Volunteering as a concept is truly an amazing feat if you think about it.
How much free time do you have during the week? If you’re like so many hardworking, driven nonprofit professionals, the answer is likely not very much. A lot of people feel this way! So the sheer fact that people want to give some of that precious time to your mission is incredible.
You should be proud of your volunteers and thank them profusely for their engagement with your organization!
Volunteering can also lead to so many important benefits for your nonprofit. For instance, volunteerism is a great base for potential donors. You can steward your volunteers to become involved by donating both their time and money, which, in turn, makes them feel more connected with your mission.
Developing and marketing your volunteer program is a fantastic opportunity to improve engagement with donors and make it easy for them to get involved, and can even result in more donations. Make the most of your nonprofit’s email marketing campaign by:
- Providing an alternative engagement opportunity for supporters.
- Linking potential volunteers directly to the sign-up pages on your site.
- Recruiting experts to volunteer for specific department needs.
- Providing an additional promotion push before events.
- Asking supporters about their eligibility for volunteer grants.
Ready to form that strategy that will help your organization take advantage of the incredible opportunities available with email marketing? Let’s get started.
1. Provide an alternative engagement opportunity
How many times do you email your supporters about the opportunity to donate? You probably have a call to action in every one of your saved email templates for it. This isn’t a bad thing! But consider this sample situation:
Sally has just donated $100 to your organization. She feels good about her donation and has only been involved with your organization for a few months. She received your organization’s thank-you email in response to the gift and even a handwritten letter in the mail. Now, she feels really good about giving.
A week later, Sally receives an email from your organization asking her to give another $100. “But wait!” she thinks, “Didn’t I just donate?” She’s a little disappointed and feels that her other donation was only appreciated for a week. In reality, your organization is just trying to keep her involved.
Offering alternative methods of engagement to supporters helps avoid situations like Sally’s. Instead of asking for money over and over, you can help them feel attached to your nonprofit by suggesting they volunteer to help you achieve your mission.
In order for this to work, you need CRM technology that helps you track your touches with supporters for both donations and volunteers. This way you can make sure you’re providing opportunities at the right time for each engagement. If also helps if:
Your fundraising and volunteer management platform tools are provided by the same overarching company. An all-in-one CRM solution will streamline information from these tools to your database, making it easy to keep track of the most relevant information.
Your organization values volunteer hours just as much as you do donations. As we said in the beginning, volunteering is an amazing concept. Genuine gratefulness will shine through, so be sure your nonprofit staff understands the value in the donation of both time and money.
Engagement is the key to donor retention. When supporters feel engaged and appreciated, they’re more likely to maintain that engagement for a long time. But it’s your job to tell them about the opportunities for engagement, which is where email marketing comes in.
2. Link potential volunteers directly to sign-up pages
One of the incredible advantages for email marketing campaigns is that you can send messages directly to your supporter. Instead of relying on them to run across information by chance on your website or social media pages, you ensure they see that you’ve reached out.
This direct method of communication provides the opportunity to connect your supporters to other resources too!
You’ve probably realized this with your donation CTA on email templates. However, that’s not the only resource you can connect supporters to. When you have other helpful resources such as:
- Your volunteer registration information page
- An event calendar page
- The mission statement page for your nonprofit
- Your latest blog posts with news from the organization
You can link to any of these resources in your emails to keep your supporters interested in your various emails. Plus, this connects them to your website and encourages them to continue exploring your mission.
Specifically, connecting supporters to volunteer registration pages is important because interested recipients can register in the initial moment of engagement.
Relying on supporters to take the additional step of searching through your website for the volunteer registration page will cause many to abandon the effort of volunteering. However, linking them directly to the opportunity eases the process of signing up.
Plus, this associates your nonprofit’s brand with an easy engagement process. Your positive brand can go a long way in building donor relationships.
3. Recruit an expert for specific department needs
Each of your supporters has unique and varied interests. Some of them may even be experts in certain subjects that could immensely benefit your organization.
As you develop your nonprofit’s annual strategic plan, you’ll come up with a series of specific goals to reach for in order to advance your mission and services. (If you’re unsure of how to create this strategic plan, check out this helpful resource from Averill Solutions.)
Sometimes, you may realize that these goals are too broad to reach with your current staff power but too specific to rely on a general volunteer for. If it’s a specific objective or project you want to complete, this is a perfect opportunity for a specialized volunteer.
Use the data in your CRM to recruit a volunteer with the specific skill set you need to complete your goal. Information saved in your database can provide insight as to the best volunteer recruit for specific activities. You may look at data such as a supporter’s:
Employment. If you know a supporter’s employer and position, you can gain insight as to their professional expertise and how that expertise could benefit your organization.
Interests. Volunteers will work harder when they’re doing something they’re truly interested in. Plus, it will help them build skills for their own professional lives.
Past involvement. If you’ve noticed that a supporter has gotten involved in similar events throughout their lifetime engagement, they may enjoy a volunteer opportunity that offers similar advantages to that type of event.
Take, for example, a nonprofit whose goal is to relaunch their website for a more effective following. Larger nonprofits may hire an additional staffer for this task and upkeep of the site. But a smaller organization may prefer to rely on a volunteer to develop the website.
This small organization can look through their database to see if a past volunteer or donor has experience with web development. They can then send a targeted recruitment email to anyone who fits the description.
If your donor database doesn’t offer these types of descriptions as a part of donor profiles, it may be time to start considering a new software solution. Check out CharityEngine’s nonprofit CRM guide to learn more about picking the best software.
4. Provide an extra marketing push before events
One of the primary reasons nonprofits need a steady volunteer program is to staff events throughout the year. Successful events need effective tools and manpower to power activities and opportunities.
Recruiting volunteers for events not only provides more volunteers for the event itself, but it may also increase your event attendance rates.
Depending on the main focus of your email marketing push, you can phrase your message in two different ways:
Attend our event! Or if you’d prefer to volunteer, you can register here.
Register here to volunteer for our event! Or feel free to attend, we’d love to see you.
Writing your message strategically will help you boost both attendance and volunteer rates for upcoming events. Be sure to plan your strategy to target your audience effectively.
For instance, you may choose to send your past volunteers the invitation to volunteer again and donors the invitation to attend. But be sure they can choose either option because you never know for sure what a supporter prefers!
5. Ask volunteers about eligibility for volunteer grants
Did you know that volunteers can actually bring in additional donation revenue for your nonprofit? And at no cost to them!
Volunteer grants are a part of a lot of corporate philanthropy programs. This type of donation match program is one in which the employer of a volunteer agrees to financially match the time that a supporter spends volunteering for a nonprofit.
The problem is that many eligible donors don’t know that this option is available to them. It’s your job as an organization to inform them.
Use your email marketing campaign to encourage your supporters to check their eligibility for volunteer grants using a matching gift database.
Be sure to save this eligibility information in your CRM so that you can reach back out to remind that supporter next time they volunteer too! You could also search the employers of your volunteers yourself and send an email informing them of their eligibility, to begin with.
If you’re looking for a top-notch CRM with the ability to save this integral information, check out this software.
Leigh Kessler is VP of Marketing and Communications at donor management software platform CharityEngine and a frequent speaker on branding, fundraising, data and technology. He is a former nationally touring headline comedian and has appeared on numerous TV shows including VH1’s “Best Week Ever”, CNN’s “Showbiz Tonight”, Discovery Channel & Sirius Radio. He has overseen and informed research and branding strategies for some of the most well known brands in America.
