How to Promote Voluntary Work in your Association

1. No time at fixed moments:

Many volunteers cannot always participate in voluntary work or attend scheduled meetings, conference calls or online sessions because of their main job. Their valuable expertise and opinions therefore cannot be shared. Individual knowledge is lost.

2. Too labour-intensive:

Many associations lack a sustainable way of giving all members the same foundation for their work. Volunteers must often gather and process missed events, information and results on their own. Complex issues must be understood separately by each member. This is inconvenient and time-consuming. Engagement inevitably stagnates and declines.

3. Too complicated:

Volunteers are not always up to date and often lose track of their tasks. In many associations, both email and additional systems are used as tools and communication channels. Important information is therefore not transparent and hard to find.

4. Frustrating processes:

Collaborating on documents becomes much more difficult. Files must be sent manually via email to keep everyone updated. With parallel editing, important changes are overlooked or lost.

5. Not enough influence:

Decisions cannot be made quickly because email communication is inherently slow. Not everyone is able to respond promptly to queries. Some may even drop out of the distribution list and thus be excluded from the decision-making process. In the worst case, the voices of certain members or volunteers are not heard. The association therefore does not know what its members want and cannot represent its sector effectively.

The good news: yes, volunteering can be revitalised – and it is not difficult.

Create a central place in your association’s network where all members can meet, exchange ideas and work together. With an interactive member portal, you can provide a space for all kinds of information: documents, dates, records, templates and tasks. Members no longer need to search endlessly. A broad and easy-to-use set of tools becomes available and can be used quickly in everyday life. This strengthens motivation and enables faster, more effective participation in between other commitments.

Create an interactive knowledge collection. From court rulings to project overviews to templates tailored specifically to committees, all members can quickly and easily find relevant information and insights.

Simplify collaboration among volunteers and committee members by allowing joint document editing. Whether in real time or asynchronously, members can edit Office documents directly in the browser without additional licences. You can enforce change-tracking so no adjustments go unnoticed. Document merging becomes unnecessary: all members work on the same file and always have the latest version in front of them.

• Fast communication leads to fast understanding: Give your members a quick overview of current developments, relevant interim results and final decisions. The faster they can get up to speed, the less time they need to meaningfully contribute.
• Simplified collaboration between full-time staff and volunteers: Make exchange easier with a complete communication history. A shared activity feed lets all members instantly access previous ideas, findings and results. All necessary information is stored centrally and can be found as needed.
• Quick access to files: Provide an optimal file structure with clear organisation and metadata for easy search and filtering. Every file link used in your network always leads to the most up-to-date version. Older versions no longer cause conflicts, and members always access the correct file.
• New participation formats with lower barriers: Gather valuable opinions and specific insights from members on particular topics. With quick surveys, mood barometers or previously collected viewpoints, you can obtain meaningful input at short notice and enable further participation. The perceived barriers to active involvement become minimal.
• Smooth onboarding for new volunteers: Make the start for new volunteers fast and easy. With access to previous discussions, decisions and documents, members can familiarise themselves independently. New volunteers are integrated more quickly and can contribute effectively without much effort.