172 – How to Give Clear Volunteer Feedback with Confidence

July 24, 2025

Episode #172: How to Give Clear Volunteer Feedback with Confidence 

Do you find it uncomfortable giving feedback to volunteers? You’re not alone!  

In this episode of Volunteer Nation, Tobi Johnson walks you through how to deliver clear, confident feedback to your volunteers in a way that fosters growth, maintains trust, and avoids discomfort. Whether it’s reinforcing great behavior or correcting issues, Tobi shares real examples and practical scripts you can start using right away. 

You’ll learn the difference between corrective, confirming, and the coercive feedback you should avoid at all costs. Plus, Tobi explains how a little preparation and a whole lot of clarity can make all the difference in your volunteer management! 

Volunteer Feedback – Episode Highlights

• [01:00] – Why Feedback Feels So Hard 
• [03:20] – Corrective Feedback: What It Is and How to Use It 
• [07:30] – Confirming Feedback: The Power of Positivity 
• [14:00] – The Feedback to Avoid: Coercive Feedback 
• [20:00] – How Coercion Damages Culture 
• [22:30] – Better Alternatives to Coercive Feedback 
• [23:50] – Final Thoughts: Giving Feedback with Confidence 

Volunteer Feedback – Quotes from the Episode 

“Corrective feedback can be very helpful in pointing things out. Some of the things to do are to be clear, specific, and factual about the behavior and the standard. Also, focus on the behavior, not the person’s character, and offer support and discuss solutions.” 

“Fear doesn’t motivate genuine commitment. It drives people away. Nobody wants to feel fear when they’re volunteering. Coercive feedback damages morale for everyone who witnesses it.” 

Helpful Links

• Volunteer Management Progress Report 
• VolunteerPro Impact Lab 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #168: Note to Nonprofit Execs – Supporting Volunteers is Everyone’s Job  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #171: Practical Community Building Tips for Your Volunteer Team 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #140 – Volunteer Performance Issues – How to (Finally) Have that Chat!  

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #172 Transcript: How to Give Clear Volunteer Feedback with Confidence 

Tobi: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and I want ask you a question on a scale of one to 10, how much do you love giving volunteers feedback? How much do you love giving volunteers feedback? On a scale of one to 10, I would hazard a guess that many of you don’t like doing it that much, that it feels uncomfortable, that you worry that volunteers will take your input the wrong way, that you worry people will get angry and leave and think that you’re treating them unfairly. 

And as Brene Brown says. Clear is kind and we’re going to work on that. Today we’re going to talk about how to give clear volunteer feedback with confidence. I’m going to help you understand the different ways of giving feedback, ways that you can balance. I’m going to share two different balanced ways of giving feedback and I’m also going to share one way of giving feedback that you should never use because it’s just not good. 

During our Volunteer Pro Impact lab, we do monthly member huddles, and during those calls we have conversations about things that go on. I ask people what they’re working on. People ask for feedback, and I often find. That folks are very interested or want to know more about exactly what to say in certain situations. 

Now you do, you boo. You need to make up your own words. But sometimes it does help to have someone else model how to say the words and sometimes it gives us a little bit of extra clarity about the way we might approach giving feedback or having. Difficult or crucial conversations with folks. We always sort of think the worst, or not always, but oftentimes we think the worst. 

When we’re about to have a conversation with someone, we’re going to have to share some negative. Input with, at least that is that way for me. I never loved giving people negative feedback or constructive feedback about their work. It just wasn’t my favorite thing to do. And maybe you’re one of those people who doesn’t really like to do it. 

Well, let’s talk about how you can do this with confidence, and I’m going to give you a few exactly what to say, quotes. But again. Take a moment and see if they work for you or if you want to tweak them a little so they work better. Sometimes it helps to write these down before you have the conversation so that you go into that conversation feeling like you’re prepared. 

So, let’s talk about how to give feedback with confidence. I’m going to focus on volunteer feedback and coaching. Which gets to the heart of effective communication and performance management with volunteers, but you might find that some of these tips work well with paid staff as well. I’ll share two kinds of volunteer feedback and one type of feedback you should never give. 

All right, so let’s start with. Our first type of feedback, and that’s the type of feedback that you are most accustomed with, and that is corrective feedback. Corrective feedback addresses a gap between expected and actual performance or behavior. You’re basically calling out; this is the standard and you’re not meeting the standard. 

The goal is to help the person you’re coaching change or improve something very specific. So, we need to be specific about behaviors. So, it’s not about, your attitude is bad, but maybe when you are in a meeting, you don’t participate and. Add your feedback or add your contributions. You’re never adding contributions, and maybe for that reason, we think your attitude is bad. 

So, it’s not about attitudes, it’s about behaviors. So, an example of corrective feedback might look something like this. I noticed you missed the deadline for logging your volunteer hours in the future. Please post them by Friday so the team has the time to review and include them in our weekly report. 

Let’s talk about what might help you meet that deadline in the future. So, you can see what I’ve added into this or what I’ve included. First, it’s just a clear declaration of the behavior that was noticed. So, you missed the deadline for logging your volunteer hours. Then there’s a clear request in the future, please post them by Friday. 

There’s a clear deadline so that the team has time to review. So, you’re sharing a little bit about the impact, about why this is important to meet this deadline. And then you say, let’s talk about what might help you meet the deadline in the future. So, you’re offering support. The goal with corrective feedback is not to give someone a hard time. 

It’s to help explain clearly that what standard the standards are and the gap between what, where they are now and what they need to do to meet the standard. It’s just plain, clear communication and I think most people want to do a good job and they also want to know that you’re watching them do a good job. 

Corrective feedback can be very helpful in pointing things out. Some of the things to do are to be clear, specific, and factual about the behavior and the standard. Also, focus on the behavior, not the person’s character, like their attitude, et cetera. Focus on the behavior and offer support and discuss solutions. 

That was done in this example, what not to do. Don’t attack the person like you’re so disorganized or don’t generalize. You always mess this up and don’t give vague advice. You should do better next time. Those are all, if someone has not logged their hours, you don’t need to say, you always don’t log your hours. 

You miss the deadline every time. Specifically, you should say you have missed the deadlines on these dates. So, I hope that helps you think through corrective feedback. There are aspects to it, right? You’re describing that specific behavior. You’re asking for the or the desired behavior, and what you’ve seen them do as that, and where the gap is. 

You’ve asked for a change. You’ve talked about why, and then you offered support, right? Those are the ways to effectively offer corrective feedback. Now, I want to talk about another type of feedback that feels a little bit better than corrective feedback and can also nip the need for corrective feedback in the bud by supporting and giving people positive feedback in the form of confirming feedback. 

The more positive feedback you can give volunteers early on, when they’re first trying to learn a skill or. Exhibit A behavior like getting their hours logged by a certain time or date, that confirming feedback reinforces and acknowledged desired behavior or performance. It shows the person what to keep doing. 

Confirming feedback also gives your volunteers information about what’s right and what’s expected and what the standards are. And so, we want to do this type of very powerful, and in fact, confirming feedback can be almost more powerful than corrective feedback. Not really, but it, but if it’s done enough, it can be very powerful. 

I think humans have a negativity bias, so we pay attention more to negative feedback than positive feedback. But if you offer positive feedback in enough doses, it can also help people prevent. Making mistakes that would end up with negative feedback or corrective feedback. I shouldn’t say positive or negative. 

Is she correcting or confirming is better, is a better way to frame those. So, let’s talk about an example of confirming feedback. Thank you for greeting the new volunteers and making them feel so welcome at the orientation training. Your warm approach really helps people feel comfortable joining the team, and you’ve been a great help to me. 

So, this type of feedback, you’re talking about your thanking people for specific behavior. Thank you for greeting the new volunteers and making them feel so welcome. You’re talking about. The characteristics, not the character of the person, but the characteristics of what they’ve done. Well, your warm approach really helps people feel comfortable joining the team. 

And then you’re also, the third thing you’re doing is talking about a. How it’s important to you. So, you might say something like, it was helpful to me. I didn’t have to worry that folks wouldn’t feel welcome, or that folks would feel alone with you when you were helping me. Something like that. So, when we do this, we want to be timely because constructive feedback, or I’m sorry, confirming feedback. 

Well, both types of feedback, but confirming feedback in June. Specifically, if you wait too long, they won’t be in the moment of what happened. They may not even remember what happened. So, you need to be timely, like right after it happens or as soon as possible. Be genuine and specific. What exactly did they do well? 

And then connect it to impact. Why does it matter? So, in this case, your warm approach really helps people feel comfortable joining the team. There are some things you should not do as well when you’re offering confirming feedback. Don’t give generic praise, like good job without the context of what it was. 

Don’t use it Manipulatively. So, I’m going to give you props and then later I’m going to ask you to do more. Like, that’s not the way to use this and don’t overdo it so it loses its meaning. Sometimes I think our volunteer appreciation, if it’s not specific, it becomes. Sort of meaningless if it’s just general and not specific. 

It’s not that it becomes something that’s just loses its meaning. So those are two types of feedback If you can balance them and you can focus on being clear in your communications. These conversations don’t have to be super long. And you explaining what happened that you want to praise somebody for, or what happened that you want to help someone correct. 

These don’t have to be overly lengthy. You can see these are short statements, but you might be able to, maybe the longer part of the conversation, especially when it’s corrective feedback, is how to support folks to get where they need to be according to whatever standard you have, whatever minimum expectation. 

Let’s pause for a quick break from my volunteer feedback tips. After the break, I want to share one kind of volunteer feedback you don’t want to give. I’ll be right back.  

VOLUNTEER PRO IMPACT LAB 

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In addition, and maybe this is the most important, you need a volunteer program design that directly contributes to your organization’s most critical goals. That’s where the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab comes in. When it comes to effective volunteer engagement, our bespoke volunteer strategy Success path model, which is the heart of our resources and strategic advising, will help you transform your volunteer strategy from fundamental to a fully mature what’s working now approach and all in less time with our online assessment, you’ll quickly gain clarity on precisely where to focus your efforts and we’ll provide recommendations for the exact steps needed for sustainable growth regardless of how large or small your organization is or what your cause impact area or focus is. 

Our program development and implementation support model will help you build a strong foundation so volunteerism can thrive at your good cause. If you’re interested in learning more, go to volpro.net/join and we’ll share how to get started and what’s involved.  

Okay, I’m back. Let’s continue with my volunteer feedback tips, and I want to share right now a type of volunteer feedback that you do not want to give. Do not want to give, and that is coercive feedback. We talked about corrective feedback addresses the gap between expected and actual performance or behavior, and the goal is to help the person change or improve something specific. 

Confirming feedback is about reinforcing and acknowledging desired behaviors or performance, and it shows what you want. That volunteer to keep doing, that’s going well. And when you give people positive feedback, they want to continue to do that. Coercive feedback on the other hand, uses threats, pressure, or negative consequences to force compliance. 

It’s not constructive. It aims to control behavior rather than guide or develop it. Coercive feedback can show up in volunteer settings. Though it’s very subtle usually. So, I’m going to give you several examples here because it’s, it often shows up in a very subtle way because volunteers can leave anytime. 

Supervisors tend to be a little more careful when leveraging this type of feedback, but regardless of how it comes out, it is still unproductive. Let’s talk about this coercive feedback, and this is the kind you should never give because it really, it’s using manipulation to get someone to behave in a certain way, and that’s not the kind of relationship we want with anyone. 

We want to be clear with folks; we want to give them corrective or confirming feedback. Those are two clear, mutually respectful ways to give feedback. Coercive is something that we don’t want to use. And let me give you some examples, and you might’ve seen these. Happen in your organization. 

And if they have, you can point it out like, hey, these aren’t the way we want to have these conversations. So, here’s one. Or maybe you’ve done these yourself not realizing it’s coercive. So, here’s an example. Unless you commit every weekend, unfortunately, I really can’t recommend you for any of our leadership roles. 

So that’s really a quid pro quo type of manipulation. Now there’s a better way to have that conversation, right? To just say the requirements for these leadership roles are these particular number of hours do you think you could commit? In the past you haven’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t in the future. 

Those kinds of things. Another type of feedback. If you can’t follow these instructions exactly to the T, maybe this role isn’t the right fit for you. Now, that’s a sort of all or nothing approach. If we’re, if this is some of the early in the game where we’re trying to coach people and help develop our volunteers, then all or nothing doesn’t really work because everybody needs to be given time and grace to learn something. Now, if this has been going on for weeks and weeks or months, then again this isn’t the way to approach it. The way to approach it is through progressive discipline and through, uh, clear conversation. So, this is coercive. 

We wouldn’t need to have this type of conversation in this way. We much rather would want to use progressive discipline and clear corrective feedback. Okay? Here’s another example. Well, I guess if you can’t stay late to finish this, I’ll just have to find someone who’s more dedicated. Now, this is sort of, it’s very manipulative and its sort of guilt tripping people, right? 

Do think about, are there any times where you’re guilt tripping volunteers or labeling them? In a way that’s negative, that is coercive. We don’t want to do that with people, and we shouldn’t ask people to make or to expand a commitment that we haven’t asked for in the past. Finally, here’s another one. I really expected more from you. 

You know how important this is to everyone. So, this is coercive in a way that, again, we’re guilt tripping. We’re shaming people in this respect we’re, this is important for everyone, especially if we were doing this in front of a group. This would be very much shaming and blaming, and that’s not the way to handle a performance issue. 

It’s about where we can give people corrective feedback but also give people confirming feedback when they are reaching expectations. And so, reminding people of team norms of our commitment to one another, but not approaching it in this way where we’re shaming if the feedback makes the person feel obliged, guilty or afraid to say no, rather than supported to do better. 

It’s leaning. To the coercive type of feedback, no matter how mild the words sound, and believe me, there are coercive feedback that’s way worse than this. These are, I tried to choose the most subtle ones I could pick, but there are ones that are much more aggressive, but no matter if it’s the words are mild or aggressive or whatever, they are in between. 

It’s not okay. Coercive feedback is not okay for anybody, whether it’s paid staff or volunteers. So, here’s what you can do instead. First, avoid coercive feedback whenever possible. It damages trust and morale. It is not good. We may have learned coercive communications techniques in our families. We may have learned them in other workplaces. 

It’s no value judgment one way or the other. It’s just a strategy. That you should not be using when you are supervising others. It damages trust and morale, so we must find a new way. So, use clear expectations and fair consequences but apply them with respect and grace and apply them equitably. So, are they being applied across the board or are some people getting away with things and others aren’t? 

So we want to do it. Apply them equally. Also, if performance doesn’t improve after the corrective feedback, then you can follow fair, transparent disciplinary processes, like formal warnings or improvement planning rather than intimidating your direct reports, volunteers or paid staff. So, make sure you have a disciplinary process laid out. 

Make sure all volunteers understand what it is, and I recommend three steps in that disciplinary, a verbal warning, a written warning, and an improvement plan. And then dismissal may be the result, but it doesn’t always have to be. And if we’re working with clear corrective and confirming feedback all the way along and everybody is leaning into that type of respectful but also supportive feedback, then you’re not going to have the need for disciplinary processes. 

Right. Alright. What you should not do is don’t use fear or threats to change behavior in volunteers or. Coworkers don’t make unreasonable demands or ultimatums. If you don’t do this, then I’m going to have to do this. This does not work. It makes people feel less than, it makes them feel. They’re being bullied. 

It’s not required. Now, consequences are not the same as an ultimatum, right? An ultimatum is. Absolutely. If you cannot do this, it’s my way or the highway. Consequences are, these are the things that happen, and I want to make sure you understand that this might end up this way. So, let’s figure out a way together. 

How can I support you? It’s sort of a different tone, right? And don’t humiliate or bully people. I think this goes without saying, but. There are people that we may have to have conversations with, or we may have to take a close look at when we are being feeling frustrated or under stress. Are we using coercive communication versus something that’s more constructive? 

It’s harmful. When we’re, when Cove feedback is leveraged against people, volunteers are giving their time and threats. Break trust quickly. Fear doesn’t motivate genuine commitment either. It drives people away. Nobody wants to feel fear when they’re volunteering. Coercive feedback damages morale for everyone who witnesses it. 

So, it’s not just the volunteer this the individual volunteer who’s whoever’s in hearing distance. It creates a toxic culture that undermines community and belonging. There are some better alternatives to a course of feedback when a volunteer truly needs to change. Use corrective feedback instead. So, you might say something like, I noticed you missed a few safety steps when unloading the food donations. 

It’s important. We follow them for everyone’s safety. Can I show you again and make sure you have what you need? That’s a better type of offering of support. It addresses the issue. It gives the volunteer a clear chance to learn or clarifies what they need to know, and it reinforces the standards without making threats or without cove feedback. 

So just wrapping up. There are great ways to give volunteer feedback, to do it with respect and to do it with confidence. When we are balancing both corrective and confirming feedback, we can let people know that there’s a balanced view of what we’re doing. If we lean only into corrective feedback all the time, and we never balance that with confirming feedback, volunteers can quickly feel like they’re not doing a good job and your job is to help coach for performance that and guide volunteers to a high-performance state, or at least a minimal performance state. So, when you’re giving good volunteer feedback, some things you want to do, be clear, specific and timely. Focus on observable behaviors and their impact. Listen and invite dialogue with that volunteer. 

What are the ways they need support? What are they not understanding? Where are they getting stuck? Offer support and agree on next steps if needed. What you don’t want to do is make it personal or emotional. You don’t want to generalize or exaggerate or minimize. Sometimes I see people mini, you know, it’s not that big of a deal. 

But no, just be clear about the level of impact. Don’t deliver feedback when you’re angry or unprepared, so you need to take a little bit of time to prepare, right. But after a while, you’ll get better at it, and you’ll be able to do it on the fly. Also, don’t ignore good performance. Positive feedback, as I said, matters so much, especially to volunteers, but also to our coworkers and our direct supports. 

I hope this has helped you think about how to give clear volunteer feedback with confidence. It’s not super complicated. We don’t need to complicate it. We just need to be direct. We need to be a little bit planful and we need to be there and know that our role is to guide and support. And when we keep that role in mind, it gives us so much more confidence. 

And hey, if you’ve got to scribble down your script for what you’re going to say, do that until you get better and more confident about it. All right, everybody. So that’s what I’ve got for today. I hope it’s been helpful. I hope it’s given you a little bit of confidence and maybe there’s a conversation that you have been putting off. 

I also have a link I’m going to share in the show notes to Volunteer Nation episode 140, volunteer Performance Issues – how to finally have that chatand I give you a step by step for how to have that conversation.  

Also, don’t forget that you can join our Volunteer Pro Impact Lab if you want to get training every month and coaching and bring these up and talk them over with peers and get some feedback from me, we’d love to have you just go to volpro.net/join 

We talk about all this stuff inside the community, and it helps us get better together. So, I hope this has been helpful. If it has, I hope you’ll share it with a friend. Rate and review. If you’d like, we’d love to have a five-star review if you’re loving our program and join us next week, same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Take care.