Awareness & Consideration

How do we generate interest in the mission of our organization and invite people to take action?

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Developing an interest in volunteering for AFS

The important element of this stage is people learn about volunteer opportunities. We want to make people curious about the organization and the variety of volunteer paths available.

To achieve this, we need to offer multiple easy to find, easy to use sources of information. Some methods include our website, posters around the community, informational events, personal recommendations, and visiting the local AFS office.

However, the sources are not enough on their own. We need a structured and sustainable communication system to respond to volunteer inquiries. We need to assure 100% of the inquiries are responded to in a timely and appropriate manner.

Check out this great video AFS New Zealand created to raise awareness for prospective volunteers:

Steps to Consider

Developing systems that provide proper follow up to potential volunteers will reflect on a bigger volunteer base. As you create these strategies make sure you consider the following elements:

  • How many ways do potential volunteers currently have to contact AFS? Can you think of anything you could add?
  • How easy is it to contact AFS? Is it intuitive or do potential volunteers have to expend significant effort to locate contact details? What can be done to make it easier?

Voices from the Network

About the awareness stage, we asked the AFS Network: in your opinion, how can we better engage interested volunteers while creating a sustainable awareness stage? Below are some of the answers we got:

AFS Turkey

“Diverse communication channels are great! They should be aggregated into one place  that someone is checking regularly. Also, it is essential to define steps in the process for engaging new volunteers.”

AFS Brazil

“A well-designed system for responding to new volunteers. Train chapter presidents on how to follow-up with interested volunteers. In Brazil, the OD staff team makes the first contact with the interested volunteer.”

AFS Norway

“Local volunteers could receive an email notification when a volunteer inquiry is submitted for their chapter. A new volunteer should automatically get an invite to any chapter meetings/gatherings and the local president’s information.”

AFS Australia

“We share information of interested volunteer with the chapters. However, a systematic approach to ensure all inquiries are followed up within the same way is key. Having dedicated volunteers responsible for new volunteers in each local chapter helps a lot.” 

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Now is your turn to create a recruitment campaign!

Ready to begin recruiting volunteers? Find information on external promotion, activities and all stages of a recruitment campaign on our Chapter Development Toolkit.

The following Stages of Engagement:

  1. Invitation and Recruitment

  2. Commitment

  3. Induction