Has your organization ever needed help writing a grant or building a website or taking pictures at a big event? Have you considered recruiting a skilled volunteer instead of hiring someone to do the work? A skilled volunteer can bring their experience and knowledge to your organization to help it achieve its goals. Here are some tips for recruiting skills based volunteers:

Define the role of the volunteer. When you’re looking for a volunteer with a specific skill set it’s important to define the role they’ll be playing with your organization. Make the role very specific – the more specific the better. Instead of looking for a volunteer for “grant writing” look for a volunteer to write a specific grant application for a specific reason.

Screening is important. If you’re looking for a skilled volunteer to do work on a certain project, make sure you take the time to meet with them before you bring them on to make sure that they can do what you’re asking them to do. If you find out that they can do what you’re asking them, great! If you’re not sure they’re a good fit for the work, don’t dismiss them. Let them know about other opportunities in your organization that they might be a better fit for.

Motivate! Volunteers will do their best work when they feel inspired by the end result. Before they start, show them what the organization has accomplished. Let them know that they’re now a part of the organization’s future and they’ll be helping to accomplish even more. What kind of incentives can your organization offer the volunteer? Work experience, recommendations, professional contacts, and a fun working environment can help to keep volunteers engaged.

And don’t forget to say thank you often.

Be flexible and show respect. Wouldn’t it be great if the highly skilled volunteers that your organization needs could devote all of their time to your organization and its cause? Unfortunately, that’s usually not the case. Keep your skilled volunteers’ tasks very specific and restricted to short-term projects that only require a few hours per day or a few months of their time. This leaves the door open for the volunteer to accept another project with your organization while being respectful of their other commitments.

Once a project is completed, don’t forget to thank your volunteer for the work they’ve done.

Keep staff morale high. Make sure to use skilled volunteers in a way that complements the work of your organization’s staff and not in a way that looks like you’re replacing staff. Make it clear that volunteers are an important part of your organization and that they allow the organization to function at a higher level than if only staff worked on projects.

Do you work with skilled volunteers? What have you found works best for recruiting and retaining them? Let us know in the comments!