Boomerang volunteers are a group that often gets forgotten when we do recruitment drives. Yet they can be the best volunteers in your program. You’ve probably heard that old saying of Richard Bach: “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn’t it never was.” Volunteers can be thought of in the same way.
Too often when we have a great volunteer who is making noises about leaving we try so hard to convince them to stay – sometimes to the point of making them feel guilty.
That can hurt you in so many ways.
First, even if you can guilt them into staying longer, their hearts won’t be in it, and they’ll start to resent both you and the organisation. The quality of their work will deteriorate and from being a great volunteer, they’ll end up being mediocre at best. And they will leave eventually anyway!
Second, by trying to talk them into staying with you, it makes it easier for you to ignore whatever reason may be driving them away. In a lot of cases, of course, the reason will have nothing to do with you. Health issues, a new job or extra duties in their current one, a move to a different part of the city or to a completely different city. Sometimes, though, people leave because they’re frustrated or bored. When they go, you will be forced to take a closer look at your processes and make the effort to improve things.
Finally, if you make them feel uncomfortable leaving, there is no chance at all that they will become a boomerang volunteer.
So, what is a boomerang volunteer, anyway?
A boomerang volunteer is, quite simply, a volunteer who left the organisation, and now wants to rejoin. They are wonderful people! Boomerang volunteers already understand the culture, have a reasonably clear idea of the organisation’s procedures (depending on how long they’ve been away), and the fact that they left and came back shows how much passion they have for your cause.
Chances are they will still need to go through background checks and some training upgrades, but the onboarding can be completed far more swiftly and economically than it can with a brand-new volunteer. Unless they’re put into a role that’s completely different from the one they were doing before, they can hit the ground running, and will take far less supervision and hand-holding than a newbie.
In many cases, they are also a good choice for leadership roles. They’ve demonstrated their loyalty and passion for the organisation, and they usually have a good knowledge of how things operate.
Boomerang volunteers are also easier to recruit.
The key to recruiting past volunteers is to stay in touch with them. Set aside a bit of time every week to reach out to past volunteers. If you had a reasonably close relationship with them when they were volunteering, ask about what’s happening in their lives. How’s the new job coming along? Did your knee surgery go well? That kind of thing. It makes people feel warm inside when someone they didn’t expect to hear from shows that level of caring.
Even if you didn’t have a close relationship, you can still make a point of keeping in contact. Treat them as you would a past donor. Send them an email on their birthdays or on holidays that they celebrate. Send them newsletters to update them on things that are going on in the organisation. Don’t spam them, but a friendly touch once a month or so will keep you top of mind, and remind them of why they volunteered in the first place.
Finally, keep an eye open for short-term projects that might be of interest to them. If a past volunteer has a new job and doesn’t have the time to fill a regular weekly shift, they may still be willing to check tickets at a weekend event. Health issues or a larger travel distance may keep a past volunteer from coming in to help, but they might be able to post things on social media or do other remote tasks.
Ignore the temptation to use the above suggestions to convince them not to leave in the first place.
Give them the opportunity to recharge depleted batteries and start looking back on their volunteering with a bit of nostalgia. A new job can have a steep learning curve, but may even out in a month or two. A move is always time-consuming and stressful. Give them a chance to settle in and get their bearings before you start offering opportunities. And offer them; don’t push them.
If they love you, they will come back. In their own time!
Past volunteers are often forgotten when we think about recruitment. Yet, if they’re treated well when they were volunteers, you allow them to exit gracefully, and you stay in touch with them after they leave, they may very well become boomerang volunteers. In other words, some of the best volunteers in your program.
