Recruiting Volunteers

Monday August 2, 2021 comments

I'm Chyla Graham, this is another episode of The Nonprofit Ace Podcast. I'm a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the state of Colorado presently, and I want more nonprofit leaders to be comfortable talking about money and asking questions. So today on the podcast, I'm gonna switch it up and not necessarily talk just about money, I actually want to talk about volunteers and where to find them. And the reason I think this is important is because I get people in my DM's on LinkedIn who say, hey, do you want to volunteer for our board? And I would like to give you another option of where to look, there are other websites out there that can help you find volunteers.

So volunteer match is a great website to check out to see Hey, what are some people in our organization, maybe we should list ourselves on there and have people look for us. Another way you can find volunteers is to go to other local groups. So think about your chamber of commerce. Think about any professional groups. So if you're looking for black accountants, maybe you want to say okay, I want to look to see if National Association of Black accountants, NABA has a chapter in my area, could I reach out to them to look for a treasurer to see if someone's interested in volunteering their time that way?

So I think it's important that we think about where you find your volunteers, because that's going to help you understand the context that's important to them, you're going to understand, hey, what is their frame of mind? Is this something they're really into, if they're already part of some of these groups, if they're like, Hey, I'm super active in my chamber, I'm part of these other professional organizations, you know that there's going to be a level of commitment to like, Hey, my name is on this. I want to do this. Well.

So those are my feedbacks. If you're looking for a treasurer, consider looking for professional organizations that specifically cater to that group. So National Association of Black accountants, there's The Lady CPAs, that's another group, there is The Black CPA Group. The thing you want to recognize about finding volunteers is that you want to really make sure that you are looking for people who are active. So don't just send a message to someone who is on the internet. And you're like, Hey, why don't you give me your time?

Please phrase this about why you think that that would be relevant and helpful for them. Is it the content they bring, the experience that they bring? What is it that makes you think that they will be a good volunteer? If you're not sure about that, go someplace where you can find them, go to volunteer match, start with your local area to see Hey, is there a volunteer group matching area, you can also just go ahead and say I'm going to reach out to my chamber of commerce and see if they can connect me with some business owners who might be interested in volunteering.

I'm going to connect with some local chapters of CPAs or accountants or other finance professionals to see Is there someone there who can help us in the way we want? And this is not just for Treasurer roles, but if there is another role at your organization that we're like, hey, I think we need someone on this x level, or whatever that may look like. You're looking at the right places. All right. I'm your host, Chyla Graham. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Nonprofit Ace Podcast.

LINKS:

Visit Us On The Web

Join Our Newsletter

Schedule a Strategy Call

Sign-up for Six Week Course: Impact Basics

Like us on FaceBook

Connect with us on LinkedIn