Volunteering magazine article, issue 104, February 2005
When it comes to volunteer recruitment, what is your website doing for you? Tom Green from do-it.org.uk, home of the National Volunteering Database, shares his tips on getting the most from your site.
Lets face it, if do-it.org.uk wasn't recruiting volunteers via the web, we'd know we were in trouble. The site is first and foremost about enabling people to find volunteering opportunities online so our main focus is to make this as easy as possible.
For organisations whose websites have to cover more than just volunteer recruitment things can be more difficult. Your marketing people might think that the site's main purpose is to promote the charity's brand, fundraisers might think it is there to raise money and each project team will want to see their work featured prominently.
And if your volunteer programme sits within a large healthcare or local government setting it is only one of a multitude of services all vying for attention.
Unfortunately, as we all know, volunteering is still a poor relation in many organisations, even those that rely on volunteers, so it can often lose out in the battle for website priority. Many charity sites have a link on their homepage to 'How to help' or 'How to get involved', with no specific mention of volunteering. Users may be willing to investigate, and will click through links on 'How to help' (often dominated by fundraising) to find the information they need. But others will give up straight away.
Research shows that web users are incredibly fickle. Unless highly motivated, if they can't find what they want in a few seconds they will go elsewhere.
Not everyone likes the word volunteering, but almost everyone knows what it means. If you are looking to recruit on your site and you don't have a link to volunteering in a prominent position then you are in danger of losing a sizeable number of potential volunteers.
Don't make me think
Web design guru Steve Krug says that his first and only law of web design is "don't make me think". That is, website users want to be able to move quickly, to know where they are and how to get to what they want.
When we redesigned do-it.org.uk this rule was uppermost in our mind. We tried to use language that was clear and self-explanatory and we enabled people to search our database from the homepage. In fact, as editor, one of my main concerns was to minimise the amount of content on the site. We kept the navigation and structure of the site as simple as possible; nothing should be allowed to distract users from the focus on the database.
The same principle should apply throughout your site. Keep things simple and obvious. Tell people exactly what is on offer and exactly what they have to do. Keep forms as short as possible. Don't make users fill them out again if they apply for another position.
Online volunteer recruitment?
Think about what you want your site to achieve in terms of volunteer recruitment. Do you want to offer an up-to-date searchable database of opportunities, or just a flavour of what is on offer? Do you want people to complete an application online, or just send an email expressing an interest?
These might seem like simple matters to resolve, but they have significant consequences. For example, if you are going to have a searchable database how often will it be updated? If you are going to allow online applications, will people have to fill out their details for every opportunity they apply for? You will also need to consider how you are going to process applications. Do you have the capacity to deal with the new source of volunteers and their enquiries?
Accessibility
One area of priority for do-it's development is accessibility. A recent audit revealed that the site does well in most areas, but there is still work to be done to reach the AA standard that is becoming recognised as the benchmark.
Accessibility is an area that can bamboozle even experienced web developers and the official guidelines (www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT) can be very hard to follow. However, there are a number of resources that can help you, such as the RNIB (www.rnib.org.uk) and discussion forums like www.accessify.com. It's worth becoming better informed on this yourself even if it's not your specific area as it affects every aspect of your site.
Are web volunteers different?
You probably already know what recruitment messages work best for your organisation, but the web will probably bring in slightly different people.
On do-it, we find that the most successful recruitment message is "Gain skills and experience". Any opportunity that relates to a possible career, whether in the media, IT or the voluntary sector, seems to do well.
We have also found, to our surprise, that more than 80% of our registrations come from women. Volunteermatch.com in America has a similar gender imbalance, and neither of us really knows why.
Most encouragingly, around 26% of our registrations come from BME communities, perhaps reflecting the way in which online recruitment can help organisations break out of the cycle of word of mouth recruitment to reach new groups.
At do-it.org.uk we make no claim to have succeeded in every area of the design of our website. We know there is a lot of work to do. But we also know that since we relaunched at the end of February 2004, almost 30,000 people have registered to volunteer. The internet has already transformed volunteer recruitment in this country. Good, thoughtful website design can help you make the most of the huge opportunities that exist.
Tom Green is the editor of do-it.org.uk and Chair of Volunteer Centre Westminster.
Whats on your homepage?
Volunteering magazine takes a quick trawl online to see how a range of organisations feature volunteering on their websites.
Many charities which involve a large number of volunteers quite rightly give substantial space over to volunteer recruitment on their sites (eg national trust.org.uk). However it's perhaps surprising that more do not have a direct link from their homepage or feature volunteer success stories on their sites. Guidedogs.org.uk is one site which does have a prominent link to volunteering on the homepage, followed by clear and detailed info on the range of opportunities available.
Unfortunately, some sites are less obvious. Sane's homepage for example (sane.org.uk) doesn't make any mention of volunteers. If you click on 'Get Involved' this takes you to all kinds of ways of giving money but bizarrely does not mention volunteers. There is, in fact, an extensive and useful volunteering section but you can only find it by going through a general search or by following the link from the Saneline page.
Volunteering may not be up at the top of the list of the NHS's priorities but you might think you could find out something useful about how to volunteer from their website (nhs.gov.uk/england). Wrong! Even if you put volunteering into its search it just comes up with 1960 random links vaguely connected with the subject. Perhaps trying a specific hospital will be easier.
Not much luck here, either. Many sites have little, if any, mention of volunteers, the League of Friends or how you can be involved at your hospital. One notable exception is the Royal Free Hospital in London (www.royalfree.org.uk) which has a link from the home page to a volunteer section explaining a range of ways to get involved. Volunteering also gets a decent mention on the site of Leeds Teaching Hospitals (leedsth.nhs.uk), under the public involvement section.
When it comes to local government, again most sites make it hard to find out about giving time. Even councils which run very successful volunteer programmes are burying the information in some obscure corner of the website that only the most dedicated browser would find. Kent.gov.uk deserves a special mention for highlighting volunteering from its homepage. Camden.gov.uk also currently has a large Change your Lifestyle 2005 banner on the homepage, which then directs you to Camden VB's online database of volunteering opportunities.
So what's on your website? How easy would it be for a new browser to find out about giving you their time? If you don't like the profile you're getting, try pulling together some brief content yourself and lobby whoever manages the site to see if it can be included.
If you're serious about encouraging recruitment from the web, maybe you should consider doing what organisations like Samaritans, National Trust and Red Cross have done and buy a sponsored link on a search engine like Google. This way, when someone taps Volunteering into the search bar, your site will come up alongside.
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