What chapter doesn’t need more volunteer muscle? While associations in general are feeling the pressure in engaging volunteers, chapters’ pain is more acute. We could go into depth why chapters are struggling however simply put it’s a time/flexibility issue. One counterpunch is to make volunteering fun and appreciated.
That brings me to RAPS – Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society and their volunteer appreciation strategy.
Lindsay Currie, Director of Stakeholder Engagement, shares the RAPS created a cross-department campaign with a dual purpose: engage more volunteers while bringing recognition to the volunteers that help keep our organization moving forward. A bonus was the opportunity to create a more personal touch point in their marketing and communications. The results – beyond tweets and thank yous – led to more volunteers. This combined with launching a new volunteer portal has more than doubled their volunteer pool and their volunteer manager reports having an easier time getting people to raise their hand and fulfill their duties. Okay – here’s the connection to the headline – that includes their chapters!
The key pieces of the recognition campaign included:
- Highlighting volunteers by collecting stories to populate content on members-only community, in member newsletter and in the RAPS blog.
- A flyer and email on our RAPS volunteering.
- Building a robust set of thank you’s including thank you card mailing and email, notebooks, coffee cups, pins and certificates.
Lindsay and her team are participating in CEX: Association Component Exchange on October 13 – so if you’re coming to the all-day event on chapters, ask her and Wes Carr for more details. Oh, check out their samples at the resource sharing table!