❖ Heads up! This article is intended for site managers. 

Volunteer engagement on your site is essential for your organization and your agencies to meet their goals and mission! So, how do you increase and promote engagement? While there's no one-size-fits-all solution to this matter, we do have a few suggestions for best practices that we have seen work for others: 

• Communication
• Share your site, agencies, and Needs
• Engage your agencies
• Highlight your volunteer impact

Communication

One great way to increase engagement and promote your site is through communication! Your site sends automated notifications to volunteers when certain actions take place. But you can also send email blasts whenever you want and interact with them on social media! Here are a few best practices for promoting engagement on your site:

• Send an email blast once a month to your volunteers and consider including some of the following: 
  • Upcoming volunteer Needs
  • Organizational updates and reminders
  • Fundraising goals and progress
  • Volunteer stories and spotlights
  • Personal thank you's and messages of appreciation 
  • Calls to action to get involved

Share your site, agencies, and Needs

One thing you can do is always think like a marketer! This means ensuring you reach your targeted audience through targeted advertisements. In this case, sharing your site, agencies, and Needs with your community on social media, in newsletters, through email, print media, word of mouth, etc. Some of your best advocates are your volunteers. Already got a dedicated community of volunteers? You can see if they'd share their experiences through the social media "grapevine".

• Build a social media presence 
  • Post regularly 
  • Interact with volunteers
  • Share your social media handles in communications 
  • Focus on one or two social media platforms while building your presence

ⓘ So you know: We created some fun templates that you can use to make your own social media announcements!

Engage your agencies

Check in with your agencies. You can view reports on your site to determine which agencies are performing well and which ones may need a little nudge in the right direction. You could even take what the successful agencies are doing with their events, Needs, and profiles and suggest ways the underperforming agencies could mimic those practices. 

• Check out Data Explorers > Agencies for a quick overview of how your agencies are doing!

• Monitor agencies with your reports to compare how they're performing
• Touch base with agencies who might need some help improving their volunteer engagement
• You could even consider gamifying your site to bring more attention to your agencies and their posted Needs!

✏️ Quick tip: You can set up your site manager dashboard to help streamline your agency review process! Check out how here. 

Highlight your volunteer impact

You can create Volunteer Impact Pages (VIPs) that are either shared publicly or privately to highlight the great work your volunteers are doing for the community. This is a great way to boost engagement because you can spotlight your top volunteers and award them with kudos for all that they do for your organization, your agencies, and your community. If there's one way to motivate a crowd, it's through accolades and proof that what they're doing is making a difference.