Political candidates need volunteers to run a successful campaign. But getting volunteers is a tricky process which means that you need to run this drive religiously to get the maximum number of capable volunteers on board.
How to recruit volunteers for political campaigns? You must craft a volunteer recruitment strategy, incentivize volunteers, use social media, attend community events, get virtual volunteers, and introduce short-term volunteering opportunities, among other things, to get volunteers for your political campaign.
Here are the creative ways to get volunteers for your political campaign.
Ways to Recruit Volunteers for Your Political Campaign
1. Creating a volunteer recruitment strategy
A well-crafted volunteer recruitment strategy is the first step when you want to recruit political volunteers. Have a solid plan which will turn the tides of your volunteer recruitment program.
A successful volunteer recruitment strategy has the following aspects:
- Identify the needs of your political campaign.
- Target the right audience based on your campaign needs.
- Develop a compelling message to attract volunteers.
- Utilize multiple recruitment methods (more on this later in the post).
- Make it easy to apply.
- Provide training and support to volunteers.
- Reflect on the outcomes of your strategy and make changes as necessary.
Now when you have a workable volunteer recruitment strategy, this is the time to employ various methods of volunteer recruitment.
2. Bring Refer a friend Program in Your Campaign
Introduce a refer a friend program for volunteer recruitment, as it will encourage others to refer their friends and relatives to your campaign. Whenever someone refers a person to your campaign, you can incentivize them, which will motivate others as well to bring more volunteers for your campaign.
You can incentivize your volunteering affiliates in many forms, including:
- Inviting all the affiliates to a monthly/quarterly dinner.
- Giving away free merchandise like T-shirts, bags, dairies, etc.
3. Use Relational Organizing
Relational organizing is one of the easiest ways to have more volunteers on board for your campaign.
Ask existing volunteers and other people related to your campaign to harness the power of their personal network to get more volunteers for your campaign. This is possible if all the relevant people in your campaign will ask their family and friends to start volunteering for your campaign.
As relational organizing is based on emotions, many people are expected to join your campaign this way.
4. Political Merchandise to Attract Volunteers
Having your own merchandise is always beneficial when you are running for office. Your political merchandise gets your message across and lets others know about the type of campaign you are running.
So, have your merchandise ready and print volunteer recruitment messages on them so potential volunteers will know about existing opportunities in your campaign.
Remember to have catchy calls to action on your merchandise to increase the conversion rate of your message.
5. Run Ads in Newspapers and Digital Media
Newspaper and digital ads are also exceptional ways to get relevant eyeballs for your volunteer recruitment drive.
In this type of targeting, choosing the right audience is perhaps the most important thing, as you are investing money to run ads.
Put your ads in the type of media which is most famous among your potential volunteer candidates to get the best results.
6. Using social media
As young people are more likely to sign up for any campaign volunteer program, targeting them on social media platforms can be your best bet. Political campaigns are shifting towards social media, so these platforms are the breeding ground for any political campaign. You can use social media for volunteer recruitment by:
- Posting volunteer openings on your public pages, spaces, and profiles.
- Running ads on social media platforms for volunteer recruitment.
- Joining the relevant groups of volunteers and being active in them
Every social media has its own rules for running political ads. So check the relevant laws before kicking off your campaign. Here are the advertisement rules for famous social media platforms.
Check here the relevant laws for some most famous social media platforms:
Another way to use social media for volunteer recruitment drives is to update your audience about your daily activities and the stories of the already existing volunteers.
For this, you can:
- Post pictures of the existing volunteers running for your campaign
- Posting your pictures while meeting with existing volunteers to encourage others to apply.
7. Get Virtual volunteers
Political volunteers come in various forms, as they can do a wide range of tasks based on their expertise. If you are struggling to get physical volunteers, try to get virtual volunteers for your campaign. This is important in this era of technology where political campaigns are increasingly moving towards the internet.
Virtual volunteers can help you with remote tasks like managing your social media, data entry, and other likewise activities.
8. Reach Out to Old Volunteers and Voters
Whenever you are struggling to attract new volunteers for your campaign, it’s time to connect with your old volunteers.
This is why we have always stressed the need to get the contact information of your campaign volunteers and have your database maintained for the rainy day.
Even if you have a well-maintained database of your voters, reaching out to them for volunteering is also a good approach.
9. Celebrate volunteer of the month and year.
Political volunteers are always attracted to campaigns that bring fun to the table. And when this fun brings incentives to volunteers, it will even be more attractive. For this purpose, you can celebrate a volunteer of the month event in which you will announce the best volunteer of your political campaign and give them some reward.
Volunteers are often motivated when their work is recognized, so you can give a shield to the volunteer of the month.
10. Acknowledge Your Volunteers
Volunteers are repellent to those campaigns that do not appreciate them. Many volunteers join campaigns majorly because they get a certificate to add to their resume at the end of their volunteering period. This means that you must certify every volunteer and recognize their service, as it will motivate others volunteers to join your campaign.
11. Put a Market stall at Crowded Place.
You will often see political campaigns setting up their stalls in crowded locations for marketing purposes. But what about setting up your own stall and getting visible to people looking for opportunities to volunteer in a political campaign? Have a banner at the top of your stall to announce to the world you are looking for campaign volunteers.
Look for the community events that your voters are expected to visit. Put a stall at those events, and volunteers will automatically come to you.
12. Surveying volunteers Focus on the Findings.
Surveys are an important tool in any political campaign. This stands true for your volunteer recruitment strategy as well. Whenever a new volunteer signs up for your campaign, ask them how they have heard about you. Based on the answers of your volunteers, focus on the specific platform that is giving you the most leads.
The surveys question can look like this:
- Why did you join our volunteer program?
- How did you hear about us?
- What are the good and bad things about our volunteer recruitment strategy?
- What do you like the most about our campaign?
And so on…
You can either ask these questions upfront to volunteers or survey them from time to time during the campaign cycle.
Do not forget to make meaningful changes as per the feedback of the volunteers.
13. Invest On Training Volunteers
Volunteers are automatically attracted to campaigns where they are learning something new. So, have a volunteer training plan to equip them with new skills. While launching new training can be a whole investment, these programs are likely to give you long-term volunteers who will be an integral part of your campaign.
14. Embrace Feedback of Volunteers to Adjust Your Campaign
Be open to the feedback of volunteers during your political campaign. As volunteers are mostly unpaid, they have no vested interests in your campaign, which means that you should always listen to their feedback.
Make an anonymous slack channel where all volunteers should be able to give feedback to your campaign without showing their identity. Reflect on that feedback and adjust your campaign as necessary.
15. Build Online Community
Building an online community is also a valuable thing for your political campaign. By leveraging the power of such a community, you can easily start a volunteer recruitment drive and attract potential volunteers willing to bandwagon your campaign.
16. Create Sensation in Your Message
You can lose potential volunteers if you keep things boring. Be creative with your visuals and slogans as you keep the sensation on during your volunteer recruitment drive. This will keep volunteers hanging from the cliff, and they are more likely to join your campaign.
Try to create a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) campaign, which should tell volunteer candidates that they are likely to miss out on great things if they do not sign up for your campaign.
17. Leverage Influencer Marketing
People are highly inspired by the influencers they follow. Influencer marketing has always played a significant role in changing voters’ minds before elections.
But what about starting a volunteer recruitment drive using influencer marketing? You can easily partner with local influencers that your voters follow and use their social media following to get volunteers for your political campaigns.
18. Embrace Short Term Volunteering
Short-term volunteering is emerging as a powerful way of community engagement. People are likely to join campaigns that are not too strict on their agreements. Be open to short-term volunteering openings, and you will see a massive surge in volunteers coming your way.
19. Do SEO on Your Campaign Website
Have a volunteer recruitment page on your campaign website where everyone can join your campaign within a matter of clicks. Many potential volunteers who are looking for campaigns to volunteer search Google to see volunteering opportunities.
When you do search engine optimization of your political campaign, your volunteer recruitment page will automatically come up, resulting in more people signing up for your campaign.
20. Get a Volunteer Management Software
When you are in the initial phase of your political campaign, it is easier to manage volunteers manually since you don’t have too many people on board.
But once your campaign grows, it is the right time to get volunteer management software for your campaign. Good volunteer management software helps you in managing your volunteers and to keep track of the tasks assigned to them.
Having volunteer management software is also helpful in managing all the volunteers from a centralized dashboard which will also assist you in fast-tracking the volunteer recruitment procedure.
21. Pamphlets and flyers
Print flyers and pamphlets about your volunteer recruitment drive and let others know you are accepting applications. Distribute the pamphlets to relevant audiences to get the best conversion rate.
Final Words
While doing volunteering recruitment for your campaign, always remember a simple principle: the more volunteers you get, the better your campaign grows. There are always a wide range of benefits for volunteers, which is the very reason they join campaigns to volunteer.
While it is always good to look for specific skills in volunteers, do not turn down volunteers who are willing to work for your campaign and do not possess specific skills as per your requirement.
Political volunteers are always ready to go the extra mile, which is a positive sign for your campaign. Use volunteers as per their skill level, and if you get more volunteers than required, use them to scale up your political campaign and increase your messaging outreach to the voters.
