Ask for feedback and ideas

Make volunteers feel part of the club by asking for feedback and ideas.

Ongoing feedback from volunteers can help to improve volunteer experiences and retain volunteers. Asking for feedback lets volunteers know that you value them, care about them and are interested in their opinions and ideas.

Types of feedback

• Feedback on their area of responsibility/their role
• Current workload
• Ideas they may have to improve a procedure or new project
• Equipment/facility issues
• Conflict issues
• Any assistance or support they may require
• Good news stories (you can then share and celebrate)
• Likelihood on returning or taking on new roles

Ways to gain feedback from your volunteers

The method of obtaining feedback may depend on the volunteer’s role and could include email, phone call, anonymous survey or suggestion box. You may look to include both formal and informal methods to capture your feedback depending on the time of year. As an example, an informal face to face check in can be good to get a sense of how volunteers are feeling. An end of season review may be better informed by a formal survey.

Make sure to record and store all answers on your club shared drive and use to create an action plan for areas for improvement.

Create an action plan to improve the volunteer experience

Once you have evaluated the feedback you should have an idea of what areas need to be actioned.

• Step 1: Create a list of areas or procedures for improvement based on the feedback.
• Step 2: Number the areas or procedures based on their importance. This should be your plan of attack, working on the most important things first.
• Step 3: Create a schedule for when you want these changes to happen by, and what needs to be done to make those changes.

Resources

• Steps for obtaining feedback from volunteers, opens in a new tab Volunteering WA
• Volunteer survey template, opens in a new tab Vicsport / Volunteering Victoria