How do you attract volunteers to a not-for-profit?

Attract volunteers by: planning clearly what you're offering (specific role, time commitment, location) before recruiting; profiling your ideal volunteer to recruit for fit rather than just numbers; advertising where the right people are (universities, community noticeboards, social media); providing proper training and orientation so volunteers understand the mission and their role; and supporting existing volunteers well so they stay and become advocates who recruit others.

Why is it hard to recruit volunteers?

Volunteer recruitment has become harder due to declining volunteering rates, increased time pressure on people, and greater competition for volunteers' attention. Organisations can no longer rely on people simply turning up — recruitment now requires careful planning, clear role definition, targeted advertising, and proper onboarding. Organisations that are visibly well-run and that support their volunteers well have a significant advantage in attracting and retaining good people.

5 Tips on How to Attract Volunteers

Volunteers are the engine of most Australian community organisations — but attracting good ones has become genuinely difficult. With volunteering rates declining and people’s time increasingly stretched, organisations can no longer rely on volunteers simply turning up. Recruitment now requires the same care and planning as any other important organisational activity.

Here are five tips for attracting the volunteers your organisation needs.

1. Plan Before You Recruit

Before approaching anyone, be clear about what you’re actually offering. Prospective volunteers want to know:

What will they be doing? What’s the actual role, and what’s in it for them?
When do you need them, and for how long? Is this a one-off, ongoing, or project-based?
Where will they be working?

Vague invitations — “we need some help around the place” — attract few people and the wrong ones. Specific, well-defined opportunities — “we need someone with bookkeeping experience to support the treasurer for about four hours a month” — attract people who can actually fill the need and who know what they’re signing up for.

This planning is itself a governance exercise: it forces clarity about the roles the organisation needs filled and how they connect to its goals.

2. Profile Your Ideal Volunteer

Recruitment isn’t about quantity — it’s about fit. Before advertising, develop a clear picture of the volunteer who would genuinely add value: what skills they have, what motivates them, and how they’d work within your existing team.

A brief application form or informal interview helps assess fit before someone comes on board. This isn’t bureaucracy for its own sake — it significantly increases the likelihood of recruiting volunteers who stay long-term and contribute well, rather than people who drift away after a few weeks because the role wasn’t what they expected.

3. Advertise Where the Right People Are

Once you know who you’re looking for, reach them where they are:

Universities and colleges: students are often energetic, idealistic and have time to give. Starting volunteers young can build long-term advocates.
Community noticeboards: schools, libraries, community centres and local businesses often have free spaces for recruitment notices.
Social media: the most efficient channel for most organisations. Keep the message clear, genuine and specific — online audiences quickly tune out anything that feels overwrought or insincere.

Match the channel to the volunteer profile you developed. A specialist skill might be better sourced through professional networks than a community noticeboard.

The organisations that attract the best volunteers are visibly well-run.

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4. Provide Proper Training and Orientation

Nothing loses a new volunteer faster than being thrown into a role they don’t understand. A volunteer who feels used — given tasks with no context, no support, and no sense of how they fit in — won’t stay.

Provide a proper orientation that covers:

The history and mission of the organisation
The cause or campaign they’re contributing to
The plan for achieving the organisation’s goals
How their specific role contributes to that plan
What success looks like for them

When volunteers understand the bigger picture and can see how their work matters, they engage far more deeply than when they’re simply handed tasks.

5. Support Volunteers So They Stay — and Recruit Others

Recruitment doesn’t end when someone signs up. The most effective volunteer recruitment is done by your existing happy volunteers, who bring in others through their genuine enthusiasm. That only happens if they’re well-supported.

Keep volunteers engaged and advocating by:

Recognising their work genuinely and specifically
Asking for and acting on their input and suggestions
Showing them the impact of their contribution
Not overworking them
Maintaining a positive, social team environment

Volunteer recruitment is a long, sometimes frustrating process — but an organisation that recruits thoughtfully, onboards properly, and supports its people well builds a self-sustaining volunteer base. The well-run organisation doesn’t just retain volunteers; it turns them into its most effective recruiters.