Using limited resources to tackle large-scale problems

Donor Organizer Hub facilitated a workshop on building volunteer fundraising squads at Innovative Fundraising’s Stories + Money = Change conference in Chicago.

In this workshop, we were addressing a large-scale problem: recruiting and retaining volunteers is challenging for grassroots organizations. This problem has large barriers:

• People don’t have enough time/resources to volunteer.

• People don’t think they’d make good volunteers.

• Volunteers don’t feel they’re making a difference.

• People forget they committed to volunteer.

With 15 minutes and 30 participants, we developed six pages of volunteer recruitment and retention ideas!

Here’s how:

1. Brainstorming: Each person had 4 index cards - they wrote 1 idea per card (4 minutes)

2. Design Telephone: In trios, each person passes their 2 favorite ideas to the person to the left of them and adds additional suggestions/comments (3 minutes)

3. Share Out: In trios, each group shares their ideas and sees if any ideas could be combined (5 minutes)

4. Data Collection: Ask all participants to add their ideas into a shared document - or ask them to pass their index cards to a facilitator who will do this for them (3 minutes)

Feel free to try this idea within your group’s context to generate ideas for upcoming fundraising campaigns, volunteer drives, or whatever other endeavors could use some creative energy!