Today’s post follows on from yesterday where we introduced a process for putting together a volunteer communications strategy.

Ask

Thirdly, you need to actually get to business after all that planning. Segments created, communication carried out, it’s time to make the ask and see if you have hit the target. How many potential volunteers will say yes? Of course, communication does not end here. Once you have your volunteers, no matter how many they are, you will need to prepare them for their future tasks. Invest in a solid Orientation Program for Volunteers and make sure they feel comfortable doing what they do and being where they are. A great idea is to apply the so-called “80-20” rule – pay special attention to the 20% most engaged volunteers and ask them to engage even more and to convince other to engage. Convincing others to engage is an important aspect of your communications strategy – make sure your staff, volunteer leaders and engaged volunteers do all they can to engage others.

Prepare for change

Last but not least, don’t forget that everything changes, including your volunteers. This means that some of them may change their segments (which means that you need to start targeting them differently). In other case, a whole segment may change its key characteristic, which means that your communications strategy also needs to change. The best way to track the change (and to see how you are doing) is to encourage honest feedback. Make it easy for your volunteers to give feedback – this will allow you to see where you need to improve your strategy. Make sure that, as a part of your feedback strategy, you track the outreach of your targeted communication – you need to know who reads what after all.

It is obvious that building a communications strategy is a long and complex process. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s not fun. Meeting with so many new people, gradually paving the way to success, helping, doing great job – these are only a part of the reason why you are doing it. Nobody said it would be easy, but it is certainly worth it. Good luck!