Communicating with Volunteers: Making the Most of Your Options

Think about the communications methods you – and others at your organization – use with volunteers right now. Is your organization getting the information it needs about volunteers and their activities via these methods? Information such as:

• Their accomplishments as volunteers
• Their feedback on assignments, relations with staff, other volunteers, and clients
• The number of hours they are contributing
• Tools/resources they are finding particularly useful
• Obstacles they are encountering
• Their suggestions or criticisms

What information are you getting via the communications methods you are using now, and what information are you lacking? In addition to volunteers sharing this information with you directly, is everyone who is working with volunteers sharing information with each other?

A lot of questions! But in thinking about these, you can already begin to see where your communications with volunteers is working, where it is lacking, and how you might make improvements.

Jayne Cravens gives us all practical tips on using Internet communication to engage volunteers successfully.