How to find (and keep) volunteers
HUC grant-holders share their top tips.
Volunteers are at the heart of most local charities and community groups. According to the Government’s Community Life Survey, 16% of people volunteer in a formal capacity (e.g. through an organisation) at least once a month. While this figure seems high, the reality on the ground is that organisations across London are struggling to find volunteers.
Numerous reasons were discussed for this at a recent HUC grant-holders meeting. According to the group, a key challenge is finding volunteers who have the necessary skills, confidence and time to give. A lack of staff and resources to recruit, train and supervise volunteers was also raised.
Retaining volunteers is also a challenge. People often have to give up volunteering or reduce their hours when they find paid work, for example. This has become an increasing issue due to the cost-of-living crisis, with more people needing to work extra paid hours to make ends meet.
On a brighter note, the grant-holders had plenty of tried and tested ideas to share. These include:
Publicise opportunities
- Make a short video to give potential volunteers a sense of what volunteering will be like.
- Advertise in community spaces, e.g. churches, schools, doctors’ surgeries and libraries.
- Make it very clear what the volunteer role is, including any specific skills that are needed.
- Showcase existing volunteers who reflect your target communities.
- Organise one-off events and small projects to give people a taste of volunteering.
- Follow up with volunteers who’ve not helped out for a while.
- Keep a list of people who’ve expressed an interest in your organisation to contact when you need volunteers (as long as you have their permission to do so).
Volunteering with Doorstep Library
Create a welcoming environment
- Create a safe and inclusive environment.
- Provide a good induction, along with training and ongoing supervision and/or mentoring.
- Make people feel valued and invest in them.
Build a network
- Build partnerships with relevant organisations, e.g. partner with colleges and universities to offer work-experience placements to students.
- Ask other community groups and organisations to publicise your activities and volunteer vacancies, in exchange for publicising theirs to your audiences.
Other ideas
- Make sure the first contact – whether in person or online – makes potential volunteers think “Wow, I want to be part of this.”
- Create micro-jobs for people with limited time or capacity.
- Enable an overlap between front-line volunteers and trustees.
Volunteering resources
If you’re keen to attract and keep volunteers, the following websites will be of interest:
- Access training and advice from the H&F Volunteer Centre.
- Connect with new volunteers at Do It.
- Promote volunteering opportunities at Simply Volunteer London (which replaced Team London in March 2024).
- Download Volunteer Centre Sutton’s Volunteer Management Toolkit.
- Read guidance on how volunteering might affect benefits.
- Read about Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
- Check government guidance on the DBS process.
- NHS England offer free safeguarding training for volunteers. Register for e-learning programmes here.
- Attend the H+F Cost of Living Alliance’s networking event on 11th July.
- Access advice on skills-based volunteering in the Lloyds Bank Foundation’s new report – Skills Based Volunteering: A Win, Win, Win.
Networking meetings
The grant-holders were attending a networking event at Sycamore House. 13 charities and community organisations were joined by HUC staff and a guest from the H+F Volunteer Centre. If you’re a HUC grant-holder, we’ll email you details of our next networking event nearer the time.