For those of us working as volunteer engagement professionals, volunteer recruitment has become the biggest challenge we face in our work. Tobi Johnson’s annual Volunteer Management Progress Report finds that recruitment is the top identified challenge amongst volunteer engagement professionals several years running and indicates that “recruiting volunteers for traditional, ongoing roles that were supported in person… was commonly noted” by respondents.
Addressing this challenge requires a multi-pronged approach, from ensuring that your volunteer webpage along with your volunteer postings are attractive to prospective volunteers, making sure that your website is search-engine optimized (and that you are also using Google Ad grants if possible) and finding multiple online and offline venues to promote volunteer opportunities. Boosting the number of online sites where you post opportunities will also help with search results. In terms of social media sites, for the past several months I’ve slowly been getting to know my way around Reddit and discovering ways that it could be helpful for volunteer recruitment.
According to Wikipedia, Reddit “is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and forum social network. Registered users (commonly referred to as “Redditors”) submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called communities or subreddits” and are indicated by r/ – for instance, the main volunteer subreddit is indicated by r/volunteer.
The Wikipedia article continues to say that “as of October 2023, Reddit is the 18th most-visited website in the world. According to data provided by Similarweb, 48.98% of the website traffic comes from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom at 7.06% and Canada at 6.9%.”
One thing that I appreciate about Reddit is that all these subreddits have volunteer moderators, which in general (depending on the community) makes the conversations more supportive and friendly – at least those that I’ve been following. Every subreddit has rules and guidelines which you should read before posting anything. Moderators can remove posts that don’t follow the rules and the consequence is that you lose karma points: your karma count is like your Reddit reputation and an indication of whether you share good content. Posting, commenting and upvotes all give you karma.
So which ones might you want to check out? The r/volunteer is definitely worth following and the primary moderator is Jayne Cravens, a communications and volunteer management consultant from the US. According to the description: this community is for sharing volunteering experiences or attempts to volunteer (unpaid work for a cause); sharing opportunities for others; asking questions or for advice on recruiting, engaging & supporting volunteers, or about policies or safety for vols & those they serve. You can also discuss volunteerism ethics, share a paid or unpaid role for a manager of vols, or a resource for such.
So while the discussions in this subreddit are very interesting and potentially a great place for managers and coordinators to share successes and challenges, I find that most of the people posting are volunteers discussing their experience or looking to volunteer. I wouldn’t necessarily post opportunities here (unless they are virtual) because it isn’t geographically based and most of the participants in the discussion are from the US.
What you might want to look for if you are interested in promoting your volunteer opportunities are the specific subreddits for your city or region. For instance, for organizations based in Toronto, you have a couple of options: https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/volunteertoronto/.
These geographic-based locations could be particularly useful for organizations that lack a volunteer centre such as Hamilton https://www.reddit.com/r/Hamilton/ or Windsor-Essex: https://www.reddit.com/r/windsorontario/. Most of these city or regional communities welcome posts about volunteer opportunities but try to make the pitch conversational and friendly and include the link to your opportunity or volunteer page. You can also search for the word “volunteer” within the subreddit to see if anyone is looking for opportunities and give them suggestions, including volunteering in your own organization!
There is literally something for everyone on Reddit and the number of new communities and interests grows daily. The other ones I like to follow are r/nonprofit, r/AgingParents (this one is almost like a support group!) and r/retirement. And of course once you join one community you will get other recommendations but it is fairly easy to stop getting notifications about subreddits that you have no personal interest in.
So how to get started on Reddit? First, create your account and profile (the avatars are adorable IMO) and then you can check out a couple of subreddits for new Redditors: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnToReddit/
Look forward to seeing you on Reddit!
Aleksandra Vasic, CVA is a certified volunteer engagement professional with over 15 years of experience managing volunteer programs in social service settings. She is the Director of Volunteerism at Volunteer Success, a Canadian online platform that connects volunteers to meaningful opportunities and allows organizations to find qualified volunteers. She is a Past President of PAVRO, the provincial association for Volunteer Engagement professionals and the Past President of TAVA (the Toronto Association for Volunteer Administrators).