18 Building Inclusive Communities When an association thinks of their best members, all those members will have served in multiple volunteer roles with the association. Members who serve on committees or in other volunteer roles consistently show greater satisfaction and higher retention rates with their associations. While all associations leverage volunteers in some form or another, most don’t invest to create an inclusive process to engage members in becoming volunteers. This leaves potential volunteers excluded from contributing, and many associations missing out on great contributors. Here are five simple ways to better engage members to volunteer in order to create a more inclusive association and turn those applicants into association champions! Definition of Volunteer Opportunities Long time members know what is expected when volunteering, but new members are often left guessing. Presenting volunteer opportunities with clear guidelines on how long they last, what the time commitment looks like, frequency of engagement, location of the engagement, as well as any expertise that may be needed is critical. And then finding a way to centralize those opportunities in a single location will help members more easily self-select into opportunities, as well as help them return to find new volunteer opportunities. Easy and Intuitive Application The process for volunteers to get involved should not feel like a volunteer engagement in itself! While different types of volunteer opportunities may require different systems, ideally those systems won’t ask for overlapping information your association has already collected. Pulling customer data from your customer database into the application will streamline the application process. For any information you do collect, provide clear direction on the purpose of the information—don’t just ask for information, explain how you want to use it. And give applicants a clear indication of the process—let them know how many steps, what parts they have not completed, and allow them to easily return to the process if necessary. Listing of Qualifications Many volunteer opportunities are relatively low experience requirements—helping direct traffic at a conference, posting on social media, replying to community posts—but when a position does require a certain level of expertise, communicating that expectation is critical. Getting members to offer their time for something that they would never be selected for is a waste for both the members and individuals responsible for selecting volunteers. Providing clear direction and filtering on what opportunities are the best fit ensures a better experience all around. Consistent Review Process With any application there is inevitably a review process, and often the review is done by members. Members inevitably bring their own sets of standards or expectations to any review process, which adds to the challenge of evaluating qualified applicants. Providing those reviewers with a clear understanding of judging criteria is critical to the standardization process. This can be even more effective if reviewers are provided specific guiding questions to answer—that way even if applicants go through different reviewers, consistent criteria are being used to evaluate those applicants. This will remove some of the subjective aspects of the process and result in a more inclusive selection process. VOLUNTEER APPLICANT TO ASSOCIATION CHAMPION Building a More Inclusive Association By Justin Burniske
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