volunteers.
Remember that volunteers are as important as staff. Make it show in your position description! If there’s an opportunity for volunteers to take on leadership positions within your organization, make sure to highlight them. The opportunity might not be there on the volunteer’s first day, but if there’s a potential for growing into leadership, don’t forget to include it.
Tell what a day of volunteering looks like. Try to describe what a day of volunteering look like. There are exciting things that the volunteer will be doing, and probably some things that aren’t as exciting. Be open about the volunteer’s tasks and talk about them in a way that demonstrates their importance to the organization.
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