Sarah Ford | October 16, 2014
Increasing Participation in Your Volunteer Program
By Ryan Scott
A question that corporate philanthropy leaders and volunteer program managers ask me all the time is this: “How can we increase and improve volunteer participation in our program?”
Ensuring that your company has a high volunteer participation rate is one of the missions of my company, Causecast. So we make it a priority to help our clients get to the promised land of high employee buy-in.
Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. That’s why we encourage our clients to make the first steps of volunteering as inviting as possible.
What does that look like, exactly? My friend Chris Jarvis, of Realized Worth, recommends a first stage of volunteering that is a highly social, accessible, low barrier to entry event or experience. This is something that’s well organized, feels “safe” (you can show up without needing anything and do it as a part of a group), and requires no long-term commitment.

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