Tracking the right metrics at your nonprofit could double the value of your volunteer program. Let’s start with an example, many companies have programs that match the time their employees spend volunteering with a financial donation. Just by giving your volunteers the data they need for these programs, you could double every volunteer hour to support your cause. As a nonprofit volunteer manager, knowing what and how to track can help you make smart decisions, improve your strategies, and make a bigger difference in your community.

In this article, we'll explore the most important metrics for nonprofit volunteer managers. We'll cover metrics to help you recruit the right volunteers, keep them engaged, show the impact they're making, and understand their long-term value to your organization. By the end of this article, you'll know exactly which metrics to track and how to use that information to make your volunteer program even better.

Volunteer Recruitment Metrics

Recruitment metrics help nonprofits understand how well their outreach efforts are working and where they can improve. By keeping an eye on a few key data points, volunteer managers can use their resources wisely and change their strategies to attract the right volunteers.

Acquisition Rate

The acquisition rate shows how successful your recruitment strategies are. It compares the number of new volunteers you recruit to the total number of potential volunteers you reach out to. For example, if you make a post on LinkedIn advertising volunteer opportunities with a link to a signup form created in Civic Champs, after a week LinkedIn will show you the number of unique people who saw your post (they call this metric ‘Impressions’). You can compare this number to the number of people who signed up to get your acquisition rate. Following this process for all of your recruitment channels will give you your overall acquisition rate. A high acquisition rate means your messaging and outreach methods are good at attracting volunteers to your cause.

Formula

Acquisition Rate = # of new volunteers ➗ total number of potential volunteers

Demographics

Understanding who your volunteers are, such as their age, ethnicity, gender, and location, helps you tailor your recruitment strategies. By looking at this data, you can see which groups are underrepresented and create targeted campaigns to reach a more diverse group of volunteers.

Time-to-Onboarding

The time-to-onboarding metric measures how quickly new volunteers can get started in your organization. A smooth onboarding process helps volunteers feel prepared and confident in their roles. This leads to higher satisfaction and retention rates. Regularly reviewing and improving your onboarding procedures can help reduce the time-to-onboarding and boost overall volunteer engagement.

Volunteer Source

Tracking where volunteers find out about your organization, such as referrals, online ads, or community events, helps you identify the best marketing channels. By focusing on the sources that bring in the most volunteers, you can make the most of your recruitment budget and attract more qualified volunteers. Ask your volunteers when they first register for an event how they heard about your organization to easily track this metric. You can use the acquisition rate formula to determine which sources work best for your nonprofit. Use the number of potential volunteers from a specific source divided by the volunteers that came from a source to calculate this.

Monitoring volunteer recruitment metrics allows you to make informed decisions and continuously improve your outreach strategies.

Volunteer Engagement Metrics

Measuring volunteer engagement is important for understanding how well your nonprofit's volunteer program is doing. Engaged volunteers are more likely to stay with your cause, use their skills and time well, and speak positively about your organization.

Retention Rate

The retention rate shows the percentage of volunteers who keep working with your organization year after year. A high retention rate means your volunteer program is meeting the needs of your volunteers. It shows that they find the experience fulfilling and satisfying.

Formula

Retention Rate = ((Number of Volunteers at End of Period−Number of New Volunteers Acquired During Period ) ➗ Number of Volunteers at Start of Period) × 100

Turnover Rate

The turnover rate is the opposite of the retention rate. It measures the percentage of volunteers who leave your organization over a certain period. High turnover rates may mean there are problems with how volunteers are managed. This could include things like not enough training, lack of recognition, or mismatched skills and tasks.

Formula

Turnover Rate= (Average Number of Volunteers During the Period  Number of Volunteers Who Left During the Period ) × 100

Hours and Task Completion Rate

Keeping track of how many hours volunteers work and how quickly they finish their tasks gives you valuable information about how productive and efficient your volunteer program is. These metrics help you find areas where volunteers might need more support or training to do their best work. While you can track this for individual volunteers, it is more valuable to track this at a higher level. For example, a local Habitat for Humanity might want to track the total hours needed to complete one house. This helps understand the organization’s total capacity.

Satisfaction Rate

It's important to regularly check in with volunteers through surveys and feedback sessions. This helps you understand how well your organization is meeting their needs and expectations. You can use Civic Champs’ reflection feature to easily collect this information after volunteer events. A high satisfaction rate means volunteers feel valued, appreciated, and happy in their roles. This leads to more engagement and volunteers staying with your organization longer.

By keeping an eye on volunteer engagement metrics, you can quickly address any challenges and come up with ways to keep your volunteers motivated and committed.

Volunteer Impact Metrics

Measuring the impact of your volunteers is crucial for understanding how they contribute to your nonprofit's mission. Impact metrics can be both qualitative and quantitative.

Qualitative Measures

These impact metrics focus on the quality of the volunteers' work. This includes things like how well they reach out to the community, the feedback they get from clients, and how much they grow as individuals. For example, if a volunteer tutors a student who then improves their grades, that's a qualitative measure of impact. Client stories and testimonials also provide valuable insight into the difference your volunteers make.

Quantitative Measures

These metrics focus on numbers. This includes things like how many people the volunteers help, the milestones they reach in projects, and how much money they save the organization. For instance, if your volunteers serve meals to 500 people in a month, that's a quantitative measure of impact. Tracking the number of projects completed or the amount of money saved through volunteer work also falls under quantitative metrics.

Your quantitative and qualitative metrics are key statistics, and you’ll need them to use in a lot of places:

• Annual or Impact Reports. These metrics are useful on their own, and to show year-over-year growth in your impact.
• Grant Applications. Foundations and other grant-makers often look for nonprofits with the scale to fulfill the grant’s purpose. Your impact metrics are a good way to demonstrate your qualifications.
• Volunteer Time Off (VTO) Programs. Chances are, many of your volunteers work for companies that provide a VTO benefit. Providing them with copies of their impact data will help them comply with the requirements of those programs.
• Volunteer Matching Grant Initiatives. Just like VTO, many employers have matching grant programs. In these initiatives, employers match their employees’ volunteer hours with a financial contribution to your nonprofit. These programs can double the value of your volunteer program, so it’s worth making sure your volunteers have the impact data they need.

Volunteer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Volunteer Lifetime Value (LTV) is a way to measure how much a volunteer contributes to your organization over the entire time they work with you. It's similar to how businesses calculate the lifetime value of a customer.

To calculate a volunteer's LTV, you need to know two things:

1. The average hourly pay for the work they do. You can get this from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
2. How long volunteers usually stay with your organization. This might come from your CRM or volunteer management software if you use one.

Multiply the hourly pay by the number of hours they work in a year, then multiply that by the average number of years volunteers stay with you. For example, if a volunteer works 100 hours a year, the average hourly pay for their work is $20, and volunteers typically stay with your organization for 3 years, their LTV would be $6,000 (100 hours x $20 x 3 years).

Tracking volunteer LTV helps you make better decisions and understand the true impact of your volunteers. It shows you the long-term value of keeping volunteers engaged and happy. If you know that a volunteer's LTV is high, you can invest more resources into recruiting and retaining similar volunteers. It also helps you demonstrate the value of your volunteer program to funders and stakeholders.

For a more detailed description of volunteer LTV and why it’s important, check out our article on tracking volunteer LTV.

Strategies for Improving Metrics

To get a full picture of your volunteer program's success, it's a good idea to use surveys or questionnaires along with the numbers you track. Using Civic Champs’ questionnaires you can easily add these to the check-out process at each volunteer event you host. Surveys can give you more insight into what volunteers are thinking and feeling. You can ask questions about their experience, what they like about volunteering with you, and what could be improved. This qualitative data can help you interpret your quantitative metrics and make changes to your program.

Setting benchmarks and comparing your metrics to other nonprofits can also help you see where you're doing well and where you can improve. Look for organizations of a similar size and mission to yours and see how your metrics stack up. If you find areas where you're lagging behind, you can set goals to improve those metrics over time.

Using volunteer management software like Civic Champs can automate how you collect data and help you spot trends and patterns more quickly and in turn save you time and improve your data-driven decisions.

Conclusion

Tracking volunteer metrics is key to having a successful volunteer program at your nonprofit. By keeping an eye on metrics related to recruitment, engagement, impact, and lifetime value, you can learn what's working well and what needs to be improved.. Try to set goals based on your metrics and see how you're doing over time so you can show the difference you’re making to your volunteers, donors, community, and beyond!

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As CEO of Civic Champs, I lead our team of passionate change leaders to create technology solutions to create a seamless and rewarding volunteering experience for both volunteers and service organizations.