After you’ve been approved as a Partner Agency, you can begin posting volunteer opportunities. HandsOn has developed a few tips to make this posting successful.
While posting a Volunteer Opportunity:
- Separate Postings: Create a separate posting for each individual volunteer opportunity. Grouping them together in one large posting overwhelms volunteers, especially those that aren’t quite sure what they want to do and are looking for inspiration.
- DETAILS: Provide as many details about the opportunity as possible – i.e exact address, exact times, specific volunteer duties and expectations
- Check Spelling: Use the spell check feature on the opportunity posting to make sure there aren’t any mistakes!
- Contact Person: Make sure the contact person for the opportunity is accurate and will be available to respond to inquiries.
- Posting Accuracy: The “Social Issues Addressed” and “Populations Served” sections copy over from your Agency profile. Make sure both sections are accurate for the specific opportunity and update as necessary.
- Specific Populations: Please take the time to accurately check the boxes under the “details” tab in regards to whether or not the opportunity is suitable for: groups, disabled individuals, court referrals, various age groups, virtual volunteering, and individuals reliant on public transportation. This helps us find volunteer opportunities that are suitable for specific populations.
- Highlight to HandsOn Staff: If your opportunity is urgent or coming up soon, send us an email requesting that we highlight the opportunity in our media blasts and volunteer newsletter. In this email, make sure to provide the blurb you want us to use and all the necessary information.
Overall posting strategies:
- Variety: Make sure to include a variety of both short-term/one-time opportunities and long-term opportunities to attract a variety of volunteers.
- Post opportunities regularly: Website visitors can see the posting date of your opportunities and tend to respond more favorably to those that have been recently posted. We also highlight recently posted opportunities more than older postings.
- Maintain Accuracy: Revisit your opportunities from time to time and make sure that all information is still accurate.
- Archive old opportunities: If you decide that an opportunity is not longer relevant, archive the opportunity as opposed to deleting it. Archived opportunities can be reactivated later with a simple click of a button, but deleted opportunities are gone forever.
When a volunteer expresses interest:
- Follow Up Quickly: When a volunteer expresses interest through our site or over the phone, make sure to follow up quickly – ideally within 48 hours. It’s likely the volunteer will lose interest if you wait longer.
- Follow Through: Make sure after the initial contact to follow through with the volunteer, and if you can’t place the volunteer in your organization at this time, make sure to refer the volunteer back to HandsOn or to another agency.
Note: you will receive an email after the volunteer opportunity has occurred asking you to verify the hours the volunteer has worked. This is very important to keep our data accurate. Thank you!