Cranfield Trust: Essentials to Excellence - Volunteer Recruitment, Retention and Reducing the Barriers

Volunteer recruitment and retention are becoming increasingly difficult across the voluntary sector, with rising demand for services and the added strain of the current economic climate on people’s time. 

The main focus of this session will be the importance of stepping back to view your recruitment process through the eyes of potential volunteers. How will they learn about your opportunities? What motivates them to engage? And most importantly, what does their onboarding experience look like? These reflections can help ensure you don't lose potential volunteers along the way. 

Clare Nazerali will provide an overview of the research project Home-start Hillingdon undertook to understand the barriers preventing people from diverse backgrounds from volunteering, sharing key findings and actionable insights, along with the positive impact they changes they made have had. She will also reflect on the broader lessons learned about volunteer recruitment and retention.