Starting a Volunteer Program from Scratch: The Ultimate Guide

You may already have a few volunteers that you call upon to support your organization. But, creating an official volunteer program will help you build a foundation for long-term, sustainable support, which can help your organization make more impact than ever. 

In this article, we’ll show exactly how to start a volunteer program in just 11 steps.

What is a Volunteer Program?

A volunteer program is an organizational structure for recruiting and managing volunteers.

If you already count on a few volunteers, you may be wondering: Does our organization really need a volunteer program?

In truth, a well-thought-out program can help your organization with:

• Sustainability: A formal volunteer program provides a structured way to engage community members, ensuring their time and skills are utilized effectively and meaningfully. A well-organized program ensures a steady stream of volunteer support, rather than relying on sporadic or ad-hoc volunteer involvement.
  
  
• Standards: A formal program helps ensure proper policies and procedures are in place to protect both the organization and volunteers legally. With a proper program, nonprofits can vet, train, and manage volunteers to maintain high standards of service and representation, too.
  
  
• Scalability: A well-established volunteer program can more easily scale up or down based on the organization's changing needs and opportunities.
  
  
• Success: With a structured program, nonprofits can track volunteer hours, tasks completed, and overall impact, providing valuable data for reporting and improvement. Plus, a well-designed program can effectively match volunteer skills with organizational needs, maximizing the value of volunteer contributions. 

How to Start a Volunteer Program in 11 Steps

Step 1:  Conduct a Needs Assessment

When learning how to create a volunteer program, you’ll consider two types of needs — both your community's and the needs of your volunteers:

• Your community’s needs: Your volunteer program should address a genuine need or fill a service gap in your community. When starting your volunteer program, conduct a community needs assessment to determine what kind of volunteer services you require.
  
  
• Your organization’s volunteer needs: You’ll need to understand what your volunteers are looking for in an opportunity, what skills you need them to have in order to support your mission, and their availability. To gather these insights, use a volunteer management platform that includes integrated communication and engagement tools like email and texting.

Step 2: Define Your Purpose and Goals

Once you've assessed your volunteer and community needs, it’s time to set some tangible goals.

A successful volunteer program adheres to the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) principles. However, the most robust volunteer programs go beyond these principles, integrating strategic initiatives aligned with volunteer skills and community needs, too.

Here is an example of SMART goals for a new volunteer program: 

• Specific: Expand the volunteer tutoring program to provide academic support to 100 additional students.
  
  
• Measurable: Track the number of new volunteers and students enrolled in tutoring sessions using our volunteer management dashboard.
  
  
• Achievable: With the recruitment of additional volunteers and streamlined scheduling, this increase is feasible.
  
  
• Relevant: Reaching more students directly aligns with our mission to enhance educational outcomes in the community.
  
  
• Time-bound: Achieve this expansion within the next 6 months.

Step 3: Write a Volunteer Mission Statement 

Writing a mission statement is more than crafting a catchy phrase; it's about encapsulating the strategic objectives of your volunteer program in a way that resonates with stakeholders. It offers insight into what you aim to achieve and how you'll measure success, too.

To write a volunteer program mission statement, be sure to:

• Define: Clearly articulate the primary reason the program exists.
   
• Outline: Consider including goals related to community impact, volunteer development, and organizational support.
  
  
• Consider: Define who the program serves (e.g., community members, specific groups) and ensure that it resonates with the target audience and stakeholders.
  
  
• Communicate: Aim for brevity, but ensure each word is loaded with meaning that aligns with your program's goals.
  
  
• Inspire: Craft a statement that is engaging and motivating for potential volunteers and supporters.

Step 4: Develop a Volunteer Program Name

Naming your volunteer program is more important than you think. The truth is, volunteers have many choices of where to devote their time. When volunteer programs have memorable names and creative marketing, they’re more likely to stand out from the crowd. 

When creating your volunteer program name, be sure to invite some of your most trusted contacts, like board members or staff members, to participate in brainstorming. Plus, find some inspiration by looking at some example volunteer program names, too.

Step 5: Assess Your Resources and Capacity

Next, you’ll need to audit your resources and assess what you’ll need to realize your program's goals.

Consider resources like:

• Budget: Account for any volunteer program expenses like volunteer t-shirts, appreciation gifts, transportation, advertising and marketing, etc.
  
  
• Staff: Think about the staff and volunteers you need to run your volunteer program. Will you need paid volunteer leadership? Do you plan on using administrative volunteers to help manage the program?
  
  
• Physical space and equipment needs: Consider whether your volunteer program will require additional physical space or tools like clipboards, badges, etc.
  
  
• Tools and technology: Coordinating and managing volunteers can be burdensome. Consider what volunteer management software you’ll use to streamline registration and scheduling, tracking hours, reporting, volunteer profiles, and more.
  
  
• Training: Assess what kind of training you’ll need to deploy, whether for staff or volunteers themselves — or both.

Step 6: Create Volunteer Positions

Creating volunteer positions involves several steps to ensure that the roles are well-defined, attractive to potential volunteers, and aligned with the nonprofit's mission and needs. 

When creating these volunteer job descriptions, consider:

• Title and summary: Create a title and a brief summary for each position that clearly indicates the role and its importance.
  
  
• Duties and responsibilities: List specific tasks and responsibilities so that volunteers know exactly what to expect. 
  
  
• Skills and qualifications: Specify any skills, experience, or qualifications required. This helps ensure the right match between the volunteer and the position.
  
  
• Time commitment: Define the expected time commitment, including hours per week, duration of the role, and any specific times or dates.
  
  
• Training and support: Describe any training provided and the support volunteers can expect to receive. This might include initial training sessions, ongoing supervision, or access to resources.

Step 7: Solidify a Leadership Team

Creating a leadership team for a volunteer program is crucial for ensuring the program’s success, sustainability, and growth. A well-structured leadership team can provide direction, support, and motivation for both volunteers and staff.

Some roles might include:

• Program Director: Oversees overall program strategy, manages resources, and ensures alignment with mission and goals.
  
  
• Volunteer Coordinator: Manages volunteer recruitment, training, and support, and ensures a positive volunteer experience.
  
  
• Communications Manager: Handles internal and external communications, including marketing, public relations, and social media.
  
  
• Volunteer Fundraising Lead: Develops and implements fundraising strategies to support program initiatives and goals.

Step 8: Establish Policies and Procedures

Policies and procedures help both your nonprofit and volunteers feel organized and well-prepared. When developing these, create resources that are geared toward both your staff and your volunteers:

• Organization: Create policies and procedures around recruitment, screening, interviewing, and even feedback and assessment of volunteers.
  
  
• Volunteers: Create a code of conduct, a handbook for volunteers to reference, health and safety procedures, and more.

Of course, be sure that these resources are accessible and available, too, so anyone can reference them at any time.

Step 9: Design Your Volunteer Management Strategy

One of the most fundamental parts of any volunteer program is creating the underlying volunteer management strategy or the process through which you’ll attract and keep volunteers year after year.

Typically, this includes:

• Recruitment: Marketing your volunteer descriptions and find the right volunteers for your program.
  
  
• Onboarding: How you’ll bring volunteers on board and train them to best meet the needs of the community and represent your organization.
  
  
• Engagement: How you’ll keep volunteers interested and happy with their involvement in your program.
  
  
• Retention: How you’ll acknowledge and appreciate volunteers to keep them coming back and volunteering every year.

Step 10: Implement Volunteer Management Systems

Next, you’ll need to implement a volunteer management system that will streamline, automate, and organize all of your program activities and data. Your volunteer management system should offer features for every step of the volunteer management process, including tools to help support:

• Recruitment: Including opportunity promotion, as well as marketing and communication tools.
  
  
• Onboarding: Waivers and documents, training facilitation, and more.
  
  
• Engagement: Skill-based matching, volunteer hour tracking and scheduling, automated opportunity alerts, social media integration, and more.
  
  
• Retention: Impact and tracked hour reporting for proper acknowledgment, volunteer badges, and public and personal recognition.

Step 11: Launch Your Program and Evaluate 

Once you’ve created and launched your program, you’ll still need to continuously evaluate its effectiveness and success. Doing so will help you ensure that all of your efforts are still progressing your mission and that you’re reaching your volunteer — and overall — goals.

To do this, nonprofits can collect both quantitative and qualitative data:

Qualitative data

• Interviews: Conduct one-on-one conversations with volunteers, program managers, and beneficiaries to assess how every stakeholder views your program.
  
  
• Focus groups: Organize group discussions with volunteers to explore collective insights. This can help make the process of collecting feedback a more social endeavor, allowing for more honest conversations as well as a more laid-back atmosphere.
  
  
• Surveys: Another great way to assess stakeholders’ attitudes and sentiments ot your program is by sending them surveys that ask questions that allow for detailed written responses.
  
  
• Observation: One of the easiest ways, of course, to garner this type of data is through simple observation. Attend volunteer activities to observe interactions and engagement and take detailed notes on behavior, interactions, and program dynamics.

Quantitative data

• Volunteer hours: To get a granular look at the efforts of your volunteers — either individually or as a group — export all volunteer hours into an easy-to-read report. For even more detailed insights, filter your data by date range, event, program, and more.
  
  
• Volunteer impact: Of course, one of the most foolproof ways to evaluate the effectiveness and success of your program is to export volunteer impact reports. In doing so, your nonprofit can view trends, identify areas for growth, set goals, and even monitor progress in real-time.
  
  
• Volunteer preferences and participation: Like tracking hours and impact, volunteer managers can also pull reports on volunteer interests and how often they participate. This can give organizations essential insight into how to improve. 

Starting a Volunteer Program from Scratch FAQs

How Do I Make a Volunteer Program From Scratch?

To start a volunteer program from scratch, follow these steps:

1. Conduct a needs assessment
2. Define your purpose and goals
3. Write a mission statement
4. Develop a volunteer program name
5. Assess your resources and capacity
6. Create volunteer positions 
7. Solidify a leadership team
8. Develop policies and procedures 
9. Design your volunteer management strategy 
10. Implement the right volunteer management system 
11. Launch and evaluate 

What Makes a Volunteer Program Successful?

A well-managed volunteer program uses available resources efficiently so that volunteer leaders can focus on building relationships with volunteers, community partners, and other stakeholders. 

Here’s what success can look like in a volunteer program:

• The program addresses the real needs of the community.
• Program leaders forge meaningful partnerships with community leaders, stakeholders, and clients to ensure the community’s diverse voices are heard. 
• Program leaders regularly evaluate the mission, goals, and processes.
• Volunteer leadership connects volunteers with opportunities that match their passions, skills, and availability.

Build a Strong Volunteer Program from Scratch with Get Connected

Starting a volunteer program from scratch can be intimidating, and if you have occasional volunteers, it can seem unnecessary to start a formal, structured program. But in truth, creating a volunteering program — with the right policies, procedures, and strategy — can set your nonprofit up for long-term, sustainable success.

With the right volunteer management platform, your organization can centralize every aspect of managing volunteers in one place. From sending volunteers automated notifications about upcoming, tailored roles, to having volunteers sign the right waivers before they begin working, your nonprofit can handle every aspect of leading a successful volunteer program, right from one platform.

Sign up for a free Get Connected demo→