Creating Volunteer Listings for Specific Skillsets: A Guide

A man uses a walkie-talkie to communicate at volunteer event

Creating Volunteer Listings for Specific Skillsets: A Guide

A successful volunteer program starts with detailed, specific volunteer listings. In addition to promoting your volunteer opportunities, these listings also help volunteers self-select for roles that fit their skillsets, simplifying the recruitment and training processes.

A strong, comprehensive volunteer listing sets your new volunteers up for success, improving your ability to recruit and retain them long-term. To help your nonprofit fill niche volunteer roles and build a reliable recruitment process, we’ll go over the core aspects of a volunteer role description before providing tips for enhancing your listings.

Elements of a Volunteer Role Description

Whether your nonprofit has a few highly specific volunteer positions it needs to fill or is looking to improve its volunteer listings in general, you should follow the same professional strategies that you would for creating descriptions for paid roles.

‍Astron Solutions’ guide to job descriptions lists these as the essential elements for any role listing:

Job Title: A position name that explains the role but is also generic enough that volunteers searching for opportunities can easily find it
Job Summary: A one or two-paragraph overview of the position that briefly lists duties and explains the role’s location, format (virtual or in-person), and schedule
Organizational Overview: An introduction to your nonprofit that explains your mission, values, and work culture
Duties: The role's day-to-day responsibilities
Qualifications: A list of necessary skills, education level, work experience, and other competencies—usually divided into “preferred” and “required”
Relationships: Where the job fits in in your organization’s hierarchy—for volunteer positions, this will just be “volunteer”
Salary and Benefits: The benefits individuals can expect to receive from joining your organization—while volunteers are not paid, this section can include details about professional development opportunities, the ability to make a positive difference in the world, and appreciation efforts
Additional Statements: Statements such as your commitment to equal employment opportunity, reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities, or required background check requirements

To simplify the volunteer listing creation process, build a single role template that can be adjusted for future positions. This saves your team from needing to start from scratch every time you create a new volunteer role.

Volunteer Listing Tips

Go into detail.

When it comes to actually creating your volunteer listings, either your dedicated volunteer management team or nonprofit HR staff will be in charge. To support these individuals, provide them with all the details about each position so they can create a listing that accurately reflects the specific skillsets needed for success.

In particular, ensure your volunteer listings describe:

Necessary hard skills: For positions that require specific skillsets, list all hard skills so individuals can self-select for roles that fit their abilities. For example, you might request a graphic designer who has experience with Adobe Photoshop and InDesign.
Physical qualifications: All volunteer roles should include an overview of the physical activities volunteers are expected to perform. This might be the ability to lift a certain amount of weight or sit and stand for a long period of time. Where possible, ensure your volunteer positions accommodate individuals of all ability levels to widen your search and make volunteering more accessible.
Required certifications: Certain skilled roles, such as a nurse at an athletic event or a pro-bono lawyer helping with 501(c)(3) registration, must have licenses or certifications. If this is the case for any of your listed volunteer positions, ensure it is front and center. Additionally, create a process for verifying qualifications.

Before publishing your volunteer listings, review them to make sure all details are accurate and reasonable. For example, if you need a programmer to help design your website, consider which programming languages are actually must-haves and what is just a nice-to-have.

Make expectations clear.

Volunteer programs function best when new recruits know exactly what is expected of them and what they can expect in return from your nonprofit. Your volunteer listings should include details about what your work environment looks like, required time commitments, statements about your commitment to supporting volunteers, and insight into how their role will make a positive difference in the world.

The recruitment process is also your first opportunity to make a positive first impression on volunteers by treating them fairly, respecting their time, and being open and welcoming. If you don’t already have a volunteer management solution to help you keep your recruitment process organized, consider investing in one.

Connect with corporate volunteers.

For highly specific, skilled positions, consider approaching businesses with your volunteer listings. For example, you might take this approach to recruit lawyers, accountants, graphic designers, nurses, animal handlers, or any other role that requires significant training. Some professions—such as lawyers—do require a certain amount of volunteering each year, whereas other corporations with volunteer programs may want to increase their workforce’s volunteer hours as part of their commitment to corporate social responsibility.

Approaching local businesses with detailed, professional volunteer job descriptions can also help you develop a relationship with a wide range of organizations. Some businesses may simply let employees know about your volunteer openings, while others might want to organize team volunteer days, and still others might be interested in philanthropic opportunities outside of volunteering.

If you’re hesitant to approach businesses about volunteer opportunities, remember that many businesses actively want their employees to volunteer. 360MatchPro’s volunteer statistics report shares how 84% of employers feel volunteerism is an effective way to engage employees, and 40% of Fortune 500 companies already offer volunteer grant programs.

Wrapping Up

Effective volunteer role listings are a basic but essential component of any volunteer program. To improve your ability to recruit volunteers with specific skillsets, re-evaluate your approach to volunteer job descriptions to ensure all key elements are included, go into detail where necessary, and consider how to directly approach individuals with the skills you need.