A few years ago I wrote a piece about how donors are seen as more important than volunteers. I’ve recently been thinking about another instance of that. We hear a lot about volunteers becoming donors, but what about donors becoming volunteers?
I was at a volunteer management conference a year or so ago, and one of the leaders at my table was talking about how the person in charge of fundraising had recently asked her to supply the list of volunteers so that they could be approached for donations. She felt a bit shocked, and was asking the others at the table if they’d ever had a similar request, and how we thought she should respond. It seemed that most of us had had that experience.
It started quite the conversation. Was it ethical? After all, the volunteers had provided the information to allow us to communicate with them regarding shifts and other volunteer-related issues, not to hit them up for money. Did the organisation have policies in place around data security, and who should have access to what information? Was the request supported by the executive? Might the leader face repercussions if she refused? I made an off-hand comment that she should say Yes, as soon as the fundraiser provided the list of donors so she could approach them to be volunteers!
It was a popular suggestion at the table, but would it really work?
Would financial donors start volunteering if asked? According to a 2015 study by Fidelity Charitable, “Time and Money”, they just might. The study of over 280 people who were both donors and volunteers showed that 58% of them remember donating before volunteering, while 42% remember volunteering first. Understand, this data is self-reported and doesn’t prove causality, but I find it fascinating.
There wasn’t much of a difference between the two sequences, yet I never hear people talking about donors becoming volunteers. There are lots of conversations around volunteers becoming donors, but little if anything about the reverse. Have you ever deliberately recruited volunteers from your organisation’s donors? And should you try? There are a few things to consider.
Privacy goes both ways.
As volunteers only provide their information for volunteer-related communication, donors only provide their information for receiving receipts and other donor-related communication. If you plan to approach donors or volunteers for multiple asks, perhaps they should be offered the option of receiving other communications from the organisation right up front.
If your concern is more around allowing someone outside volunteer engagement to have access to volunteer data (privacy rules differ by jurisdiction, so check the laws where you are), you could offer to send the fundraising information yourself, if they reciprocate by sending a call for volunteers to the donors. That way both departments protect their own information while still offering different ways to become involved with the organisation.
Be aware that there is a risk to approaching people with multiple asks.
A field experiment by Michael Yeomans and Omar Al-Ubaydli with a tax preparation organisation in Chicago found that the hours provided by their almost 1,700 volunteers declined after a fundraising call, especially amongst newer volunteers. You need to ask whether the same could happen in reverse, when donors are asked to volunteer. I wasn’t able to find a study that looked at that specifically, but it is something that needs to be considered.
On the other hand, the Fidelity study found that, for some donors, volunteering was a way of evaluating an organisation, so you could frame your invitation as an opportunity to see first-hand where their gift goes.
And audit your data. People who both donate and volunteer say there’s overlap between the organisations they donate to and those they volunteer at. How much overlap is there in your lists? Your database’s date stamps may show whether those that do both started as a donor or a volunteer first. Since there is so little research, your own data may be the best evidence! It would be good information for both you and your fundraising colleague to have.
I never did hear what happened with that leader at the conference.
I’m sure you can imagine the response if she did ask the fundraiser for a copy of the donor list. “We can’t do that; they might stop donating!” That answer seems to ignore the fact that someone might stop volunteering. “I can’t hand over people’s private information.” But the volunteer leader can??
Anyway, whether donors should be approached to become volunteers or not is a conversation I recommend you have with your leadership and fundraising department. Set policies and protocols for information exchanges. Discuss how to ensure that volunteers approached for donations or donors approached for volunteer opportunities don’t leave the organisation. Compare the volunteer and donor lists to see where there’s overlap. If nothing else, know that donors becoming volunteers is a conversation that we all should be having. Good luck!
