Help me learn about volunteer/outreach/fundraising management please?
June 28, 2017 7:09 AM
For various unimportant reasons, I find myself in a position where I need to organize and motivate volunteers to do things for a political organization. I know nothing about this, other than what I’ve gleaned by being an occasional volunteer myself, but having run one semi-successful campaign for my organization (and being a sucker who can’t say no) I’m now being asked to do more. I’m looking for suggestions of reading or listening material (academic work, blogs/articles, podcasts) that can teach me how to do this well.
Some examples of what I’d like to know:
-We ran a phone bank to encourage attendance at an event. The actual calls were great, but getting enough of our volunteers to actually make the calls was tough. How can I motivate/help/encourage people who already say they want to volunteer to actually do it?
-When working with big contact lists of personal information and volunteers who are only sort of vetted, what are best practices for protecting that information?
-What techniques are best for getting people to follow through on financial pledges?
-I am aware that A/B testing exists. Are there general lessons that have been gleaned from this, and how can I find/use those general lessons?
-Are there rules of thumb for things like, “If you want X donations, you need to make Y calls, which means you need Z volunteers, because only W% of them will actually do anything.”
Some examples of what I’d like to know:
-We ran a phone bank to encourage attendance at an event. The actual calls were great, but getting enough of our volunteers to actually make the calls was tough. How can I motivate/help/encourage people who already say they want to volunteer to actually do it?
-When working with big contact lists of personal information and volunteers who are only sort of vetted, what are best practices for protecting that information?
-What techniques are best for getting people to follow through on financial pledges?
-I am aware that A/B testing exists. Are there general lessons that have been gleaned from this, and how can I find/use those general lessons?
-Are there rules of thumb for things like, “If you want X donations, you need to make Y calls, which means you need Z volunteers, because only W% of them will actually do anything.”
Agree with Mouse Army's advice above. Also, I have been working with a number of volunteer organizations and one key to getting people to commit, and stick to those commitments, is, paradoxically, to allow them to say no and/or take on small amounts of responsibility. A responsible person who commits to a couple of hours a week and then follows through is much more valuable than someone who nods yes to everything and then drops the ball.
posted by rpfields at 11:27 AM on June 28, 2017
posted by rpfields at 11:27 AM on June 28, 2017
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One thing I'll add: You said "and being a sucker who can’t say no"- this is something you'll want to nip in the bud in yourself as soon as you can when working with volunteers. If nothing else, assessing what your organization needs from your volunteers and sticking to that will save you a world of hurt in the long run. So if you need people on Tuesday to answer the phone, but a potential volunteer can only do Wednesdays, don't accept them into the program! Ask that person if they want to be on a call list if a Wednesday slot opens up. Otherwise you have one more person's personal information, email, emergency contact, etc. to manage with no benefit (yet or possibly ever) to your organization. I had to learn the hard way that I was creating a lot of work for myself by trying to be open to all volunteers who graciously wanted to be a part of our organization rather than thinking of what our organization needed most.
posted by Mouse Army at 8:36 AM on June 28, 2017