I recently hosted an event for my community and signed up 225 volunteers for a two-day fundraiser. I would love to share with you the steps I took to create this success.

First, a note on creating success and building positive relationships, then we’ll get down to business. My experience is that you can do all the right things, but if you don’t come from the right energy, you won’t experience positive results.

The most common energy I see nonprofits, businesses, and entrepreneurs getting stuck in is despair. When this energy is behind all your actions, your actions become less powerful and can be perceived as predatory and commercial. This is never the warm and inviting invitation you want to send to your community or prospects.

This means that your first order of business is to line up. I have other blog posts on how to do this if you’re interested. When you achieve this alignment, then you can come from a plus of trust, win-win and collaboration.

Now, a quick note on relationships to ensure your next event or business thrives. Here’s the big secret: it’s about relationships. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing or what you’re selling, what matters is the relationship. Authentically investing in the relationship by genuinely caring about the people you interact with (yes, every single contact) will allow your business or organization to thrive. In addition to taking care of your contacts, the second part of a relationship is sharing yourself, being vulnerable, open and honest. Even in the professional world, I suggest reviewing your emails, letters, and phone scripts to include space for you to share about yourself and learn more about your prospects.

Ok, and now let’s get to the actual ‘to do’ list for recruiting volunteers:

1. Set up Signup Genius and list all your volunteer shifts in an organized way. Include as many details as possible.
2. Email your event information and the Signup Genius link for your event to your existing volunteer email list.
3. List the description of your volunteer need on all the volunteer sites in your area (you can Google this to find the websites in your area). For my area, these are the two most popular, Volunteer Connect and Volunteer Match.
4. List your volunteer work on Craigslist (and any other ‘job seeker’ sites for your community. Be sure to check out the Facebook Groups, as most communities have a closed Help Search Facebook Group which you can join.
5. List your volunteer work on the local college job board. You can also contact any professor (in your niche) and ask if you can have 5 minutes of their class to talk about their mission and volunteer opportunities, or if they will distribute information to you.
6. Reach out to organizations in your network (that also have volunteers) and ask them to email your volunteer job description to your contact list.
7. Contact all service clubs (Rotary, Elks, Soroptimist, Kiwanis, etc.) with your request. These groups often look for ways to be active in the community. If you plan ahead enough, you can even come and speak at one of their meetings.
8. Depending on your organization’s mission statement, contacting churches can also be a great source for recruiting volunteers.
9. Create a poster to sign up volunteers. Make sure your organization’s mission is clear and that it conveys the feel of your event and clearly explains how volunteers can help. Also, make sure you have their website and contact information.
10. Obtain a list of the largest businesses in your city (usually available online or at your local library) and contact each business. You can offer your company extra benefits for signing up to volunteer as a team (like adding them to your website or bragging about them on social media). You can also request that they display a poster in your break room.
11. Join local Facebook groups and then post about your event (including volunteer information) in the group. Communities often have specific groups designed to help others. These are great groups to post to. So far, I have found a ‘Pay it forward’ Facebook group in every community where I have had a business coaching client.
12. Make 2-6 different fun images asking for volunteers (example here, here and here) to post across all your social media channels (repeatedly). You can also pay Facebook to promote these posts.
13. Send an email to your contact list and ask them to repost or share the previous Facebook posts on their personal and/or professional pages.
14. Create a Facebook event and chat about the event in the discussion area in the days or weeks leading up to the event. This is a great place to share quotes about volunteering, share your mission, or share photos from past events.
15. List the event at each event site in your area. You can google to find the ones in your area. (Here are a few I use for Bend, Oregon) At the bottom of each event listing, make sure you have your volunteer application information and your Sign-up Genius link.
16. Go door to door to smaller businesses in your area and talk to them in person to sign them up to volunteer for your event/fundraiser/organization
17. Everyone loves stories about communities coming together for a cause. Write a press release with this theme as the backbone and send it out to local newspapers and bloggers. Be sure to include how community members can volunteer with your organization.

Bonus Items!

1. Every time you have a volunteer sign up, send them a quick email thanking them and telling them how excited you are to meet and work with them.
2. Send thank you cards or thank you phone calls to all of your volunteers after your event. Letters and emails also work, but are less powerful. Be sure to save contact information for all of your volunteers so you can reach them the next time you need them!
3. Create social media posts publicly acknowledging and thanking your volunteers.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, suggestions, or just to share a story.

Good luck!