Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello!

I manage the volunteer department at a large rescue. We are a big organization with over 1000 volunteers (including regular volunteers, volunteers coming sporadically for VTO and community service- not including fosters) 160 staff, and numerous departments and 4 locations. 

Our volunteer department is separate from our media, marketing, and social media department- so we do not have any control over social media posts and any other marketing materials (for example, if we would like flyers or posters made we would need to go through their department and not allowed to make them ourselves).

As manager of the volunteer department, I am in charge of recruitment, although I find it difficult when I do not have access to one of the best recruitment tools available, social media. We are in desperate need of a volunteer base at one of our locations, and recently a social media post asking for help at this specific location (we are only allowed general volunteer posts) was denied.

I am really struggling. Are there any other managers out there in the same boat? How do you find other ways to recruit?

I will add that it is only myself and a coordinator in our department- so resources are limited.

#EducationandTraining
#FundraisingandDevelopment
#MarketingandSocialMedia
#OrganizationalManagement
#PetSupportServices*

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molly applegate
Volunteer Assistant
ARL-Iowa
IA
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Hi Molly,

Way for the comms team to make life harder.  I think it's time to prep some data, if you haven't already, and request a meeting with the comms/mkt team and yours (and maybe the ED) to look for a win-win solution. Their policy is clearly hindering business objectives.  I'd be happy to talk more 1:1 if you like. (Note: I ran the Dev/Mar team for 4 years and now oversee community programs including volunteers.) Erica

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Erica Webb
Director of Outreach & Volunteer Services
Animal Humane New Mexico
NM
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That sounds frustrating! I'm sorry.  My facility is smaller, but we do have a marketing person that everything goes through as well. She has a social media schedule and I'm actually assigned to do posts about volunteer opportunities. So it's my responsibility each week to get together stuff for a post about upcoming volunteer needs. In addition, I also have a scheduled monthly "Volunteer Spotlight" post that I'm required to make. For each of our departments, we have assigned weekly posts we are supposed to write and submit (because the marketing person doesn't know the details of what Volunteer needs there are). Maybe you can pitch something like that?

Here's last week's volunteer needs post (click here to view).  I just got an email this morning from someone wanting to help with this need!

And this month's Spotlight post (click here to view).

We also have a quarterly paper newsletter we send to supporters, and it always has a volunteer highlighted in it too. I love highlighting volunteers in "less popular" roles such as our Trap-Neuter-Return program or pet transports, as reading about someone already doing it does spread awareness and hopefully helps recruit more people! 

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Erin Dams
Community Relations Coordinator
Roanoke Valley SPCA
Roanoke VA
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Is there any chance you could be allowed to start a separate social media group or page specifically for volunteers?  We have our main page, and then we have another for our volunteers, one for our fosters, and one for the gala event.  Each is run by a different staff member within the related department.   Those "extra" pages are all by invitation only, so they aren't open for the public to view, but usually our current fosters and volunteers are our greatest recruitment tools!  

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Sandi Mercado
Shelter or rescue director
Citizens for Animal Protection
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