• Like any role in an organization, the volunteer role description will change over time. When updating your volunteer role description, include current and past volunteers in the process. They know their responsibilities even better than you and can help you communicate the requirements in ways that are most understandable to the community members who will assume volunteer roles.
  • Offer volunteers opportunities to participate in meetings with other volunteers to share experiences, brainstorm ideas and learn meaningful new techniques and strategies they can use while volunteering.
  • Volunteerism is very valuable. Students receive real world experience working with people in their community that can be used to support applications for future schooling and employment. Through volunteerism, students are able to connect with their community more deeply.
  • Offering group volunteer activities in addition to one on one volunteer opportunities gives volunteers a chance to engage socially with other volunteers while providing a much needed community service.
  • Never waste a volunteer’s time. If they are having a successful day and are enjoying the volunteer experience, they will come back, tell others about their experience and bring new volunteers to your program.
  • In some cases, providing bios to the volunteers about the care recipients with whom they are working helps them to better understand the care recipients and family caregivers as well as understand that the participants are the reason the program was developed. In other cases, it may be better to keep the care recipients’ and family caregivers’ information private allowing them to tell their stories to the volunteer. This will need to be determined on a case by case basis.