4 Ideas to Help Mobilize Volunteers
Today’s post comes from Gregg Michaelsen, Fundraising Consultant at Simple Fundraising Ideas. Gregg specializes in providing unique fundraising ideas for non-profit organizations. Check out his site at http://simple-fundraising-ideas.com/ to get ideas on how you can raise funds for your organization.
I love setting up fundraisers. There’s something fulfilling about them especially if the fundraiser is for a great cause. If you have the right fundraising ideas, setting up a fundraiser is actually very easy. After all, you just need to let people know that you need help for your cause.
Do you want to know the hard part? It’s finding volunteers. I’ve long faced the fact that people are busy. They have their own responsibilities. We can’t blame them if they’d rather perform their responsibilities that spend some time volunteering.
You don’t have to worry because there are still a lot of people who will be more than willing to help. These are the people that have set aside time and resources just so they can help out your cause. Needless to say, you have to make it worth their time and effort.
This is a common scenario. The volunteers can’t perform their tasks because your organization wasn’t able to come up with the funds needed. It’s really unfortunate to see volunteers that have nothing to eat or drink. It’s unfortunate when they have to cough up their own money so in addition to donating their time and effort, they’re also donating money. There’s nothing wrong with this if it’s their choice. But if they’re forced to pay for their own transportation to and from different venues, that’s something that should be addressed.
This is why I came up with ideas that can help mobilize volunteers.
1. Team up with a local restaurant for the meals of your volunteers.
A lot of restaurants are more than willing to help in their own special way. What better way to do it than to provide for the meals of the volunteers? Approach the restaurants in the area and tell them that you’re offering them a unique opportunity to help out. I personally like approaching pizzerias and a lot of them are more than willing to donate several boxes of pizza. In return of the free meals, you can place a small 
banner in the fundraiser’s venue with the restaurant’s information on it.
2. Donate a van.
Look for someone who’s willing to lend his or her own van. This is to make sure that the volunteers can go anywhere as needed without worrying about their transportation.
3. Use discount cards.
This is another favorite of mine. Team up with a supermarket and hand out discount cards to your volunteers. They’ll get discounts when they use the card for their purchases and the supermarket gets additional businesses. In addition, the cards should accumulate points that you can later on convert to cash for additional funds for your organization.
4. Give volunteers allowance.
Now, this is not in any way payment for their services. That will defeat the whole purpose of volunteerism. This is just a small amount of “pocket money” just in case they need to buy something related to the fundraiser. This way, they don’t need to spend their own money.
With these tips, you can easily mobilize volunteers and they’ll actually enjoy volunteering. This is very important so they will volunteer again for your next fundraiser.
Check out these fundraising ideas to raise a lot of funds so you’ll have the funds needed to mobilize your volunteers. Remember, their success is your success.
