Attract new volunteers

You'll have more success if you focus on tasks which need doing, instead of roles which need to be filled.

Before you start writing your advert, ask yourself: 

• What sort of skills are needed to carry each task out?
• Which qualities or life experiences would make someone a great fit?
• What interests might someone who'd enjoy this role have? 

Instead of advertising for a ‘Beaver leader’, you might advertise for someone: 

• Who enjoys interacting with young people.
• Who would be great at organising craft activities.
• Who has plenty of energy and enjoys playing games.
• Who's patient and caring.

To grab people's attention from the get-go, your advert should include: 

• A catchy title.
• Photos and images which are relevant to the task.
• Friendly, informal language – focussing on the task(s) you need help with.
• A summary of what's involved and expected – including information about when, where and how often your new volunteer will be needed.
• Contact details, so they can get in touch.

For help with what to say, check out 'How we talk' – it's full of tips on making an impact with your words and communicating what Scouts is all about. 

A vacancy board is a display which tells people about the tasks you need with help with and the people you're looking for. 

It's made up of changeable cards which can be alternated or replaced to suit your needs – you’ll find loads of examples on the brand centre.

To create your own, head to the top left of your screen and select a template from the ‘card starting point’ option in the drop-down menu. This will generate the relevant text, which you can then edit.

Once you've created your board:  

• Place it somewhere it can’t be missed – using a collapsible board which can be put away after each meeting, if you don't have your own building.
• Keep it looking fresh – making sure someone in the team is responsible for updating the information on the vacancy board regularly, so it doesn’t get forgotten and stays relevant.
• Move it around – changing the order of the cards around for variation, and looking for opportunities to display it within community spaces and local businesses to attract a wider audience.
• Be ready to respond quickly to enquiries – allocate a member of the team to look after this, or agree how you'd like to share the responsibility.

Your Scout website is the perfect place to host your digital vacancy board.

If you don’t have your own, team up with your District or County to host it on a wider scale.  Once you've done this, you have a couple of options.

Upload a vacancy card to your website by:

• Heading over to the brand centre
• Customising your vacancy card by adding your own text into the ready-made template 
• Clicking ‘update’ 
• Right clicking ‘save as image’
• Uploading the image to your website

Copy and paste text from the brand centre by:

• Copy and pasting your text
• Uploading it directly to your website, choosing from a range of different formats to display the text

Now you have a great online vacancy board, it's time to share it. 

Think of different places you could spread the word safely.

Perhaps you could post vacancies:

• On volunteering sites, like do.it.life and Reach Volunteering
• Across your group and district's social media channels
• Across your personal social media channels
• Across your professional network (for example, by posting on LinkedIn or sharing opportunities with work colleagues where appropriate)
• Across local community groups or forums in your area, such as neighbourhood Facebook pages and Whatsapp groups

Step 1 – if you're not already registered sign up

Any existing do-it.org account will transfer to doit.life automatically.

If your Group/District/County is already set up as an organisation, the existing admin can add you as a secondary admin.

If not, you can set up your own organisation.

Step 2 – decide who's responsible and how

At this stage you’ll need to know who'll be following up enquiries and the email address those enquiries will be forwarded to.   

Step 3 – get posting

Add your volunteer vacancies – known as ‘opportunities’ on the platform.   

Complete all the fields, with clear details on what to expect and a focus on the offer and benefits to volunteers – 'How we talk' gives great suggestions on how to do this. 

Remember: your advert should make sense to people outside Scouts. Potential volunteers won't know what a GSL or BSL is – they will understand what a 'volunteer support manager' or 'activity leader' might do. 

Step 4 – Publish and spread the word

Once your advert's live, it's time to tell people about it.

You could:

• Share it with your group leaders, trustees and parents and ask them to promote it, too
• Utilise social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram
• Advertise them on Group, District and County websites

Once a potential volunteers has seen your opportunity and registered interest, get back to them as quickly as possible to keep their interest. And take a look at our first impressions ideas for tips on how to give a warm Scouts welcome.