Discussions

As the founder of Brandon wheelchair sports and leisure we are always in need of a few good volunteers, but you can't choose the same ones repetitively. Any advice on finding new volunteers?

Why can't you stay within your pool of volunteers? If they are reliable, and enjoy volunteering why would you be hesitant to use them?

Using the same people over and over causes volunteer burnout. As part of an organization that relies solely on volunteers it is becoming harder and harder to find people to volunteer their time and not burn out existing help.

What kind of volunteers do you need?

OP. I misunderstood your first post. I understand the burnout part. That being said Facebook is a medium almost everyone has. It's worth utilizing

Can you post the contact for those interested din volunteering? Could you give an idea of time commitment and tasks requiring volunteers? Thanks.

Are you advertising in the "classifieds" in Ebrandon?????  
There is a category for that??

We have a page for our cause and also a separate Facebook group solely for volunteers. We have roughly 80 people in that group. Probably about half those people have never actually volunteered with our organization and are mainly there to see what our group is up to. But we won’t remove them because maybe in the future we will. We post very specific tasks “help out on this date for these two hours”. People don’t like wishy washy “can you help sometime in December, totally up to you” type posts. Also when we don’t get volunteers for certain events we personally message the people in that group. Half the people read the message and don’t respond. Usually a few people step up and help out. But you have to reach out to them directly. It takes a lot of work just to manage a volunteer base to be sustainable and not have burnout, we’ve been dealing with this for a few years. Everybody has a good cause and volunteers are very hard to come by! Good luck

Try reaching out to the high schools and get  
Some of their sports teams or other groups to help out. Community involvement is/should be crucial!

In eBrandon's classified section under Jobs, there is a separate category for volunteers. https://ebrandon.ca/browseads.aspx?cat_id=110  
 
You could also contact the post-secondary schools (BU and ACC) to see if they have a student volunteer group and/or if they could post something on their websites or in their student newsletters. Depending on the age groups you are looking for, you could also try the high schools as they often are looking for volunteer opportunities for students.  
 
Shoppers' Mall lets volunteer organizations use a kiosk in the mall to educate people about the organization and you can also sign up there.  
 
Burnout is definitely an issue and sometimes volunteers do need to take a break. Best of luck to you in finding some new blood.

Associate your club with a local service club. We at UCT 448 do volunteer work for many organizations but with members who are aging it is sometimes harder to find people for physical work.

What types of tasks do you need volunteers to do?  
Some of the suggestions above are great ideas.  
Just wondering if you could specify what a volunteer has to do.

or do you think this has happened in past years?