If you’ve been using GC Volunteer Management for a while, it’s important to recruit, train, and get your volunteers excited and informed about the start of each year. You have this incredibly powerful tool for your volunteers – but it does still take great communication and planning to get them to use it year after year!
Here are some recommendations for kicking of the new volunteer cycle on a strong foot:
Step 1: Re-familiarize Yourself with the GC Administrator Dashboard
Even if you consider yourself a super user, new things are added or you may have just forgotten about certain elements of the platform! Watch a 30 minute training video or review this article to remind yourself of the necessary basics!
Step 2: Prep GC VM for a New Year
Some of the content in your Volunteer Management System might be a little out dated or could use a refresh! Here are a few things to take a look at and make sure things are up to date!
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Emails:
- Archive Old Email Templates
- Add New Email Templates
- 🏆 Pro-Tip: Use 'Plain Text' templates and write these emails in a casual tone! This should not sound like it's coming from your institution, but more personal, casual, and in a way that gives volunteers the freedom to make it their own!
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Update Confidentiality Agreement
- 🏆 Pro-Tip: In addition to the legalize of a Confidentiality Agreement, add language about how exciting you are to be unlocking this tool and providing amazing data to inform their work. Leverage this for some light stewardship to celebrate them, and share that you trust them to handle this information with respect.
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Volunteers:
- Deactivate Any Volunteers who are cycling out of their volunteer position
- Add New Volunteers
- Upload new assignments
- 🏆 Pro-Tip: Consider surveying your volunteers each year -- are they still interested in volunteering? Do they have the capacity to do more? Do they have any feedback on what other resources would be helpful to inform their work?
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Add Announcement:
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🏆 Pro-Tip: Announcements are pop-ups that will display as soon as certain volunteers log into the system. Use these as an opportunity to welcome volunteers back for another year, remind them of the key pieces of the system, and say thank you!
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🏆 Pro-Tip: Announcements are pop-ups that will display as soon as certain volunteers log into the system. Use these as an opportunity to welcome volunteers back for another year, remind them of the key pieces of the system, and say thank you!
Step 3: Brush Up on Volunteer Training Materials
While the GiveCampus team is available to host the occasional trainings for you volunteers, we find these trainings are often more effective if they are hosted by you – their trusted volunteer managers! Here are some available materials to help you out:
- GC Volunteer Management Training Guide: Train volunteers using this deck, add a copy of the deck to your resources section, or use this as a guide for a live, in-platform demo.
- Instructions for Volunteers: Signing Up and Logging In
- Getting Started with the Volunteer Management System in 4 Easy Steps
- 12 Ways to Level Up Your Volunteer Work
- Get to know your Volunteer Management System dashboard
🏆 Pro-Tip: After your volunteer kick off, offer ‘Volunteer Office Hours,’ where volunteers can join for some additional 1:1 support!
Step 4: Schedule a Volunteer Kick Off & Training
A Volunteer Kick Off is a great way to get volunteers excited, share behind the scenes news and insights, and set expectations for their role during the year ahead.
Tips for Planning / Getting Good Attendance at a Volunteer Kick Off:
- Have a current, rockstar volunteer share how easy and fun their experience has been using GC Volunteer Management
- Incentivize! Volunteering is more fun with friends – incentivize your volunteers to bring a buddy. For example, if a volunteer brings a friend to the kick off to volunteer alongside them, they’ll both get free meals at their next reunion!
Here’s a sample agenda for a Volunteer Kick Off:
- Welcome & Recap of Volunteer Impact in FY23
- Discussion and Feedback from FY23
- Share schedule of volunteer activities for FY24
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Share what they can expect from you each time we want them to do something
- For example: "Each time we want you to engage your assignments, we’ll send you an email letting you know there’s a new template available, who we’d recommend sending to, and how much time it will take. Each time, we’ll provide an option where you can do a 10-15 minute volunteer task, or take a little more time to go above and beyond – but we do ask that you do at least the 10 minute version each time!"
- GC Volunteer Management Training
🏆 Pro-Tip: Use GC Events to gather registration for a Volunteer Kick off– encourage them to register for the training and make their annual donation at the same time!
Step 5: Define an Ongoing Activation Cadence
Each time you want to re-activate your volunteers, it’s important to give them plenty of heads up, send extra reminders and be clear and prescriptive in what you’re asking them to do. But, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel each time to want to activate volunteers. Come up with a standard cadence of things you will do each time you want your volunteers to activate:
This cadence might look something like:
- Add new VMS email templates
- Add new resources, if relevant, like Giving Day social media graphics or Reunion FAQs
- Add a new Announcement
- If your volunteer activation is in connection to a Social Fundraising campaign, link your campaign to relevant volunteer roles
- Include a Heads Up / Save the Date about this volunteer push in your Volunteer Newsletter
- Send “It’s Time to Volunteer” email
- Follow up with a reminder text or email
- Post an Announcement about progress, celebrating rockstars, and reminding procrastinators
- Send a volunteer stewardship & feedback email
General sample Volunteer Activation Communications Cadence
Step 6: Use GC Email Feature to Communicate with Volunteers:
You can communicate with your volunteers right through your administrator dashboard. Engaging and activating volunteers has never been easier.
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Set up your Admin to Volunteer Email Templates: Here are a few helpful template ideas to get you started.
- Encourage Registration
- Reminder to Register
- Initial Volunteer Activation Email
- Reminder
- Thank you
- Nudge for Volunteers who have been inactive for 90 Days
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Filter Volunteers: You can filter your volunteers in the following ways to ensure you’re just engaging the relevant volunteer for each activation:
- Only Volunteers You Manage
- Volunteers by Role
- Volunteers by Class Year
- Volunteers by Affiliation
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Volunteers by Last Activity:
- Ex: Active in the last 90 days, inactive in the last fiscal year, etc.
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