Building Your Volunteer Network: Recruit Volunteers

This is the first post in a series about how any organization with 501(c)(3) status can build a grassroots advocacy network and do lobbying within the confines of the law.

Step One: Recruit Volunteers

Begin by considering where you can find volunteers for your lobbying efforts. Start with your organization’s strengths – mine your database of donors and volunteers: Who in your organization has relationships with legislators or people with connections to legislators? Who are the effective communicators?

To be successful, you must involve all facets of your organization in your advocacy efforts – including your board of directors. Board members are the leaders in demonstrating the behavior the organization wants from its members. If members of the board aren’t willing to help, it will be difficult to motivate people further down in the organizational structure.

Board members can also be key in recruiting volunteers for the advocacy cause. Too often, boards believe it is the job of staff to recruit volunteers. Although it is appropriate for staff to provide the tools, ultimately the best advocates are recruited by satisfied volunteers.

The Internet is the new frontier for recruiting volunteers for grassroots advocacy. Many nonprofits build a database of past supporters and contributors and ask them to join the cause – usually by asking them to send emails to legislators. That’s a good first step. But leaders of strong grassroots networks are always looking for ways to have personal contact with volunteers recruited online. Just as important, grassroots leaders don’t rely on the Internet to find all their volunteers.

Some organizations ask core volunteers to serve as district captains who then recruit volunteers from their neighborhoods. There might be one district captain for each legislative district or one who is responsible for a few adjacent legislative districts.

The Tobacco Free Mass Coalition – whose mission is to reduce death and disease in Massachusetts caused by tobacco use – hosts house parties to recruit volunteers. A volunteer who’s already involved develops a list of friends, neighbors, and other potential volunteers, sends out an invitation, and provides food and drink.

“The night of the party is mostly mingling and very relaxed,” said Diane Pickles, executive director of the Tobacco Free Mass Coalition, “then I spend about five minutes making an appeal for funding – I describe Tobacco Free Mass and the work we do and ask each attendee to make a donation. We also urge all attendees to get involved as grassroots advocates by signing up for our grassroots network.

“I love the parties,” she went on, “because they are a wonderful way for us to achieve two goals at the same time – raise funds for our coalition from individual donors and recruit new advocates.”