Writing volunteer opportunity descriptions can be difficult. You need to communicate enough about the activity involved to allow people to decide, while not boring the reader and losing their interest. Your chances of recruiting your ideal volunteer candidates go up dramatically if you know your audience, effectively appeal to them, encourage collaboration, use online resources to write and edit your description, and write briefly and succinctly.
Get to Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience will help you write an accurate volunteer opportunity description, which is important because that helps minimize dissatisfaction and the subsequent negativity and turnover.
Before you begin writing your letter, you’ll want to have a solid understanding of who you are appealing to. What is your ideal volunteer like? Spend some time and create a volunteer persona that will guide the rest of your writing process. A volunteer persona is a representation of a typical member of your target demographic, based on behavioral data you have gathered. Personas make it easier for you to mobilize supporters because you know their goals, motivations, and priorities. Knowing your audience will help you write an accurate volunteer opportunity description, which is important because that helps minimize dissatisfaction and the subsequent negativity and turnover. When people have realistic expectations heading into a volunteer scenario they are more likely to have a positive experience. One great way to get to know what your ideal volunteer is like is to get feedback from your current volunteers.
Make it Appealing
Try and highlight the benefits of volunteering with your organization. People looking to volunteer obviously have a desire to help other people, but many are also looking to achieve some personal development. You could talk about the potential that exists for them to improve their physical wellbeing through exercise, raising self-esteem, or learning new skills. People are often motivated to volunteer to make new friends, face new challenges, experience different cultures, make professional contacts, and explore new career options, so keep that in mind as you write. Let them know that they will be making an impact, often the best way to do this is to tell a quick story of a volunteer’s positive experience. Discuss a certain problem or challenge that your organization helps find solutions to, and then talk about how volunteers fit into that solution. How you say something is as important as what you say. Make your writing compelling and persuasive, a message that motivates people to take action.
Encourage Collaboration
If your organization encourages an atmosphere of collaboration, make sure to include that in your volunteer opportunity description. Let your audience know that they will have opportunities to provide input, and make a difference by helping provide solutions. Frame their involvement as them helping to build something and work on a project. Your volunteers will feel like they can become part of making a difference and creating positive change.
Use Online Resources to Write the Perfect Volunteer Opportunity
Clear communication is important, so make sure your letter is well-written and edited. Writing doesn’t come naturally to everyone, so don’t be afraid to get some help from the experts. Here are some handy resources to get you started:
#1. BoomEssays and Assignment Help – Check out these writing guides for ideas and suggestions on how to improve your targeted volunteer opportunity. Even an experienced writer can benefit from some extra guidance once in a while.
#2. Essayroo and Academized – These are helpful proofreading tools you can use to make sure your writing is polished and free of errors. Don’t take any chances, get some help from the experts.
Get to the Point and Keep Things Light
People don’t want to read a long and boring description; you’ve got to grab their attention and then quickly get your key points across before they lose interest.
A good volunteer opportunity description is brief, succinct, and clearly outlines expectations.
There is no need for a lengthy letter, with long paragraphs and unnecessary jargon. A catchy headline helps to get a reader interested; it should be a call to action that gets attention. It’s never a bad idea to do some A/B testing on groups similar to your target audience and see what works best before sending anything out.
Conclusion
Writing a targeted volunteer opportunity can be tricky, but you can increase your letter’s effectiveness significantly by following a few tips. Start off by getting to know your audience, appeal to them effectively, encourage collaboration, use online writing and editing resources, and keep things brief and to the point. Follow these five tips to write a great targeted volunteer opportunity.
