Volunteers
Building and sustaining relationships with volunteers is the key to building your club or society. Alumni volunteers allow the Alumni Association to engage Buckeyes around the world. Matching a potential volunteer’s skills and energy to an interest and task will keep them involved with your club or society, keeping the club or society on track to reaching its full potential.
Recruiting
Bringing new members into your club or society not only brings in additional skill sets, but helps cultivate future leaders to ensure your group’s longevity. Here are a few ways to recruit new leaders into your group:
- Contact the Alumni Association and find out how to contact alumni in your area
- Set up tables at local fairs and festivals to sign-up alumni to join your club
- Collect every attendee’s contact information at club events and follow up with them after the event
- Ask club members to invite other alumni and friends of the University to your club’s next event
- Use social media to advertise your next event or open club meeting
Working with volunteers
Once you’ve recruited members to your club’s leadership team, make sure to provide them with meaningful work to keep them coming back. Hardworking and well trained volunteers are the key to strong alumni clubs and societies around the country.
- Clearly define leadership roles and the projects you assign to your volunteers
- Be realistic when delegating tasks—make sure volunteers can commit the required time to each assigned task
- Diversify the work you’re giving your volunteers—make sure they have new and exciting tasks
- Set clear and attainable goals for each volunteer
Keeping track of who is volunteering
An up-to-date list of volunteers and their interests saves time in the planning process and when deciding which volunteers would be best for different activities.
- Always have your volunteers sign-in at each event
- Collect volunteer’s best contact information at each sign-in
- Electronically store volunteer contact information and notes about which events they enjoy
Celebrating your volunteers valuable contributions
Volunteers are providing their time and talents at no cost because they feel strongly about giving back to Ohio State. Don’t forget to celebrate your volunteers for giving up their free time to assist your club or society.
- Celebrate the accomplishments of your volunteers—a simple thank you goes a long way
- If you can, set aside time to take hard working volunteers out to lunch or grab a coffee
- After thanking volunteers for their time, make sure to ask them when they’re free to help again