When I was a director I was always focused on recruiting what I will call “hands on” volunteers such as receptionists, client advocates, sonographers, people to help with the materials assistance program, people to help with fundraising events.
As I spoke at churches to recruit volunteers many people would come up to me and express how much they would like to volunteer but they could not give the time required by the volunteer jobs I had mentioned. Others expressed interest in supporting the Center but did not feel their gifts and talents lined up with what we were asking for in terms of volunteer positions.
For about 7 years I was the volunteer coordinator for a local hospice here in Pennsylvania where I now live. In order to meet Medicare requirements for hospice I had to reach a quota of volunteer hours each month based on the hands-on services we provided to our clients. It was pretty overwhelming some months. The good thing about the mandatory quota was, it caused me to think very creatively about how I could create volunteer jobs that would interest a wide variety of people.
I have been utilizing that same thinking for envisioning out of the ordinary volunteer positions for Pregnancy Centers. Hopefully these positions might engage more volunteers and help in the day to day of the Center and the long-term vision(s) of the Center. Some can be done from home and might not require a weekly commitment.
Depending upon the size of your Center and your budget many of these positions might be filled by a paid staff position. Other Centers may not have the resources to pay someone to do these tasks and need to look towards filling them with volunteers. Some are fun ideas and positions that may allow your clients to feel welcomed and honored and your volunteer appreciated.
So here is a list of possible volunteer jobs:
- Librarians – Recruit volunteer librarians to source and set up a lending library of books, movies and other resources that volunteers can borrow. Use the resources for book and/or movie clubs, in-service trainings, etc.
- Role-players – people who fancy themselves good actors or who have had previous life experiences with an unplanned pregnancy who are willing to come in as needed to role-play with client advocates who are in training.
- Graphic Designers – some Centers might already have a website designer or a graphic designer that they turn to for their graphic needs but if you don’t you might try and recruit a volunteer designer. Maybe there might be a small project, like designing note cards to send to clients that a graphic designer could help you with.
- Social Media Managers – Do you have a presence on a social media platform? Might that be helpful? A social media manager, once trained, could do this job from wherever. I can see one social media platform focused on reaching clients and another on your supporters. They would be two very different types of content so you could probably use two social media managers.
- Training Mentors– Do you have wonderful volunteers who have left because their life situation has changed and they cannot give as much time as they used to? If they were highly skilled client advocates maybe you can ask them to help get volunteers from the classroom or online training into the counseling room by reviewing the training wor, answering questions and engaging in role-play. Much of this can be done via a Zoom meeting from their own home.
- Training Administrator – Someone to help with the administrative tasks of training such as gathering the materials, communicating with prospective volunteers who are attending the training, collecting training fees, coordinating and keeping track of the progress of the people who are doing online or video training, being the go-to person if trainees have questions, etc. This could be done from home.
- Hospitality Volunteers – When I go to the salon where I get my hair cut the receptionist offers me, actually serves me, not only my beverage of choice but some lovely kind of baked good as well. I cannot tell you how welcoming and honoring that small gesture feels even if I say no to the offering. Now, in this time of Covid-19, this is not possible but hopefully it will be possible sometime in the future. Volunteers could offer to bring in a baked good for clients on a weekly or monthly basis. They can bring several at one time and staff members can take them home and put them in the freezer. Better yet, recruit volunteers who have the gift of hospitality to come once a month to the Center, bring a baked good and offer to serve clients who come that day.
- Contemplative Stone Makers – There are instructions on how to make contemplative stones for clients to take away with them here on the website. You can recruit a team of crafty volunteers or individuals to meet and make the stones on a semi-regular basis so you have plenty of stones to offer to clients. The downloadable instructions are here.
- Crafty Volunteers – Volunteers love to get little tokens of appreciation. Pinterest is full of some great inexpensive ideas that can easily be created by a group of crafty women. You might be able to gather a group together once or twice a month to work on projects or have a crafty volunteer assemble packets of supplies that can be picked up and then assembled at home.
Of course all of these volunteer opportunities will need job descriptions. The more detailed the better with approximate time commitments, necessary training, etc.
Next month I will focus on crafting clear, effective job descriptions.
