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You have a huge special event coming up, you've signed up for an online managment and scheduling system -- now what? After the question about recruiting, this is probably the question that we receive most.
Become Familiar with the System
Many of the available systems are fairly extensive and there is a learning curve. Give yourself plenty of time before using it to be sure that you can work with it. When the usual craziness happens in the days immediately before your event, you don't want to be struggling with the system trying to figure out how to get it to do what you need it to do.
Set Up the Tasks
It's important to give your volunteers as much information as possible about the tasks they'll be doing. Is there a person they'll need to find? Is there a meeting place? What will they be doing? It's also important that they know who you are and how they can contact you. Always keep in mind that not all potential volunteers have email addresses so you'll need to include other ways for them to contact you.
Answer Questions before You Get Them
If you've done this before, you know that you'll get a lot of the same questions (e.g. do I get free admission, will the free t-shirt look good on a burly man in his 40's, etc.). If you have a place to go ahead and answer these questions, be sure to do so before the first volunteers come to your site. This will save you an enormous amount of time, especially in the weeks immediately before your event (i.e. when there's no time to spare).
Make Sure that Your Volunteers Know that They Are Part of a Team
We know that you're busy in the planning of a successful event, but it's really important to keep in contact with your volunteers. In some cases, they will be flying across the country to volunteer for you, so you'll want them to know that they're efforts are appreciated and that the event can't succeed without them. We don't have any evidence-based research to support this, but it seems pretty clear to us that volunteer managers who don't follow this advice seem to have more no-shows than those who do. Tweet, do video blogs, do podcasts, write messages on the website, but just do something to let them know that you are a living, breathing human being and you need their help. Whatever it is that you do, always keep in mind those volunteers without email since they usually are just as dedicated as the others and you don't want to risk alienating them by only sending out updates by email. If you're responsibilities to the event keep you from being a good volunteer leader, ask one of the volunteers to take the lead.
New Volunteers
You'll want to keep a close eye on the online system that you use for new volunteer registrations. When you use an online system, it's pretty common for volunteers to sign up for an event but not input their availability or choose specific tasks. You'll need to follow up and encourage them to complete the process or you risk losing their help at the event. Even if they do complete the process, it's a nice touch to send them a thank you message anyway for their willingness to help.
Recruiting
You'll be one of the lucky few if you have an event where you'll have plenty of volunteers coming to you without having to do any recruitment. The earlier that you start the recruitment process (see our previous post for ideas), the better your mental health will be as the event draws near.
Confirm, Then Re-Confirm
If you've started the recruitment process well ahead of time (like you should have), you'll need to check in with your volunteers at least a month before the event to be sure that they're still able to make it especially if many of them will be traveling. This will give you enough time to find replacements if necessary. Immediately before the event, you'll want to confirm again. Even if you only have a couple of days to schedule replacements, it's still better than trying to do it on-site at the event.
