Best Ideas to Attract, Keep and Grow Volunteers

Volunteers are often a vital—and sometimes under-appreciated—component of successful shelters and rescues. Whether helping with transport, fostering, staffing special events or doing chores at the facility, volunteers fill the gaps and free up staff time.

But do you show them how much you value their contributions? And just what are the best ways to attract them, keep them and grow them?

This collection of resources can help you manage volunteers, get staff-buy-in, show appreciation and bring your volunteer program to the next level.

Top 10 Tips to Keep Volunteers Happy: Learn the five powerful things you should do every day to keep volunteers happy, plus five ways to increase your staff's appreciation of volunteers.

Training and Retaining Volunteers in a Small Organization: Volunteers at Mayport Cats, Inc. take on the work of much larger groups, and they do it with remarkable commitment and enthusiasm. Here are some of MCI's tried-and-true strategies that keep volunteers coming back day after day.

Personalized Training Helps Empower, Retain Volunteers: Ark-Valley Humane Society's personalized training program equips volunteers with everything they need to be successful in their roles at the shelter—and with a 75% retention rate, Ark-Valley is clearly doing it right.

3 Secrets to Volunteer Success: Everyone at Protectors Of Animals, Inc. volunteers their time, and collectively they fill 300 jobs at the organization, manage five locations and adopt out hundreds of animals a year.

This collection of free recorded webinars can be used as part of staff development and listened to any time, any place.

Volunteer Management 101: From identifying tasks, establishing processes, finding the right people to get involved and then managing their participation, this webinar covers the basics of volunteer management.

Volunteer Management 201: Learn how to maximize the contributions of volunteers, whether your volunteer program is new and just starting off, established but not quite firing on all cylinders, or somewhere in-between.

Recruiting and Keeping Equine Volunteers: Equine rescue agencies face the same challenges that all animal welfare organizations face when it comes to recruiting and retaining volunteers. Equine organizations, however, experience unique volunteerism challenges and opportunities.