The Volunteer Onboarding Process – Why You Need It and How to Build One

Do you have a group of new volunteers starting at your organization? If so, you only have one chance to make a good first impression and welcome them into your community — it all starts with a great volunteer onboarding process.

In this blog you’ll learn:  

• Why you need a volunteer onboarding process  
• How it can make a difference in your new volunteers’ experience and organization
• How to Create an Effective Onboarding Process 

What is Volunteer Onboarding?

Volunteer onboarding is more than just an orientation about your organization. It’s an opportunity for new volunteers to gain the necessary knowledge and skills they’ll need to succeed in their new roles, as well as make sure that their experience is mutually beneficial and they make meaningful connections. It’s a chance for them to get a sense of your organization’s culture, create relationships with fellow volunteers, and deepen their sense of commitment.

Looking for help recruiting new volunteers? Check out our free Volunteer Recruitment Checklist!

Why You Need a Volunteer Onboarding Process

Here are seven reasons why you should have a volunteer onboarding process in place.

1. Volunteering Creates a Sense of Belonging 

Humans have a fundamental need to belong — we all want to fit in and feel like we’re a part of something larger than us.

Volunteers who feel like they belong to a group of people working towards a common goal find more meaning in their work. This, in turn, encourages them to participate more actively, meet challenges with enthusiasm, and feel a greater sense of responsibility and commitment.

A successful volunteer onboarding process helps create this sense of belonging and results in volunteers who are engaged, fulfilled and stay with your organization for many years.

2. Meaningful Relationships Among Volunteers

A big part of what makes volunteering a great experience are the interactions volunteers have with each other. Taking on a special task or volunteering at an event is much more enjoyable when you can do it with someone you already know and like. Many volunteers form these kinds of relationships during the onboarding process and later specifically request to work together.

Volunteers who work together as part of a team or a pair are often much more motivated to do a good job because they don’t want to let their team or partner down.

Carving out time during your volunteer onboarding process for team-building or simply opportunities for organic interaction between members can massively improve your volunteers’ overall experience.

3. Rapport Between the Volunteers and the Volunteer Manager

Far too often, volunteers feel unsatisfied with their experience, but don’t know whom to turn to or don’t feel comfortable speaking up. Maybe they feel like their skills could be put to better use on another task, or maybe they’d like to volunteer remotely or request fewer (or more) hours. Whatever the case, it’s important that every single one of your new volunteers feels completely comfortable coming to the volunteer manager with these issues.

A volunteer onboarding process creates opportunities for volunteers to interact with the volunteer manager in a casual setting, before the work begins, and establish a sense of comfort and trust. It’s also not a bad idea for the volunteer manager to make a formal announcement, inviting volunteers to come to them with any questions, comments, or concerns.

4. Balance expectations

New volunteers come to your organization with a passion for your cause, but they also come with their own expectations about what they’d like to get out of the volunteer experience.

Your organization, on the other hand, has its own goals and requirements that your volunteers need to support.

The onboarding process is where you balance volunteer expectations with organizational goals and program expectations to create a positive experience for your volunteers. This process builds a foundation of mutual trust and deepens their involvement.

If, on the other hand, your volunteers don’t feel they are being heard or their expectations are being met, they likely won’t continue in their volunteer roles.

5. Motivate Your Volunteers

Even though individual volunteers have their own reasons for joining, all of your volunteers are looking for:

• Autonomy: the freedom to self-direct tasks, teams and techniques.
• Mastery:the opportunity to face challenges that are matched with their abilities, so they can learn, make progress, and eventually master.
• Purpose: a sense of a higher purpose, one beyond their own self interest.

If you take time during the volunteer onboarding process to demonstrate how your volunteers will get the chance to practice autonomy, mastery, and purpose, they’ll be much more motivated to keep coming back and do their best work.

6. Allow Newcomers to Process Conflicting Emotions and Acclimate to New Surroundings

A volunteer onboarding process is your chance to help new volunteers acclimate to your organization or community. This involves understanding that they will experience a lot of conflicting emotions: surprise, anticipation, joy, fear, ambiguity. You also need to recognize that they will be looking to you for social cues and support.

For example, to reassure new volunteers and help them deal with uncertainty, you may offer a well defined schedule or calendar, provide a handbook, and/or have regular meetings or trainings.

To help your new volunteers through their emotional turmoil, try the following:

• Be sure these emotions aren’t discounted or ignored
• Prioritize trust-building, connecting, etc. in your onboarding process
• Understand that people need time to get to know one another
• Acknowledge that some people will feel very unsure and may need support from staff or other volunteers

7. Retain Volunteers

Here are a few things you can do as part of your volunteer onboarding process to help make sure these volunteers keep coming back year after year:

• Offer training:offer training to increase self confidence, help connect the dots, and provide a roadmap.
• Establish rituals:let your volunteers know what to expect by explaining processes, sharing how things have been run in the past, or explaining how you’d like them to run in the future.
• Provide a cost-benefit analysis:calculating and demonstrating the impact of your volunteers’ time will help them understand their purpose and feel more motivated to help.

How to Create an Effective Onboarding Process 

An effective onboarding strategy for your volunteers will make everyone’s lives easier. Your volunteers will feel right at home and confident in their duties and your managers will save time and energy by following the structures you’ve put in place. 

Your volunteer onboarding process will encompass 4 simple steps 

Step 1: Analyze Your Current Strategy 

Building an effective onboarding process for your volunteers starts with your current strategy. It’s important to look at what you’ve done in the past in order to be successful in the future. 

When analyzing your current strategy, ask yourself and your team questions like these: 

• What has been successful and unsuccessful with volunteers? 
• Do our volunteers ask a lot of questions after onboarding? 
• Do we have good volunteer retention? 
• What is our volunteers’ demographic? (are they mostly remote or in person?) 
• What kind of feedback have we received from volunteers? 
• Is our training standard across trainers? 
• What extra materials might benefit volunteers? 

Consider sending out a volunteer survey to help you answer these questions too! 

Step 2: Gather Your Team 

Once you’ve evaluated what’s working (and what’s not), you need to appoint and train those in charge of your volunteers. These individuals should be passionate about your mission and have experience in your field. After all, you can’t learn to fish from someone who has never caught a fish! 

When selecting your volunteer managers, look for qualities that will make your volunteers feel comfortable and capable. Finding individuals who can educate and relate to volunteers is key.  

Remember, your volunteer managers should help make your volunteers feel like they have autonomy, mastery and purpose. This will keep your volunteers coming back and allow your organization to better impact your community and achieve your mission. 

Step 3: Orientation and Training 

Arguably the most important part of your volunteer onboarding process is your orientation.  

This is the first experience your volunteers will have with your organization – you want it to be a good one! 

Depending on the volunteer opportunities you offer, you may want to provide materials before the official orientation. This could be any of the following: 

• Description of your organizations mission and vision 
• A list of all the volunteer opportunities your organization offers 
• Opportunities for remote volunteers 
• Your organizations expectations for volunteer behavior and/or dress code 
• Policies and safety regulations 

This information could be in a pamphlet, on your organization’s website or in documents you email to interested partied before training – the options are endless! 

For your volunteer training, consider how you want to present information. 

In Person Presentation: An in-person training is helpful for volunteers to create a meaningful connection to your volunteer manager. They will be able to physically raise hands, meet other volunteers and obtain all the information they need to volunteer properly. Bonus – you can use any free time after the training to bond with one another and share volunteer stories. 

Virtual Presentation: Being virtual allows for more volunteers to be trained at once. This is also great if you are on a time crunch and need to get your volunteers onboarded quickly. You’ll be able to save any questions asked in the chat and follow up with specific individuals after the presentation. For those volunteers who may be shy, they won’t feel the pressure of eyes on them when they have questions too! 

On Demand Presentations: If you’ve recorded your onboarding training you’ll be able to share the presentation at any time with all new volunteers. This is great for volunteers who may have tight schedules and cannot come to in person training or a zoom training online. Plus if they need to rewind and rewatch they can do so at their leisure. 

Step 4: Manage Your Volunteers 

Once you’ve onboarded and trained tour volunteers, it’s time to let them do the good work! 

Empower your volunteer managers to keep up communication with your volunteers. Send out regular newsletters. These should have with any new volunteer opportunities and should highlight all the wonderful things your volunteers have accomplished. Sharing impact with volunteers is vital for retention and makes everyone feel good about the work they’ve done. 

To strengthen the relationship with your volunteers, you’ll want to have implement a volunteer appreciation strategy. Finding consistent and creative ways to say “thank you” will build a loyal volunteer base and encourage them to continue their involvement year after year. 

Bonus: Volunteer Management Software 

Depending on the size of your organization, you may have a lot of volunteers. Keeping track of the number of volunteers, volunteer hours, feedback, contact information, communication and more can be quite daunting. Especially if you have a small team to manage your volunteers. 

This is where volunteer management software will be your biggest aid. 

With volunteer management software you can: 

• Track volunteer hours 
• Manage communications with volunteers so no one misses an opportunity 
• Maintain a database of all active and inactive volunteers 
• Send out newsletters sharing the impact volunteers have made 
• Receive feedback from volunteers 
• Allow volunteers to view and sign up for volunteering shifts virtually 

WildApricot – that’s us! – is a powerful all-in-one software solution that can help you manage your volunteers and help your organization make a bigger impact. 

Try our 60-day free trial (no credit card required!) and see what a difference we can make for your org. 

Read More:The Top 15 Free and Inexpensive Volunteer Management Software Solutions For Any Organization

With effective onboarding, you can inspire deeper participation and commitment among your amazing team of volunteers and help your organization thrive.

Good luck with your volunteer onboarding!