Nonprofit employment accounts for nearly 10% of jobs in the private sector (employing more workers than for-profit organizations). However, a significant portion of the team isn’t on your organization’s payroll—one-third of the nonprofit workforce consists of volunteers.

Volunteers play an essential role in fulfilling your organization’s mission, but their success depends on the guidance they receive from your nonprofit. Effective volunteer management equips volunteers to work efficiently and connect with your organization, fostering deep relationships that contribute to your long-term growth.

Leveraging technology can make volunteer management much easier. Using data from a constituent relationship management (CRM) system, your nonprofit can access insights and trends that revolutionize the way you manage your team.

In this article, we’ll review some of the ways nonprofits can use their fundraising software to improve and simplify volunteer management.

1. Streamline Recruitment

Your CRM collects data on its supporters starting with their first interaction with your nonprofit, meaning it can strengthen volunteer management from the very beginning of their volunteer journey! The top systems provide a comprehensive suite of tools so that you can identify potential volunteers, craft appeals that resonate with them, and manage their roles all from one platform.

Here’s how your CRM data can help you kickstart a volunteer’s engagement:

• Identifying target audiences: Analyze data to find existing supporters who might be willing to volunteer. Match characteristics your current volunteers share (i.e., age, occupation, gender) and identify donors who align with them to target an audience most likely willing to volunteer.
• Tracking successful communication channels: Data from your CRM can clearly show which channels resonate the most with your ideal volunteers, allowing you to double down on benefit-driven volunteer appeals in the right places.
• Understanding volunteers’ motivations: Why are your volunteers motivated to help? Are they personally connected to or affected by a common denominator? Use data in your CRM to unveil common motivations and apply them to your messaging for an appeal that inspires involvement.

Successful recruitment strategies are data-driven, meaning you should apply what you know about your volunteers to every stage of the onboarding process. Beyond the initial appeal, you can also use your CRM to track applications, follow up with candidates, and provide tailored onboarding materials based on volunteer profiles.

2. Segment Volunteers

Use CRM data to categorize your volunteers according to their skills, interests, and availability. This process allows your nonprofit to assign relevant roles and take an informed approach to volunteer management. Segmenting your volunteers and assigning them accordingly shows that you care about their experience, making them more likely to offer to serve again.

Take age, for example. As Double the Donation’s volunteer statistics point out, most U.S.-based volunteers are between the ages of 35 and 44. If the bulk of your volunteer base works full-time jobs, you may be hard-pressed to find help for events occurring between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. College-aged supporters, on the other hand, may have more flexible schedules depending on their classes and extracurricular activities. Pulling data about volunteers’ ages allows your nonprofit to make more targeted appeals for help that align with volunteers’ availability.

Here are a few other ways you might segment your volunteers:

• Occupation: Employment data can reveal opportunities for corporate support, such as volunteer grants, as well as any professional skills that volunteers have to offer.
• Location: Geography can impact a volunteer’s ability and willingness to sign up for an in-person event.
• Interests: Your CRM can collect data about how supporters spend their time, and they could form alliances based on shared interests.
• Education: Alumni from the same high school or college might be excited to reunite, especially if the volunteer role benefits their alma mater in some way.

Giving volunteers responsibilities that align with their skills and preferences offers a level of personalization that leads to significant loyalty and deeper relationships. Not to mention, skills-based volunteering lends valuable skills to your nonprofit, resulting in cost savings and increased productivity toward your mission.

For example, employment data can help your nonprofit target corporate volunteers who have professional skills, such as marketing or financial expertise, to contribute. Without CRM data, these potential supporters may simply be lumped into general requests for support. With CRM data, your nonprofit can invite volunteers to exercise their skill sets for a good cause.

3. Personalize Outreach

Think of personalization as a delivery truck: Matching skills and interests to volunteer jobs can show personal attention and care, but tailored messaging is the vehicle that delivers it! Leveraging your CRM to personalize communications is an excellent strategy to attract and retain volunteers. The supporter will feel valued and understood when you base messaging on past volunteer involvement and preferences.

For example, a donor who regularly participates in year-end giving may be excited to volunteer for your nonprofit’s Christmas gala. Personalizing your outreach according to volunteers’ interests increases the likelihood that they’ll commit to participating.

Don’t forget to keep them up to date! Provide relevant updates, events, and training opportunities that match each volunteer's history and interests. This nurtures the relationships and keeps your nonprofit and mission top of mind.

4. Track Engagement

Use data from your CRM to analyze volunteer hours, event participation, and overall engagement. This information can reveal trends to keep you on top of volunteer data, helping your nonprofit:

• Reward frequent volunteers: From gifts to social media callouts to handwritten or digital thank-you notes, showing gratitude to your volunteers is the key to keeping them engaged. Beyond that, it’s simply the right thing to do for those who donate their time and efforts to further your mission.
• Identifying volunteers who may need re-engagement efforts: If a regular volunteer stops signing up for events, it’s an indication you might need to re-engage them. It can be as easy as a phone call to inquire about how they’re doing! Watching the data and identifying donors who need attention can keep your volunteer program solid and sustainable.
• Send personalized thank-you messages based on activity data: Noting how a volunteer engages with your nonprofit and thanking them specifically for that activity is another level of personalization that will show your appreciation.

With key insights into your volunteers’ behavior, your nonprofit can tailor each touchpoint to help volunteers feel individually recognized and engaged by your organization. Over time, this will help your retention efforts by enhancing their experiences with your nonprofit and building stronger relationships with them.

5. Measure Impact

As CharityEngine explains, reporting and analytics are key features of fundraising software because they track every supporter interaction and its overall impact. Using CRM analytics to assess volunteer contributions and the impact of various initiatives can directly impact the health of your volunteer program.

Relevant metrics to track include:

• Participation rate: Watching the percentage of volunteers involved in fundraising activities can show overall engagement levels.
• Hours contributed by volunteers: Tracking the total time spent by volunteers can help you evaluate the effort required to raise money.
• Volunteer conversions: Did volunteers also donate money? While it’s common, it’s a sign of deepening loyalty and should be noted.
• Prospect conversions: This can show you the effectiveness of volunteer outreach. If prospects become donors, it’s working!

Count on your CRM to generate reports showcasing volunteer efforts for recognition. You can also use these reports to identify areas of improvement and boost program outcomes over time.

In addition to your CRM, your nonprofit can use a dedicated volunteer management platform to manage its team. Whether you use a CRM with native tools or one that integrates with a robust and separate volunteer management platform, having the right tools are key to making a volunteer team successful.

Philip Schmitz is the CEO and founder of cloud-services leader BIS Global, creators of the CharityEngine fundraising & communications technology platform. Founded in 1999, Phil has managed the vision and strategy for BIS's suite of integrated business applications & hosting tools used by more than 400 businesses & non-profits.