Volunteers are the backbone of many nonprofit organizations, providing invaluable support for planning fundraising events, executing daily operations, and delivering on mission-driven initiatives. In fact, according to Double the Donation, volunteers make up about one-third of the average nonprofit’s workforce. While recruiting volunteers is an essential first step, ensuring your program is efficient and that you’re using your resources in the best way possible is just as crucial to your organization’s success.
To make the most of your resources and improve your volunteer program, you need to evaluate its efficiency regularly. This guide will explore strategies for measuring your program’s success and identifying areas for improvement.
1. Determine Quantitative Key Performance Indicators
As with any operational process, setting and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you measure progress toward your goals. Your chosen metrics should align with your organization’s unique objectives, the specific roles your volunteers play, and how they’re being leveraged. Here are some examples of KPIs to consider:
- Volunteer retention rate. This metric tracks the percentage of volunteers who stay with your organization over a given period of time. High retention rates often indicate that volunteers feel satisfied and engaged, so tracking this metric helps create a more loyal volunteer base and reduces recruitment costs.
- Volunteer-to-staff ratio. This KPI looks at the number of volunteers compared to paid staff members. Track this metric if you’re looking to change the balance of volunteers to staff. If your ratio is heavily skewed toward staff, you might not be leveraging volunteer potential. Conversely, an overreliance on volunteers may strain your management capacity.
- Volunteer allocation. This monitors how volunteers are distributed across tasks. For instance, you might have one-time volunteers who help out with running events and other volunteers who help prepare food every week
- Volunteer utilization. This metric measures how volunteers’ time is being used and looks at the amount of time spent completing tasks compared to waiting for instructions. This can help you identify whether your volunteers are overworked or underutilized so you can communicate with and use them more effectively.
Tracking these KPIs can help your team clearly see your volunteer program’s strengths and weaknesses, guiding you toward more strategic decision-making in the future.
2. Evaluate Communication & Support
Efficient communication and robust support systems are critical to volunteer satisfaction and productivity. Without them, volunteers may feel undervalued or frustrated by your management and communication style, which can lead to high turnover rates.
While the aforementioned metrics focus on numerical data, communication tends to be viewed more qualitatively. To evaluate your communication practices, consider the following questions in the context of an annual event:
- Are your volunteer role descriptions clear and detailed? To be successful, volunteers need to understand what’s expected of them. Examine whether or not you’re providing adequate information upfront.
- Do you communicate with volunteers in a timely and effective manner? Are you thanking volunteers as soon as they sign on? Do you send assignments and instructions well ahead of time or at the last minute? When and how you communicate with volunteers plays a major role in whether or not they feel supported.
- Are your communications easy to understand and actionable? Avoid sending convoluted instructions, unclear timeframes, and incomplete information.
- Do volunteers have opportunities to connect outside of their shifts? Volunteering is about creating connections as much as it is helping a good cause. Think about how you can facilitate opportunities for volunteers to forge relationships outside of their designated assignments.
- How often do you solicit feedback from volunteers, and do you act on that feedback? Sending surveys and having informal conversations let you understand how your program is actually functioning. And while collecting feedback is important, analyzing and using it to make informed decisions is even more crucial.
- Are your communication channels meeting volunteers’ needs? Do those channels—email, texting, bulletin boards, volunteer management app— function well or do they need to be expanded or revamped?
By addressing these questions, your team can identify gaps in current processes and take steps to improve your volunteer management and communication practices.
3. Revisit Training Resources
How you train your employees can be a massive driver of—or barrier to—your volunteer program’s success. Without adequate preparation, volunteers may struggle to complete their tasks efficiently, leading to frustration and inefficiencies.
Review your current training materials, such as handbooks, pamphlets, videos, or in-person sessions, to ensure they remain relevant and practical. Consider these questions:
- Is the information up-to-date, and does it reflect current best practices?
- Do the training resources provide clear instructions for completing tasks?
- Is the training process efficient, or are there opportunities to streamline it?
For instance, let’s say you hosted a charity golf tournament and received constructive feedback about the management of your hole-in-one contest; it might be necessary to update your training materials to address those concerns. You might find that your training process takes longer than necessary.
Continuing with the golf event example, let’s say training on how to assemble and place signage took more than two hours (which is much longer than needed). Condensing the training to focus on essential skills and information can save everyone time and effort.
4. Use Volunteer Management Software
Managing a volunteer program efficiently requires reliable tools to track, analyze, and improve your operations. Volunteer management software can streamline various aspects of your program, from scheduling to collecting KPIs to reporting. When selecting software, look for a purpose-built solution with features such as:
- Scheduling and task management so volunteer coordinators can easily assign shifts and responsibilities to volunteers and track assignments.
- A volunteer-facing portal that provides volunteers with a self-service platform to sign up for shifts, see any event or assignment updates, and access training resources.
- Native contact tools that facilitate communication, such as a virtual volunteer bulletin board, text messaging, or email.
- Time-tracking that records and analyzes volunteer hours to evaluate efficiencies and contributions.
Ensure your volunteer management software integrates with your organization's other systems and solutions. For instance, if you already have event management software to handle attendee registrations and payments for on-course game participation, the volunteer management platform should have capabilities to streamline data sharing.
Final Thoughts
Building an efficient volunteer program requires more than just recruiting enthusiastic individuals. You can create a program that maximizes impact and minimizes inefficiencies by tracking KPIs, fostering strong communication, revisiting training resources, and leveraging technology.
Remember, quality is more important than quantity when it comes to volunteer management. A smaller, well-trained, and highly engaged group of volunteers will often achieve more than a large but poorly organized team. Regularly assessing and refining your program will not only enhance your operations but also deepen the connection between your organization and the volunteers who support your mission.
