"How do I get more volunteers for my event?"
OA asks an important question, "How do I get more volunteers for my event?"
Without volunteers, some events wouldn't happen. This is especially true with clients who are not-for-profit organizations.
Let's start with answering OA's question. Stay tuned, because there is a quintessential secondary point!
The best place to get volunteers for your event is by going back to previous event attendees. You should have an email list of previous customers. Clients have sent a well-crafted email to previous event attendees and received all the volunteers they needed (with a catch – secondary point*).
A social media suggestion ...
You can also use, boosted (paid) Facebook posts to find volunteers. But your audience targeting methodology and post message needs to be spot on. Furthermore, if you're thinking of posting to Facebook without boosting your posts, don't waste your time! "Because as of June 2016, the Organic Reach of a Facebook Page had fallen to a mere 2%." And that was in 2016!
Source: Patel, N. (2019, February 15). Is Facebook Organic Reach Really Dead? Retrieved April 10, 2019, from https://neilpatel.com/blog/is-facebook-organic-reach-dead/
*What's the catch? (secondary point on volunteers)
One client used their email list of previous event attendees coupled with a simple "become a volunteer" email. That client received over 85 online volunteer sign-ups in less than 3 days. Two other clients used boosted Facebook ads and ended up getting more volunteer sign-ups than their events needed.
Mission accomplish, right?!? Negative!
What ended up happening is that clients, referenced above, received a flood of volunteer sign-ups. And that giant flood of interest is the point where things became tricky. Because not all volunteer's a created equal!
Years ago, a beer festival client found this out the hard way. They ended up with more than enough online volunteer sign-ups. The challenge was that at the event several volunteers confused volunteering their time with volunteering to drink a lot of beer for free. Thankfully, nobody was permanently damaged ... just bruised egos.
In hindsight, the screening of volunteers, before they signed up, would have most likely eliminated issues. And poor volunteer behavior isn't limited to beer festivals.
If you going to get your volunteers online using email or Facebook, have a well thought out screening process in place ... before allowing someone to submit their information. Your screening process should leave you with only the highest quality volunteers.