Articles for people who run volunteers
Every article here starts with a problem someone actually has on a Tuesday afternoon — the volunteers who stopped answering, the rota nobody will fill, the board paper due Friday — and works through what the research says, what it doesn't say, and what to do on Monday. Figures carry a publisher and a year so you can check them or quote them.
Start here
The board wants a number. Here's one you can defend.
Most volunteer programs walk into budget meetings as the only line with no figure attached. The arithmetic to fix that takes five minutes and holds up to scrutiny.
They quietly stopped showing upWhy a third of your volunteers don't come back next year
Most volunteer programs lose people faster than they think, and the strongest predictor isn't recruitment or recognition. It's what you asked them to do.
Nobody knows what the role actually isMost volunteer role descriptions are missing two fields
The two fields almost every volunteer role description leaves out are the ones that make it workable later, and that keep the role a volunteer role.
Keeping the volunteers you have
Why people drift away, what the evidence says actually holds them, and what to do in the first ninety days and the second year.
Why a third of your volunteers don't come back next year
Most volunteer programs lose people faster than they think, and the strongest predictor isn't recruitment or recognition. It's what you asked them to do.
our thank-yous fall flatRecognition works. The annual dinner mostly doesn't.
The four rewards volunteers rate highest are all cheap and relational, and experienced volunteers rate trips and conferences lower. Show the impact, not the trophy.
volunteering feels corporate nowMost of your volunteer process exists for your convenience
One in four UK volunteers now says the work feels too much like paid employment. Almost all of the professionalizing that caused it was done for the organization.
long-serving volunteers going quietThe tactics that keep a new volunteer stop working later
Satisfaction carries someone through the first months. After that, commitment and identity do the work, and most programs never change what they offer.
new volunteers drift away earlyOnboarding ends on day one. Retention starts in week three.
Most volunteer induction is an information dump on the first evening. The research says what predicts staying is what happens in weeks three to twelve.
Finding volunteers
Recruiting without a budget, reaching people who have never volunteered before, and turning one-off helpers into regulars.
Turning one-day volunteers into people who come back
Only a quarter of organizations track whether new volunteers convert. The ones that do report 41 to 50 percent. The deciding moment comes after the event.
We can't get young people involvedYoung volunteers aren't hard to recruit. They're hard to keep.
16 and 17-year-olds volunteer at close to the national rate. The problem starts after they arrive: 18 to 24s are the least satisfied group in the sector.
I don't know what they wantWhat actually motivates volunteers, in plain terms
Six motivations, measured in 1998 and still the best map we have. How to hear which one someone is expressing, and what to change in the role once you have.
We need more volunteersRecruiting volunteers when there is no money
Twelve percent of volunteer programs run on no budget at all, and recruitment is the sector's top reported challenge. The fix is usually the ask, not the audience.
Designing the work itself
Role descriptions, screening, delegation, and the uncomfortable conversations. The highest-leverage lever most programs never pull.
How to ask a volunteer to step down
There is almost no research on removing someone from a volunteer role. Here is how to decide which conversation you are having, and the wording for each.
We check everyone and hopePolice checks are step seven of ten
Background checks get treated as the whole of screening. They are step seven of ten, and real safeguarding failures are usually failures of the other nine.
no money to train anyoneTraining volunteers when there is no training budget
Training is the practice with the strongest evidence behind it and the smallest line in the budget. Most of what makes it work costs attention, not money.
A few people carry the whole thingWhy the same five people end up doing everything
Concentration is not a loyalty problem or a laziness problem. It is what happens when handing work over costs more this week than doing it yourself, every week.
Nobody knows what the role actually isMost volunteer role descriptions are missing two fields
The two fields almost every volunteer role description leaves out are the ones that make it workable later, and that keep the role a volunteer role.
Proving the program works
Putting a defensible number on volunteer hours, choosing measures worth tracking, and writing the version your board will actually read.
The board wants a number. Here's one you can defend.
Most volunteer programs walk into budget meetings as the only line with no figure attached. The arithmetic to fix that takes five minutes and holds up to scrutiny.
Our survey results say nothingA volunteer survey that tells you something
Most volunteer surveys produce a folder nobody opens. Four dimensions worth asking about, one question that predicts more than the rest, and who you forget to ask.
Tracking numbers nobody usesWhich volunteer numbers are worth collecting
Most programs measure the pleasant things and skip the ones that would tell them whether they are gaining or losing ground. A short list of four, and what to drop.
Employee and corporate volunteering
What company programs get wrong, why volunteer time off goes unused, and what nonprofits on the receiving end actually need.
Does employee volunteering actually keep staff?
Three studies get quoted whenever a corporate volunteering budget is defended. Two are vendor platform data and one measures intent. Here is what survives.
We don't know what they needWhat nonprofits actually want from your volunteer day
Only about 20 percent of nonprofit leaders say corporate volunteers build their long-term capacity. What the receiving organization deals with explains the gap.
Leadership wants participation requiredWhy mandatory volunteering backfires on the wrong people
A 1999 study found required service lowered future volunteering intentions among people who did not expect to serve freely, and left the willing unchanged.
Volunteer days that don't helpCorporate volunteering got bigger. Each volunteer got smaller.
Benevity's data shows 23.7 million corporate volunteer hours in 2025 with average hours per volunteer falling from 16.4 to 12.7. That trade costs charities.
Our VTO benefit goes unusedYour company offers volunteer time off. Almost nobody takes it.
Among the Civic 50 honorees, 74 percent offer volunteer time off and the median utilization rate is 19 percent. The causes are structural, and fixable.
Running the program, and yourself
Burnout on both sides of the desk, the awkward parts of the job, and how to keep going when volunteer coordination is only half your role.
Communicating with volunteers without becoming noise
Sixteen percent of volunteers do not know whether their expenses get paid. That is a communication failure, and sending more messages is not what fixes it.
This is only part of my jobWhen volunteer coordination is half your job
Only one in five volunteer managers does the job full time. What to stop doing, what you genuinely cannot drop, and how to argue for more of your own hours.
My best volunteer is fadingSpotting volunteer burnout before the person disappears
Stress-related reasons for quitting have risen from 9 to 14 percent. Burnout is visible weeks before someone stops showing up, if you know which behaviors to watch.
Three training kits for the people running the room
The articles are free and stay free. The kits are the working systems behind them — handbooks, scripted debriefs, editable slides and spreadsheets that do the arithmetic, licensed for unlimited use inside one organization.