Nonprofits across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and the nation increasingly struggle to recruit volunteers, but a local organization called VolunteerNow is working to solve that problem.
VolunteerNow, “the volunteer center of North Texas,” serves to bridge the gap between nonprofits and volunteers, according to Director of Community Engagement Meghan Delaney.
“Our mission is to transform communities and lives through volunteers,” Delaney told The Dallas Express.
“As a volunteer center,” she continued, “we have a volunteer engagement platform that we utilize called Voly.org, and we have over 100,000 volunteers on that [platform] from all over North Texas and beyond.”
“We basically take the people power and plug them into the needs of the community with nonprofits who are doing really awesome work,” Delaney explained to The Dallas Express.
On Thursday, VolunteerNow hosted the “Building A Volunteer Toolkit” training, one of the many annual training events the organization offers to teach volunteer managers how to create a structured volunteer program.
“As a volunteer center, we teach those tools and those core competencies that volunteer managers need,” Delaney explained.
Delaney confirmed that nonprofits “absolutely” struggle to recruit volunteers.
“It’s a struggle all the time, but it’s been more of a struggle over the last two and a half years because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said. “You have people that are uncomfortable volunteering right now since COVID is still a thing, but you have agencies that never stop doing their mission, like food pantries, homeless relief, animal shelters — those are three industries that can’t pause. They always need volunteers to help them do their mission and serve their clients.”
Delaney continued, “Volunteer managers are definitely always looking for ways [to] engage the community differently, or they’re looking to reach out to different volunteer pools. So we help do that through the recruitment training that we have.”
Delaney advises nonprofits struggling to recruit volunteers with the following: “The first key is getting the word out there — finding the places that volunteers go so you can post your opportunities. That’s why we encourage nonprofits to become partners with us for free. We don’t charge for them to be able to use our engagement platform. So, [the key is] getting the word out there and connecting with volunteers who are looking for things to do.”
“The second piece is learning the strategies to create a strong volunteer posting — relating the mission, helping the volunteers understand the time commitment and the types of responsibilities so that you can really match people to the opportunities that they’re drawn to already, [that] they’re really passionate about and the ones that really fit in their schedule, too,” she continued. “You’re more likely as a volunteer manager to find volunteers who fit those really specific areas for you.”
Delaney added that people can learn more about VolunteerNow’s work at their “Voly in the Park” festival on September 17 at Klyde Warren Park from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The event will feature more than 50 nonprofits, hands-on volunteer projects, on-site activities, and live entertainment.