Align Your Volunteer Strategy with Organisational Goals

A volunteer strategy gives your organisation a framework to build a strong, sustainable volunteering culture. It connects volunteer involvement directly to your strategic direction, so every hour a volunteer gives moves your mission forward.

A clear volunteer strategy does three things well. It communicates your philosophy and vision for volunteering. It explains why your organisation engages volunteers. And it shows stakeholders that you value volunteers through their contribution to strategic objectives.

A good strategy also positions your organisation to respond to emerging trends in volunteerism, spot future opportunities, promote best practice and keep your volunteer program responsive to the needs of your people and your organisation.

How to develop a Volunteer Strategy

There are many ways to approach this. Here is a four-phase process that works.

Phase 1: Collect your data

Start by building a clear picture of how volunteering looks in your organisation right now. Compile your volunteer data and run a volunteer survey. Gather information across these areas:

1. Volunteer statistics. Count your active volunteers. Look at volunteer tenure, the roles they perform, the tasks they complete, the departments they support and how many volunteers take on multiple roles.
2. Volunteer demographics. Break down volunteers by age range, gender and motivation for volunteering. This data shapes your volunteer recruitment approach.
3. Volunteer impact. Measure what the volunteers contribute to the organisation and the community. Track specific outputs (trees planted, animals fostered, meals served) and total volunteer hours.
4. Volunteer experience. Ask volunteers how they rate their experience. Find out whether they would recommend volunteering with your organisation. Ask about the support and recognition they receive, why volunteers leave and what personal impact volunteering has on them.
5. Peak times of need. Map the peaks and troughs across the year where your organisation needs volunteer support most.
6. Current partnerships. Document corporate volunteering arrangements and other partnerships that affect how you engage volunteers. Note the benefits each partnership brings and the current agreement terms.

Phase 2: Assess where you are now

Use the data from Phase 1 to set direction and identify priority issues. Analyse what the data tells you, research emerging volunteering trends and access industry intelligence.

Build volunteer personas. Create profiles of your different volunteer types. Understanding key characteristics of each group improves your volunteer recruitment decisions and strengthens volunteer retention and satisfaction.

Identify themes. Common themes include attracting and retaining the right volunteers, volunteer engagement and connection, partnerships, building capacity and using technology to support volunteer management.

Spot emerging trends. Look at what is changing in the volunteering sector and where your organisation could apply new approaches.

Map strengths and weaknesses. Assess what your current volunteer engagement does well and where it falls short. Use this to determine your priority issues.

Consider sector-wide challenges. Think about the global challenges in volunteering and whether they affect your organisation. Identify any challenges specific to your context.

Phase 3: Aligning to organisational goals

The purpose of the third phase is to understand the organisational strategic direction and to engage with key stakeholders. The aim is to align volunteer involvement with the organisation’s strategic direction. Activities to undertake during this phase include reviewing the organisation’s strategic and annual plans to identify where and how volunteers can add value. A useful way to conduct this review is through workshops with key stakeholders.

In these workshops priorities can be validated and issues or gaps identified. This will assist with developing actions to bridge the gap between the current volunteer program and the desired future state. Additionally, this process can identify potential areas where current volunteer involvement; while positive; might not be directly aiding the achievement of the organisation’s strategy and goals. This is a critical assessment to make to continually ensure your volunteers are contributing in the most effective way.

Tips for running engagement workshops include:

• Collaboration: Ensure you have a combination of volunteers and staff at each workshop.
• Representation: Provide opportunities for volunteers from each role and persona to be involved to ensure different views are captured.
• Themes: Focus workshops on specific themes which have emerged and invite key stakeholders to participate e.g. if partnerships is a theme, invite staff and volunteers who interact with current partners such as corporate volunteers.

Phase 4: Closing the gap between current state and future state

The fourth phase involves using the information gathered from the first three phases to develop the volunteer strategy.

Important components to consider including in the volunteer strategy include:

• Process: Explain the process you took to develop the strategy.
• Who your volunteers are: Using the data compiled in phase one share infographics which present your volunteer statistics, demographics and personas.
• Priority themes: What themes have emerged and why are they important to the success of the volunteer program and the overall strategic direction of the organisation?
• A vision statement: What does the future of volunteering at your organisation look like?
• Volunteer Strategy deliverables: Include actions, outcomes, measures and timelines which will bridge the gap between the current state and the desired future state.
• Volunteer stories: Include quotes from volunteers and share stories about volunteer experiences, roles and the impact of their contribution.

A volunteer strategy is a vehicle to guide your volunteering activities to ensure your resources are being applied in a manner which actively contributes to the achievement of organisational strategic outcomes. Does your organisation have a Volunteer Strategy? Please share the approach you took and your experience.