Resources for anyone involved with volunteers in Kent

Retention

Retention of Volunteers

The key to retaining volunteers is to make sure they are getting their particular needs met through their volunteer experience. Another way to say this is that if the volunteer experience makes the volunteers feel good, then they will continue to want to volunteer. When this is occurring across the volunteer program, a positive, enthusiastic climate is created which, in turn, encourages people to continue to volunteer.

An environment most likely to make a volunteer feel good is one which bolsters the volunteer’s self-esteem. When the work experience boosts a person’s self esteem, he/she feels good about their job, be it paid or volunteer work. They look forward to going to the workplace.

Creating an Esteem-Producing Climate for Volunteers
Psychologists found that people with high self-esteem are people who simultaneously satisfy three particular motivational needs. They enjoy a sense of connectedness, a sense of uniqueness, and a sense of power.

When people feel connected, they feel a sense of belonging, a sense of being part of a relationship with others. In a highly mobile society, where friends and loved ones may live hundreds of miles away and the next door neighbour is sometimes a stranger, this need is often unmet, leaving people with a sense of isolation, dissatisfaction, and loneliness. A sense of identification with a work group can meet this need, producing healthier, happier individuals.

Motivation

When we talk about motivating volunteers, we are talking about creating a volunteer experience that allows an individual to meet their motivational needs in ways that are productive for the organisation and satisfying for the individual. You remove barriers to motivation by designing satisfying work experiences and create systems that allow the volunteer to meet his/her needs. You make sure, in other words, that volunteers receive their motivational reward for the valuable contributions they make to the work of your organisation. This is the essence of volunteer retention.

Because each volunteer has a different combination of needs, each will do best in different working conditions. Some volunteers may be highly motivated by gaining job experience, whereas others may be highly motivated by the desire to meet new people. Still others may have a burning passion to do something to contribute to the cause. For the first type, you need to make sure that they have the opportunity to learn the skills they want to learn. The second must be placed in a work setting where they can work with others. The third needs a job that makes a meaningful contribution to the organisation’s mission.

This is further complicated by the fact that a volunteer’s needs may change over time. For example, a volunteer may work well on an independent project. It satisfies his/her need to achieve something meaningful. Then his/her circumstances change and their need to be with others may suddenly become much more important than the need to achieve something meaningful. To satisfy this need and retain the volunteer, you might need to offer them a different type of voluntary work.

Ensure that the volunteer has the opportunity to regularly discuss the work they are doing for you and whether it meets their needs as well as those of the organisation.