How to recruit and keep volunteers for your community

project

Richard MillingtonFeverBee Limited

richard@feverbee.com

Our Biggest Mistakes

Common Mistakes• Asking people to volunteer

• Tangibly rewarding volunteers

• Lack of recognition

• Demanding too much

• Not simplifying the tasks

• Failing to build a community amongst volunteers

What motivates volunteers?

Power & Influence

Recognition

Feel part of something

Desire to help

What can volunteers do?

• Create content

• Moderate activities of others (quality assurance)

• Interviews

• Recruitment and promotion

• Partnerships

• Platform maintenance

Craft a community role

• A name (one which doesn’t suggest cheap labor)

• A functional role (checking forums, sustaining activity, fresh content etc..)

• Power elements (admin privileges, unique access levels)

• Fame/recognition elements (creating content, opinion columns, public gratitude, trophies etc..)

A volunteer role might include:

Different methods to recruit volunteers

Be Proactive

Start with one volunteer

Target specific people

Solicit Applications

Embrace the commitment principle

One small step

Take a pledge

How to retain passionate volunteers

Showcase success and achievements

Track Progress (even tiny steps)

Give increasing levels of

responsibility/power

Gamification• Collecting things

(badges/symbols/power)

• Points

• Leaderboards (elements of competition)

• Levels (increasing skill / increasing difficulty)

• Feedback mechanisms

Build a strong sense of community

Emotional connectio

nFulfilmentof needsInfluence

Membership

Sense of community

Membership

Influence

Satisfying Needs

Emotional connection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Star_Trek_Into_Darkness

Questions?