3 Tips for Organizing Corporate Volunteers

Now that corporate ESG strategies are blurring the lines between doing good and being profitable, your corporate volunteer program has never been more important. Besides being the right thing to do, it’s also a key factor in attracting investors and boosting employee engagement.

If you’re in charge of organizing corporate volunteers, keep reading. You have a big job ahead of you, but these three tips will help you. 

1. Learn Why They’re Volunteering

Depending on the size of your enterprise, you may be coordinating hundreds of volunteers in a variety of roles. Each one brings different skills, experiences, and perspectives to the event. 

To leverage their talents in your favour, you’ll want to learn a bit about your volunteers. Ask what motivates them. Some people volunteer simply because it’s the right thing to do, but others may do it to improve skills, work specific events, or work with like-minded people. 

You can use this info to assign them tasks that resonate with their passions and abilities. Not only will this help you find the right person for the job, but it will also make your volunteers happy. 

Pro tip: Record this information in an Excel spreadsheet with your volunteers’ contact details. This way, you won’t have to keep asking veteran volunteers what they want to do. You can simply refer to their file and assign tasks. 

2. Provide Branded Clothing

You’ll want to order custom t-shirts before the big day so that your volunteers can wear branded clothing. This comes with a few benefits. 

Firstly, it’ll make it easy for you to spot the people under your management, as all your volunteers will be wearing the same exact colour. Choosing a vibrant colour helps them stand out to visitors, so they have an easy visual cue to find people they can ask for help. 

Secondly, they help foster a sense of camaraderie between your volunteers. These custom t-shirts are uniforms reminding them they’re working for the same team. 

Lastly, these custom t-shirts act as free publicity. You can find custom screen printing services that make it easy to submit your event’s logo, company’s name, and brand colours for your custom t-shirts. 

3. Provide a Thorough Orientation

Providing thorough instructions is the key to organizing your volunteers in a way that maximizes both their impact for the cause and their personal experience. Without it, your volunteers can wind up waiting around for a task or not knowing what to do.

Either of these things can demotivate your volunteers and seriously drive down engagement. Although it may not be your intention, you can accidentally lower productivity by not communicating tasks clearly.  

Volunteers want to feel as though they’re doing something meaningful, even if it is only handing out brochures at a street festival. 

A thorough orientation will help them understand the role they play in the grand scheme of things. Give as many details about their tasks, including some areas where they may have to troubleshoot. This kind of instruction can increase the chances you’ll see the same faces volunteer time and again. 

Keep These Tips in Mind

Corporations that organize successful volunteer programs consistently report greater employee satisfaction, so you’ll want to get it right the first time. Match volunteers to their passions, order custom shirts in bulk, and provide thorough training to help coordinate a successful volunteer program that inspires worker passion.

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