Managing People: The Perfect Volunteer

Managing volunteers is a little art, a little science.

Some of it is warm and fuzzy–building a fraternity of people to come around a cause together.

And some of it is systems and procedures–best practices gleaned from a mountain of research on what produces the best teams.

And get this.

According to those facts and figures, if you’re out to recruit volunteers, there is a “type” that is most likely to respond.

Your perfect volunteer is female.

Between 35-44 years old.

Educated.

She is volunteering for a maximum of one other organization.

And she is not yet giving more than 52 hours of her time per year.

And–little tip–you may want to ask her to fundraise for you. Women are more likely to take on that task. (Men are more likely to agree to do physical labor.)

And, by the way, you may need to ask her for help directly because only 41% volunteer by their own initiative. 42% wait around to be asked.

You can read more fresh ideas about working with volunteers HERE.

[[Find out more about volunteer research? Here’s one place to start – http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.nr0.htm]]