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How to Host an Effective, Engaging Volunteer Orientation
The Buyer’s Guide to Volunteer Management Software
As a volunteer coordinator, you know the importance of volunteer orientation sessions as they are one of the most critical aspects of the volunteer management process . They offer a dedicated training session for new volunteers to learn more about your organization, pick up valuable new skills or important volunteer information, and mingle with fellow new volunteers.
All types of volunteer programs use training and orientation sessions. For example, humane societies and animal shelters often use volunteer orientation programs to show volunteers around their facilities and teach them any animal care-related skills they may need to know. Other nonprofits may use volunteer orientations to teach volunteers highly specialized skills, such as creating advocacy materials or learning building renovation techniques.
In this guide, we’ll explore the ins and outs of creating an effective volunteer orientation process that makes volunteers excited about participating. We’ll cover:
The benefits of hosting a new volunteer orientation
Volunteer orientation checklist, 5 best practices to make your volunteer orientation a success.
After you’ve successfully recruited your volunteers , it’s important to give them an engaging, productive volunteer orientation experience that makes them excited about starting their volunteer career. This allows you to start the volunteer relationship off on the right foot and encourage volunteers to stick around with your organization for the long haul. Let’s dive in to learn more!
Once you’ve recruited a passionate group of volunteers for your organization, the next step is to offer a volunteer orientation as a warm welcome. Hosting a new volunteer orientation is the first opportunity any organization has to showcase how special volunteers are to them and is critical in making volunteers feel motivated to begin.
Ask your volunteers to introduce themselves during their volunteer orientation. They can talk about what they’re passionate about, their strengths, and previous experiences. Hosting a volunteer orientation allows volunteers to get to know one another and become comfortable with each other from the get-go.
Here are some of the benefits of holding volunteer orientation sessions:
- Empower volunteers with everything they need to know to be productive workers. Instead of sending volunteers right into a volunteer opportunity with no experience, your volunteer orientation process allows you to equip volunteers with everything they need to know ahead of time.
- Reduce risk. If your volunteer opportunities require activities that come with inherent risks, such as working with animals or working on construction projects, your volunteer orientation can help emphasize safety measures to reduce risk.
- Grow awareness of your organization’s mission by contextualizing volunteer work. By providing an overview of the purpose and mission of your volunteer activities, you can provide new volunteers with context for where their actions fit into your overall mission. This can increase their emotional connection to your cause and even influence them to promote your organization among their family and friends.
- Boost volunteer retention. A positive, effective volunteer orientation allows volunteers to work more effectively and contribute to your mission in a tangible way. This increases their satisfaction with your volunteer opportunities and their likelihood of staying engaged with your organization over the long term.
Remember, some volunteers may not feel comfortable having an orientation in person due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But volunteer orientations can also be held virtually through video calls at a time that’s convenient for everyone!
It’s crucial to think about what you want to cover in your volunteer orientation ahead of time, while also leaving some room for questions. Create a checklist of everything you want to talk about to ensure you don’t forget anything. You can also create a mini checklist for your volunteers if you require them to come in with certain items, such as their volunteer t-shirt or certain supplies.
Each organization will have its own specific topics to cover, but we’ve compiled a list of general topics that you’ll likely want to explore in your volunteer orientation.
6 things to include in your volunteer orientation
Your orientation will set the foundation for a successful long-term relationship with your new volunteers. You want to make your volunteers feel welcomed when they come on board and empower them with the information they need to get a clear understanding of your organization and their roles. Your volunteer orientation should include the following items:
- A warm welcome and thank you message – Offering new volunteers a warm welcome makes a great first impression. Make your volunteers feel comfortable and welcomed from the start so they look forward to beginning their volunteering journey. You can also express appreciation with a thank you message or card to your new volunteers for donating their time and skills for your mission.
- An overview of your organization’s mission, goals, and history – Your volunteers want to make a difference, which is why it’s essential to go over your nonprofit’s mission, goals, and history. This is a great way to get them inspired and explain the importance of their roles for your organization.
- Role descriptions/training information – Although your volunteers have signed up for the roles they felt most suited for, you can go over their role descriptions again in greater detail. You can also let them know where they can go for training tools. For example, if you’re using a volunteer management system , you can teach them how to access all the important information they need.
- Relevant contact information for staff members – The last thing you want to do is make your volunteers feel like they don’t know where to go if they have any questions or concerns. Let your volunteers know how they can easily contact you or other staff members by distributing relevant phone numbers or email addresses.
- Site tour – Giving your volunteers a tour of the site they will be working in is essential in helping them get familiar with their working environment. Then, when they arrive for their first volunteer shift, they’ll know exactly where to go to get started.
- Check-in/check-out procedures – You want to ensure that your volunteers are acknowledged for every hour they put in. Introduce your new volunteers to the check-in and check-out procedures on their orientation day to ensure they know how to sign in. Having a volunteer management software can make this process seamless and quick, and many platforms offer volunteer check-in apps to streamline the process.
8 steps to plan your orientation
It’s vital to have a system in place for welcoming your volunteers, and it can become overwhelming as there are many moving parts to consider. Here, we have outlined what to take into consideration while planning your orientation to help you out. If you’re ready to start planning, here are the steps you need to follow to get started:
- Determine what type of orientation you’ll host. For example, will you host a small or large group orientation? Will your orientation be in person, virtual, or hybrid? Determine which type of volunteer orientation works best for your training needs. You can even send new volunteers a pre-orientation survey to gather their feedback on what type of orientation they prefer.
- Determine the length of your orientation. This will be decided by the number of activities and tasks you have planned for your new volunteers. Figure out if you can deliver the necessary information in just one session or if you’ll have to schedule several orientation sessions over a certain time period. Keep in mind that shorter, one-time orientations are typically the best option, since you can work with volunteers’ busy schedules and maintain their attention.
- Choose your orientation location. This is an important step since the type of environment you choose can have a major impact on participants’ satisfaction with the orientation process. You don’t want to host your orientation in a dark, dusty basement with no windows. Be sure to choose a wide open environment with comfortable seating options, room to social distance when necessary, and access to restrooms and snacks.
- Choose your orientation date(s). Consider sending out a survey to new volunteers to choose a time that works best for the majority of participants. Or, you can offer multiple dates to allow volunteers to choose the time that works best for them.
- Create your orientation agenda. Determine the sequence of events based on the must-have discussion items listed in the previous section. Ensure each staff member involved knows what their role will be ahead of time. The goal is to balance delivering necessary information with engagement opportunities such as getting-to-know-you activities or group work.
- Craft supportive materials. Figure out how you’ll present information to your volunteers during the orientation. You may choose to use a PowerPoint, printed informational packet or another visual medium to support you as you run through the information. You might also choose a more engaging medium to help volunteers review what they’ve learned, such as a Kahoot or Jeopardy game.
- Send volunteers an overview of what to expect from your orientation. Provide them with any materials they should review before the orientation begins, documents they should sign, or instructions for what to bring to the orientation. You should also send them the agenda for the orientation session so they know how long they should expect to be there.
- Run through the orientation beforehand. Make sure all of your technology tools are working properly and that team members feel comfortable with their roles.
Staying organized will help you stay on track and make sure you don’t leave any important steps out. Remember to start planning ahead of time, so there’s room for any adjustments before the day of your orientation.
- Plan an icebreaker activity. This can help new volunteers feel more comfortable, get to know one another, and start the orientation process off on the right foot.
- Establish a two-way feedback loop. Provide opportunities for volunteers to ask questions, and be sure to give them continuous feedback as they try out new skills or take on new roles. Also, provide opportunities for them to give feedback by sending out a survey once they’ve completed the orientation process.
- Provide volunteers with hands-on learning opportunities. Make sure you provide opportunities for volunteers to try out any new skills or use equipment in a hands-on capacity. This will reinforce what they’ve learned more effectively than just having them listen to instructions or watch someone else complete the tasks.
- Use volunteer management software to stay organized. Volunteer management software tools (like those offered by Bloomerang Volunteer ) allow volunteer managers to screen volunteer applications, schedule volunteer orientation sessions, and schedule volunteers once they’ve completed their orientation process.
- Follow up with volunteers after the orientation session. Ask for their feedback on the orientation process and send them upcoming shift opportunities so they can start actually volunteering. Don’t forget to thank them again for their participation and encourage them to send in any remaining questions!
The goal is to foster a passionate and prepared volunteer base. Your orientation session is the beginning of introducing new volunteers to your robust volunteer program, which is why it requires careful planning. Once your orientation concludes, it’s just as important to maintain your communication with your new volunteers.
Wrapping up
Now that you’ve learned the benefits of your volunteer orientation, what you need in order to be successful, and the best practices to help you stay organized, it’s time to start planning!
You can take advantage of technology tools such as a volunteer management software that can help you stay in touch with your new volunteers and schedule new volunteers for shifts.
Remember to ask for feedback from your volunteers as it helps you measure the success of your orientation. Good luck!
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Top 10 Volunteer PPT Templates with Samples and Examples
Kavesh Malhotra
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." – Helen Keller, American author and activist.
In spirit of Keller’s quote, a lot of organizations pay attention to volunteerism and non-profit work. This helps organizations impact society and improve their workforce efficacy. A CNN report indicates that 96% of companies have found that volunteer employees are better engaged than those who don't. Similarly, 94% of volunteers reported improved people skills and teamwork after participating in volunteer programs.
Hence, it is no surprise that organizations across the globe are engaging volunteers through multiple recruitment strategies. But the job is easier said than done, right? This is where our well-designed templates prove helpful. These content-ready and 100% editable templates can help organizations simplify their recruitment process. These templates offer a structured roadmap for cultivating a vibrant community that takes your cause ahead.
These Volunteer Hiring Strategy templates ensure that your organization attracts the right candidates, builds a sense of belonging and goal amongst your volunteers, and amplifies their zeal to work. These templates focus on strategic hiring, Volunteer Orientation, And Engagement , along with a well-crafted Volunteer Recruitment Timeline.
Imagine the potential of your non-profit program when equipped with tools that appeal visually and are powered by research and professional insight. This collection of templates offers a spectrum of resources to meet your needs. Let's take a look at them one by one.
Template #1: Volunteer Recruitment Plan PowerPoint PPT Template Bundles
Finding the right people for the right cause is quite a challenge. Even more challenging is to streamline the process and help recruiters with their tasks. That's where this Volunteer Hiring Strategy template comes into play. Designed with perfection and many visual elements, this PPT Template covers multiple elements of the recruitment procedure like the entire recruitment plan, step-by-step procedures, creation of recruitment forms, and strategies to target the right audience.
If you are a corporate group looking for volunteers for your CSR activities, this template has got you covered, too! It covers strategies that volunteers can adopt to improve their corporate philanthropy, recognize corporate partners, and more. The template also covers other elements, like meticulous approach to selecting a volunteer using existing market channels and building a positive market position. Along with the volunteer appreciation and recruitment plans for the young audience, this Volunteer Hiring Strategy template is a complete solution for your recruitment needs. Download it today and kick-start your volunteer work.
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Template #2: Recruitment Plan Checklist for Volunteer Engagement
Recruiting the right volunteers is the key makes or breaks your volunteer task. As it's important to ensure every tick-box is checked to find the right people, having a comprehensive document that can be helpful is a great advantage. This PPT Template offers you that advantage. This slide covers multiple tasks that should be completed while recruiting a volunteer. The user can check on Yes and No, giving a clear glimpse of whether the recruitment plan was followed or not. Key areas such as reviewing marketing channels, evaluating the sales process for membership, and analyzing customer support during application and induction highlight the template's attention to recruitment and post-recruitment activities.
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Template #3: Social Media Plan for Volunteer Recruitment
Social media is a great platform where you can find like-minded individuals who are eager to participate in your cause. But you need to have a structured strategy to move ahead and find the right people. That's where this PPT Template helps. This slide covers social media plan for volunteer recruitment. It categorizes the process into multiple popular social media platforms like Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook, and more. You can add your activity list beside this platform, which can help you attract more people. For example, you can run Instagram ads to address a wider audience, leverage LinkedIn to connect with corporates, and more. In short, this template depicts your entire social media plan for volunteer recruitment.
Template #4: Challenges and Solutions of Volunteer Recruitment Plan
Volunteer recruitment is one of the most challenging tasks for organizations. Reason? Well, you must find people that don't work for any monetary compensation! And this is just the beginning. The challenge continues even after recruiting the volunteers. This template provides a comprehensive solution to this problem. It classifies challenges, solutions, and actions into a simple, tabular format and cuts the time needed to manage the volunteers. Whether it's about tackling the challenge of limited resources, volunteer retention, or the reliability of volunteers, this template has it covered.
Template #5: Timeline for Volunteer Recruitment Plan
If your recruitment plan is good but incomplete, it won't yield the desired results. So, to help you manage your Volunteer Recruitment Timeline , our experts have prepared this comprehensive Volunteer Recruitment Timeline template. This template segregates the entire period, from day 1 of the recruitment process to the final onboarding day, into 5 phases. During weeks 1 and 2, you screen the application forms and their qualification; during weeks 3 and 4, you conduct one-on-one sessions to understand them better; on weeks 4 and 5, you analyze your candidate's skills, performance, and knowledge, and between weeks 7 and 8, you finalize whether your applicants meet your needs. The final phase includes onboarding and other formalities. The aim is to ensure you never miss a deadline!
Template #6: Volunteer Recruitment Plan Dashboard to Track Performance
Organizations need to monitor that their volunteer recruitment programs are moving ahead on time. How about this clutter-free, visually appealing, and simple dashboard template that engagingly presents critical information? This template provides details of the current hiring pipelines and breaks down the recruitment stages for positions from lead to offer. The leadership can pinpoint at what stage a volunteer is at their recruitment stage. The best part? The template contains a clear graphical representation of the recruitment cost in detail, along with the resources from where the volunteers are sourced.
Template #7: Cost Reduction Strategies Case Study How Glovo Conducted Volunteering Week Strategy
Planning and implementing a successful volunteer program is a challenge that a lot of organizations struggle with. This case study template can be useful in understanding how to accomplish such a successful program. Created simply and visually appealing, it highlights the key goal and "about" section with the proper context. The template also covers the challenges during the program and what the organization did to tackle them. Finally, it has a small section that showcases the outcome. You can download this template, alter the case study, edit the details, and use it to motivate your team. This will ensure your team is ready to take on the challenge and create a successful volunteer campaign.
Template #8: Volunteer Recruitment Campaign Plan with Status
Volunteer recruitment needs a structured roadmap to succeed. This simple, clutter-free PPT Template can assist organizations struggling to maintain a hold on their volunteer recruitment process. It breaks down the recruitment strategy into manageable tasks, each assigned to specific groups to enhance process efficiency. The Volunteer Recruitment Campaign Plan template outlines several discussion topics relevant to volunteer recruitment, such as recruiting from the local community, defining volunteer opportunities within organizations, and generating creative ideas to attract new volunteers. For each topic, an actionable Hiring Plan Component is provided. Goals are clearly stated, and the template records the status of each action item. This indicates whether it's done or in progress and offers a real-time overview of the campaign's advancement.
Template #9: Year in Review Showing Employee Volunteerism and Product Sold
Some organizations regularly kick-start employee volunteerism programs every year. This template presents the achievements of such organizations in a visual and understandable format instead of boring data sets. It sheds light on the employee's volunteerism, notable changes in the business performance, sales rise, and organizational diversity. It also encapsulates the organization's global reach and impact on the people and the world. It's a perfect presentation to help leadership understand how employee volunteerism programs operate.
Template #10: Quarterly Community Involvement Employee Volunteer Program Roadmap
This template helps organizations visualize their community engagement and employee volunteerism strategies over a year. This template breaks down the entire journey into multiple quarters. Such a roadmap format clearly depicts the Hiring Plan Component and highlights key activities and milestones that the organization aims to achieve. Leadership can communicate the project goals, discuss activities involved, and keep the project on track with this template. The template focuses on employee volunteerism as a means of creating business value. This template is ideal for managers and team leads to present quarterly community involvement plans, track progress, and maintain clarity.
CHANGE THE WORLD FOR GOOD
Recruiting volunteers for your organization and charity can transform its reputation and image. But you will need special attention and strategy to get the right people. These PPT Templates offer a toolkit to elevate volunteer recruitment and community involvement efforts. These tools ensure you get the job done with minimal effort and the best outcome.
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Here are some steps to write a volunteer cover letter: 1. Include your contact information and date. Start your cover letter by writing your contact information, such as your name, email address, phone number and city, state or union territory of residence. After this, include the date you are writing the cover letter and the company for which ...
Use professional cover letter spacing: a 1” margin on all sides and single or 1.15 line spacing is perfect. Use a professional and modern, 12 pt size cover letter font. Make your paragraphs easier to read by double-spacing between them. 2. Create a professional volunteer cover letter header.
Establish a two-way feedback loop. Provide opportunities for volunteers to ask questions, and be sure to give them continuous feedback as they try out new skills or take on new roles. Also, provide opportunities for them to give feedback by sending out a survey once they’ve completed the orientation process.
4 Use visuals. Another way to make your volunteer impact presentation unforgettable is to use visuals that support your story. Visuals can help you communicate complex or abstract ideas, highlight ...
A thoughtful new volunteer orientation ensures your volunteer recruitment efforts don’t go to waste. An effective orientation serves to: Welcome new volunteers. Acquaint volunteers with your organization’s mission. Outline role expectations, responsibilities, and tasks. Orientation is often led by a volunteer coordinator and may be ...
Transform your volunteer outreach with Template.net's Volunteer Letter Templates. Exclusively featured on our platform, these editable and customizable designs provide an effortless way to craft impactful volunteer letters. Infuse your appreciation messages with a personalized touch using our Ai Editor Tool, ensuring authentic and engaging communication. Elevate your volunteer connections ...
Template #1: Volunteer Recruitment Plan PowerPoint PPT Template Bundles. Finding the right people for the right cause is quite a challenge. Even more challenging is to streamline the process and help recruiters with their tasks. That's where this Volunteer Hiring Strategy template comes into play.
5 Follow up and follow through. The last tip for designing engaging remote volunteer presentations is to follow up and follow through with your audience. You don't want to leave them hanging or ...
4 Know your delivery. The way you deliver your presentation is as important as the content. You want to sound confident, passionate, and authentic. To do that, you need to practice and rehearse ...