Nearly every client or prospective client I speak with opens the conversation the same way: “I think I have a recruitment issue.” When I ask why, the answer is always the same: they don’t have enough volunteers. When I dig a little deeper, though, we discover that, with close to half of those clients, it’s not a recruitment issue at all. Or if it is, recruitment is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. I once spoke with an organisation that was convinced they had a recruitment problem while receiving three to five new applications every single week! Turns out their real issues were training and culture. They were filling the bathtub just fine. They’d simply forgotten to put the plug in.
According to research by Sage Journals, there are many reasons why volunteers leave. So before you spend another hour crafting the perfect volunteer recruitment post, ask yourself whether the problem might actually be somewhere else entirely.
Like in training.
Training problems can happen two ways. Some organisations require so much upfront that volunteers feel stuck in a waiting room before they’re allowed to do anything meaningful. So they get bored and leave. If your roles genuinely require significant preparation, find ways to involve people while they’re still in training. Let your hospice volunteer greet visitors or help prep meals during those six weeks before they’re cleared to work with patients. By the time they finish training, they’re already part of the team.
On the other hand, too little training leaves volunteers floundering. Nobody wants to feel incompetent, and if people feel unsupported they’ll stop showing up. Not every role requires weeks of preparation, but virtually all of them require something. If nothing else, pair new volunteers with a mentor until they find their footing. And whatever training you provide should be directly relevant to the role. Sitting through irrelevant modules doesn’t just waste time, it shows a lack of respect.
Or it could be your onboarding.
Onboarding is about making someone feel like they’re genuinely part of the team, not just filling a slot. Keep an eye out for cliques forming among your volunteers. They happen naturally, but they can be devastating to anyone stuck on the outside. Watch for signs of bias in your other volunteers, your staff, and honestly, yourself. If someone seems to be drifting away from the group, get curious about why. If a volunteer doesn’t feel like part of the community, they will leave.
Take a look at your scheduling.
We all have complicated schedules. If your opportunities only come in large, fixed blocks requiring a standing weekly commitment, you’ve disqualified a lot of people who would otherwise love to help. Can you offer shorter shifts, micro opportunities, or tasks that can be done remotely on a volunteer’s own time? Small adjustments can open the door to people who want to contribute but simply can’t fit your current model into their lives.
Building in flexibility also reduces burnout. Make it easy and guiltfree for someone to step away for a while. When someone shows up because they feel they have to, they’ll push past their safe limits.
Maybe the problem is in your management practices.
You can have a mission volunteers believe in, a welcoming culture, and flexible scheduling, and still lose people to poor management. Unclear communication, inadequate resources, and disorganised coordination frustrate even the most committed volunteers. Think about what it would feel like to arrive for a shift with no idea what you’re supposed to be doing, or to send a question and wait two weeks for a reply. Each experience chips away at how valued they feel.
Good volunteer management doesn’t have to be complicated: clear role descriptions, reliable communication, and a coordinator who is genuinely accessible. If you’re stretched thin, find ways to build your capacity. This is not a recruitment issue; it’s a management one, and the fix is very different.
What is your culture like?
Culture is hard to define but immediately felt. If the prevailing attitude — spoken or unspoken — is that volunteers are a nice-to-have rather than essential team members, they will sense it. Are they invited to strategy sessions? Is thanks is specific or generic? How is their contribution is connected back to the mission? One of the top reasons volunteers disengage is feeling undervalued or disconnected from the organisation’s mission.
Building a healthier culture doesn’t require a major overhaul. Introduce volunteers to staff by name. Celebrate milestones. Tell them specifically how their work made a difference. Culture is built in the accumulated weight of ordinary moments — and it can be rebuilt the same way.
The next time you find yourself thinking “we really need to recruit more volunteers,” try asking a different question first: why are we losing the ones we have? Answering that might save you a lot of wasted effort. Because chances are it’s not a recruitment issue at all!
