5 Tips for Writing an Awesome Volunteer Position Description

Highlight the benefits.

Volunteering has a lot of benefits. Of course there’s the great feeling you get while you’re volunteering, but there are a lot of other benefits people get from volunteering.

Volunteering can give you an opportunity to build a network, learn new skills, it can help give your resume a boost. You can meet new people and make a difference in someone’s life.

Try highlighting these things in your volunteer position description. Take a few minutes to think about what else your organization offers volunteers.

Make the position description fun.

How many volunteer position descriptions have you seen that have the word “volunteer” in them? While “Office Volunteer” might give someone a fairly good idea about what they’ll be doing, think about being a bit more creative with the title.

Don’t stop at the title, though. Do you need a crew of construction volunteers that have four arms so they can get all of the work done in half the time? Why not ask for it? What about someone to help socialize dogs that can be stretched in two different directions when one dog gets really interested in a rock, and another gets interested in a squirrel.

Don’t forget to revise them!

Your volunteer needs may change over time, and you want to make sure that your position descriptions reflect those changing needs. You don’t want your position descriptions to attract the perfect volunteer only to have them find out that they won’t be doing the kind of work they thought they’d be doing.

At least once a quarter take some time to look at your volunteer position descriptions to check that they’re still asking for the things that you need.

Take just a little bit of time to be serious.

Sure, one of the tips was to have fun with the position descriptions, but it’s important to take a moment to be serious, too. Make sure to include a list of the types of skills you want a volunteer to have, or that you can teach a volunteer, so they can be great volunteers for your organization. Don’t forget to include specific information about how to contact your organization (like a contact person’s name) so they can volunteer.

Include a call to action!

Volunteering is a pretty big action, but if a prospective volunteer is looking to give their time, why not ask them to engage in another way? Do you have a Facebook page? How about a Twitter account? Do you have microvolunteer projects available? What about a donation page? Include a link to these at the end of the listing for the volunteer opportunity.

The HandsOn Nevada staff is always here to help you craft your volunteer descriptions. Please let us know how we can help you.

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