With funding cuts, spiralling costs and ever-increasing demand for their services, charities need volunteers more than ever – but, as most readers will be all too aware, volunteer numbers are in decline.
Since the start of the cost-of-living crisis, around a fifth stopped giving up their time, while a third have reduced their hours*. While Covid had an obvious impact on numbers, most now cite financial and/or time pressures as the main barrier*.
If your charity is struggling to attract volunteers, have you considered offering micro-volunteering opportunities instead?
For anyone unfamiliar with the term, micro-volunteering refers to activities that can be done for short periods, typically by multiple people – posting campaigns on social media, for example, or writing to fundraisers or people in hospital.
This could be a one-off activity or ongoing tasks done on an ad-hoc basis – often remotely, with volunteers doing the work online.
If activities require a greater time commitment, it may be possible to convert traditional volunteering roles into micro-volunteering opportunities by breaking them into segments.
If well-planned and managed, micro-volunteering has many benefits, including:
Get more done quickly
Many hands make light work, as the saying goes. And if you have more people who are familiar with a short-term task then if one person isn’t available someone else may be able to step in quickly.
Broaden the range of skills you have access to
Attracting different types of people, including those in nine-to-five jobs, students, or stay-at-home parents, means your charity is likely to benefit from a more varied mix of skills. And don’t forget: for online work you can recruit from anywhere, not just locally.
Familiarise a broader pool of people with the work of your charity
Some may find themselves in a position to offer more time in the future, for example, when they retire or cut back working hours. Familiarity with your charity may mean they’re more likely to offer it to you.
Less time commitment may attract more people
The prospect of helping out just for very short periods can feel more informal and less daunting than a traditional volunteering role. The busy person who cares about your cause can still lend a hand without tying themselves to an obligation they may have to retreat from in the future – with all the associated feelings of guilt.
Attracting micro-volunteers
It may seem obvious, but highlight what’s meaningful about the work, and how it will make a big difference to your charity’s cause – even for small, or one-off, tasks.
Try to make it sound easy, quick and non-intimidating – even fun. Try informal phrases like ‘help out’, ‘lend a hand’ or ‘support our work’ rather than ‘volunteering’.
Focus on flexibility: you’re happy for helpers to fit the work in when they can.
Be clear about specifics: What is the task you need doing? Will someone be able to do it from home – and if so, will they need access to a computer, a smartphone, an internet connection?
Measuring and reporting on the impact
The thought of evaluating the impact of short-term activities by various different people may seem onerous, but it’s important to do it. After all, if their work (as a whole) is contributing to your outcomes, why wouldn’t you want to capture this, and report on it?
It might also help you retain your volunteers. Even micro-volunteers want to know that what they’re doing is making a difference, otherwise they might not offer next time. Recording their efforts means you can feed this back to them in a way that feels real and motivating.
How a CRM can help
If you have a cloud-based CRM, any volunteers who are comfortable using computers or smartphones can log their own work. That way, you can easily measure the impact and outcomes without having to call on your paid staff to do it on their behalf. Even if just one or two of your volunteers are trained to do this, they could potentially help the others.
Of course, for this to be cost-effective, you’ll need a CRM where you don’t pay per user – otherwise it would be prohibitively expensive. Your CRM should also allow you to set robust user permissions so your volunteers will not be able to access any sensitive data irrelevant to their role.
For more information on how Charitylog can help, get in touch with our team today.
Is micro-volunteering the future? Maybe. Maybe not. But if you’re struggling to find volunteers and have exhausted all the standard routes it’s certainly worth a try.
See Charitylog’s blog: Save time and money: get your volunteers logging on
* Figures from a 2024 survey by UK investment firm Rathbones, reported in Charity Times (16 Jan 2025), and a 2023 report by NCVO.