Volunteers are vital to achieving your NFP’s mission, but finding and recruiting enough volunteers has become more difficult for most nonprofits. According to The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2014 General Social Survey, the percentage of Australians that donate their time to their favourite causes is falling, and the trend is likely to continue.

In 2014, volunteer rates dropped five percentage points to 31%, the first time that volunteer rates had declined in Australia in over 20 years. The number of informal volunteers that donate time to help their neighbours, family members and friends also fell during this same period. There are a number of obstacles to volunteering that may be behind this dramatic decrease, but according to the survey, 75% of respondents have decided not to volunteer because they feel that they simply don’t have enough time to meet their duties and demands from their daily lives.

Increase Your NFP’s Pool of Volunteers by Becoming More Inclusive and Open

Getting enough supporters to donate their time to nonprofit causes is a growing concern that will require novel strategies to solve. One way that some NFPs are increasing their pool of available volunteers is by changing their practices and procedures to be more open and inclusive.

A growing number of nonprofits are now making accommodations to increase volunteering opportunities by actively working to reduce bias for those from diverse backgrounds. Others are looking for ways to reduce obstacles to volunteering for those with challenges that might have limited their ability to volunteer with organisations in the past.

In a recent report from ABC Australia’s news demonstrates just how effective increasing openness and inclusivity can be at boosting volunteerism. The article profiles the story of how ACT State Emergency Service (SES) was able to increase their staff by making accommodations for one of their volunteers who is also deaf.

In the past, having a physical limitation, such as deafness, would have prevented volunteer Sharlene Alice Payn from being able to work alongside police and paramedics, but with a few accommodations, Payn can perform many of the same duties as others without this challenge. ACT (SES) now has 19 fewer volunteers than it did one year before, so increasing inclusiveness has already had a significant impact on their ability to recruit more volunteers going forward.

Steps Your Board Can Take to Become More Inclusive and Open

Whether or not your NFP is having difficulty recruiting enough volunteers, increasing openness and inclusivity benefits your NFP as making these accommodations makes your volunteer pool more representative of the members of the community that you serve and helps to create a more diverse and fair workplace.

Steps that your NFP Board can take to encourage greater diversity and inclusion in your organisation include actively seeking to identify and eliminate areas of bias in your NFP’s policies and procedures. This includes searching for gender and cultural bias, as well as other stereotypes. Common myths that might be limiting your volunteer pool include assuming those with a physical limitation or other challenges are unable to meet the requirements for work.

You can also increase inclusion in your NFP by actively seeking ways to connect and partner with members of these populations and customising recruiting materials to actively seek out those with physical challenges such as deafness, as well as those from different cultural backgrounds.

As you increase inclusiveness in your organisation, don’t be surprised to see other unexpected benefits within the operation of your NFP, such as a boost to creativity and innovation as you recruit volunteers that have different life experiences and thus, different and novel ways of thinking and looking at the world.