201 – How a Lead Magnet Can Help You Recruit On-Demand Volunteers

February 12, 2026

Episode #201: How a Lead Magnet Can Help You Recruit On-Demand Volunteers 

What if you never had to panic-recruit volunteers again? 

Scrambling to find 25 volunteers by next week is stressful, reactive, and exhausting. 

In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson shares a smarter approach: build a volunteer pipeline before you need it using simple marketing tools like lead magnets, nurture emails, and even interactive quizzes. 

Instead of chasing people at the last minute, you’ll learn how to create a steady stream of mission-aligned supporters who are already warmed up and ready to say yes. 

This is recruitment that feels calm, proactive, and repeatable. 

Lead Magnet – Episode Highlights 

• [00:27] – Understanding On-Demand Volunteers 
• [01:28] – Emotional Reality of Volunteer Recruitment 
• [02:33] – Building a Volunteer Pipeline 
• [05:17] – What is a Lead Magnet? 
• [08:11] – Creating Effective Lead Magnets 
• [13:10] – Advanced Lead Magnet Strategies 
• [28:41] – The Power of Volunteer Quizzes 
• [34:15] – Practical Steps to Start Building Your Lead Magnet 

Lead Magnet – Quotes from the Episode 

“We want to nurture people. We want to make connections and have conversations even before our organization needs help.” 

“It builds trust over time. Volunteers need clarity about expectations, education about what your cause does, emotional connection to your impact, reassurance that they have what it takes to help and email allows you to gradually build trust over time and credibility with your organization if you’re consistent with it.” 

Helpful Links

• Volunteer Management Progress Report  
• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #002: How to Recruit Volunteers by Building a Following First 

Contact Us

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

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Episode #201 Transcript: How a Lead Magnet Can Help You Recruit On-Demand Volunteers 

Tobi: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and I am pumped to geek out about recruitment marketing, and I want to help you recruit more on demand volunteers. Now what do I mean by on demand? Obviously, this is not fairy dust; this is not magic wands. 

This is not. I just cold call people and they automatically show up. It’s really about nurturing a group of people who are circling and orbiting your organization’s universe, and when the time comes and you need their help, they’re willing to step up. So that’s what I mean by on demand. So we’re going to talk about how to use a lead magnet and how it can help you recruit on demand volunteers, and I’m going to go through this sort of one-on-one basics, next steps, but also give you some ideas for lead magnets because folks are often stuck by that. Like, well, what? What would I give people? And so, let’s get started. Here is the emotional reality of volunteer recruitment Often. We’ve just been asked to recruit volunteers. 

There’s a new event coming up, a program launching or participation numbers are dropping, and leadership, or our supervisor or a program lead says to us, hey, we need 25 volunteers by. Next week or next month, and all of a sudden, we’re filled with terror. We’re like, well, wait a minute. Where do I even find them? 

Who do I contact? How do I get interested quickly? Now, you may have an old list of contacts of people who are lapsed with applicants. They made it halfway through the process, or even they finished your training, and they never started. You may have a list of those folks you may be posting on. Volunteer posting websites and advertising what you have to offer. 

You may have put this on, this opportunity on your website. You may have it in your newsletter. You may be posting it on social, but I’m going to tell you this lead magnet strategy is one of the most powerful, and I want to talk to you about how to do this because it takes away this fear of not having anybody paying attention. 

We want to nurture people, we want to make connections and have conversations even before our organization needs help. That’s what’s all about building a pipeline that’s even. A pre-pipeline, I might say. So if you are a volunteer recruiter that’s feeling like you’re starting from zero, even because your organization hasn’t had a lot of volunteers, or you need a lot of volunteers all of a sudden, or you just aren’t participation’s dropping, this episode is for you. 

So today we’re going to talk about how lead magnets can create a steady, repeatable volunteer recruitment pipeline. Almost a pre-pipeline of people who are ready to hear your calls to action. And I want to, you know, let you know that if you feel like you’re at a loss when it comes to recruitment and it strikes the fear into you, don’t feel alone. 

There’s so many people that are struggling with this right now. It’s the number one challenge that we find. Attracting the right volunteers, attracting enough volunteers, keeping volunteers coming back. All that is they’re just top challenges for most of the organizations that we talk about. And in our volunteer management progress report year after year, these come up. 

So, you are not alone if you’re struggling with your volunteer recruitment. So, in this episode, I want to talk about what a lead magnet is and how it can. Help avoid panic recruiting, how a mission aligned lead magnet actually works. And I’m going to give you some specific examples and how quizzes as a lead magnet; it’s sort of lead magnet 2.0. 

But for those of you who already have a lead magnet, I want to give you a little advanced way that you could use a quiz to engage volunteers immediately. And I’ll give you an example of one of my clients who’s doing that right now. And then practical steps to build your own system. So, this is a pipeline building y’all. 

And I want to help take away all that anxiety. Well, maybe I can’t take away all my anxiety. Nobody can take away all the anxiety, but I do want to help you feel like you’re more in control of your volunteer pipeline. So, let’s start out with, what the heck is a lead magnet anyway? So, a lead magnet. In simple terms, in digital marketing terms, a lead magnet is a free, helpful resource that is offered in exchange for someone’s email address or contact information. 

An email is usually the, the. Bit of contact information. We don’t need a lot of information when we’re giving folks a lead magnet. You can ask for people’s first names and emails. I prefer to ask for people’s first and last name in email just so I can keep my contact straight, but you don’t have to ask for a lot of information. 

It’s not about asking for people what they’re interested in volunteering. This is not an interest form. It’s not. A, a volunteer application, but the opt-in tool, or when people ask, say Yes, they raise their hand and say, yes, I want this freebie, this download. Send it to me. Then you wanwant toke sure you have an opt-in, what we call an opt-in form. 

So, a lead magnet starts with an opt-in form and ends with deli. Well, it doesn’t end, we’ll talk more about what happens after you deliver that freebie to your prospect. In volunteer recruitment terms, it’s a structured way to capture interest when someone is curious about your mission and to educate them. 

So again, connect and communicate. I always like to say people are down on what they’re not up on, so they will not know and will not be able to speak positively about your organization and its opportunities and its work in the community or in your field unless they know enough about you. So, this is an opportunity to allow you to build a list of prospective volunteers before you urgently need them. 

To stay connected with people who may not be ready to commit yet, but might be in the future, and to guide prospects toward the right volunteer roles. So, make sure you have the right volunteers. The other thing it can do as a side benefit is that it can help you nurture financial donors as well. So, this group of people that are interested in what you do may also be interested in hearing about your opportunities to contribute in other ways. 

And so, I wouldn’t use this list and this strategy to just focus all the time on fundraising. But it is a way that you could ask from time to time like your annual appeal, but I wouldn’t, it’s a side benefit. I wouldn’t make it the primary benefit. It’s at least depending on the lead magnet you’re giving. 

But in our case today we’re talking about volunteer recruitment and building that pipeline. There’s some pieces that you need to have this lead magnet. So, a lead magnet, we’re going to call it a freebie or a lead magnet or a download. There are a few pieces that need to go along with it. So, the first thing is your form. 

So how do people order it. So again, you have this as a popup on your webpage, embedded on your webpage. You can share it in your social media. You can put a link in your emails, but somewhere there needs to be a form that has. A name section, a field for a name, and a field for an email so people can order whatever you’re giving. 

Now, we also need to have a delivery system, so this needs to be done in a CRM or an email system. You can do this in very simple systems. They don’t need to be expensive. And talk to your marcoms folk if you have them to see if you have something that you can do. You can’t just do this outlook. It would drive you crazy if you tried to do this from your personal or your professional email inbox. 

That’s not where you do this from. You do it from a CRM, so you’ve got to create also a thank you page. So once people. Opt in. Your system should send them to a thank you page on your website. It’s hidden. Create a thank you page that says, hey, thank you for ordering this. Go check your inbox and click on the link to confirm that you want this freebie or whatever it is, right? 

I’m going to talk in a minute about what it might be, give you examples, but. Once it arrives in their inbox, they click on that link and then they get a second email that delivers this freebie. Now, if you’ve ordered anything up, including the volunteer management Progress report, that’s free to download from our website, and you can check out the link in our show notes. 

If you’d like to order that up, you will. Get added to our list and you will get that via email via a double, what we call a double opt-in. So, the first email is to click to say, yes, I want it to confirm your email, and the second is to deliver that freebie. Now, the reason you do this is to keep your email list as clean as possible. 

You don’t want people spamming you because if you have a lot of fake emails on your email list. I’m not going to get too technical on this, but the ISP or where your email comes from, the server where it comes from, gets a bad reputation and every email client has its own. So, you have your own, for your organization, your email software sets it up for you automatically, but you, your stuff will start going to spam if you do not have a clean list. 

So double opt-ins are the standard. All right, so we need to have that, and then we need to have potentially, either you’re emailing somebody a download like a PDF, or you’re sending them to a webpage where there might be a video, a training, or something else. I’m going to talk about quizzes. A little bit later in this episode. 

So, these are really powerful. These thank you pages, these pieces, these, any bit of micro content in this whole process of ordering up your freebie by your prospective volunteer. Every bit of this offers you real estate to reinforce your mission. Build excitement. Offer people immediate next steps. 

Introduce roles or impact stories or quotes from volunteers and invite prospects deeper in. You can change up. If you use a thank you page, you can switch it up. Let’s say you have an info session coming up, a webinar about some volunteer opportunities. Why not put a link to that? On that thank you page and say if you’re interested, sign up for our info session. 

Or hey, we have volunteer training coming up. If you’re interested, click here to start your application. So, people often ignore these thank you pages and these bits of micro content, even in the email delivery, you want to let people know. And also, on that thank you page, you want to tell people, hey, your email may, this email we send you may go to spam. 

So, check your spam folder if you don’t see it. Also give them a support email. That they can email if they don’t see the delivery come. Because occasionally people’s things get lost in the internet, and sometimes people’s security web security is so over the top that things don’t get through. So. That’s what you need to develop. 

You also need to develop the actual giveaway. What is freebie? What is the lead magnet that folks are going to create? And so, I want to talk about a few of the different lead magnets you can possibly create for folks and. Before I even do that, I want to also talk about the benefits of this kind of communication with volunteers. 

So, when you deliver the lead magnet or the freebie or the download or whatever the giveaway, you can also create and should a welcome email campaign. Welcome series Educates folks about your mission. Talks about volunteer stories and impact invites to volunteer opportunities. Turns your single interaction of people getting a freebie from you into a relationship building journey. 

And so the other piece of the picture is that email nurture sequence. And if you have a CRM, all you do is set up the system to tag folks when they order that freebie and then have them start that nurture sequence after. And we do a lot of training on these nurtures, welcome sequences, nurture sequences, messaging. 

All of this is in much deeper dives inside. Our Impact Lab community. So if you’re interested in doing this really well, I really encourage you to check out the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab and learn more inside our community. Because we do a lot of this. So the other thing is, after that nurture sequence happens. 

Then you also can just after that, add them to your regular email list. So if your organization has a monthly newsletter or you’d send out monthly newsletters from volunteer services, either way, just get folks on your list and continue to communicate with them. Okay? So lead magnets are so. Powerful to reducing that recruitment panic because they help build the volunteer pipeline. 

As I said, you’re not starting from scratch. Every time you’re developing a growing pool of interested people, you’re communicating, you’re connecting, you’re educating, and you can quickly reach out to this group. This special list of people every time opportunities arrive, every time someone comes and says, Hey, we need 25 volunteers next week, oh, well, I’ll reach out to our subscribers, this special group of subscribers and see if anyone’s interested. 

It doesn’t guarantee they’re interested, but the better your content is and the more you’re communicating in a human way with folks, and the more interesting you’re sharing, the more likely they are to say yes, and that’s good copywriting. We talk about it inside the impact lab, but that’s really what makes those lead magnets work. 

You may think, well, why don’t I just put things out on social media? Well, let me tell you the issues with social media, number one, not all of your social media posts, and it’s, I would say less than 10% ever make it to the newsfeeds of the folks who are following you. Social media, unless you’re buying paid advertising, social media is not doing a lot for you, and I encourage you to check it out. 

And even though you may be getting likes and comments, check and see are they actually resulting in people stepping up? Now, maybe it’s working for you, but for most people you’re just not reaching enough people Also. Email versus social media is an owned communication channel. And what I mean by that is with social media, they can change the algorithm anytime they want. 

They can change the rules anytime they want. I mean, with Facebook, it’s a nonstop change and they don’t announce it and they don’t teach you about it, and you’ve got to figure it out on your own. So email’s an owned communication channel in social media. That platform decides who will see your posts with email. 

It goes directly to anybody who says, yes, I’m interested. Now we’ve got to do work to boost email open rates, so we have to make sure our subject lines are really compelling. But it is the still one of the most powerful, in fact, the most powerful, I would say, way to connect with people. It builds trust over time. 

Volunteers need clarity about expectations, education about what your cause does, emotional connection to your impact, reassurance that they have what it takes to help and email allows you to gradually build trust over time and credibility with your organization if you’re consistent with it. So lead magnets provide a low risk entry point for people who want to explore your mission, learn more about what you do before making a big commitment. 

It lets them engage without a lot of high pressure. Tactics. So they help you recruit volunteers proactively instead of reactively. That’s why I think lead magnets are so powerful and so underutilized, I must say, really underutilized. We’ve been talking about these inside the Impact Lab for a long time, and still people, a lot of people haven’t started using them or haven’t used them before. 

Before they join the Impact lab, let’s talk about what this lead magnet or freebie or download, or you know, what is it? Well, I like to focus on what we call mission, or what I call mission aligned lead magnets. So what’s a mission aligned lead magnet? First of all, it reflects and aligns with your cause. 

So it’s something that makes sense with your cause, and I’m going to give you some examples. It demonstrates your impact in some way or builds your credibility. And trust connects directly to volunteer opportunities in some way. And it doesn’t have to, it is not a volunteer position description; it is not a fact sheet necessarily about volunteering. 

It is not a call to action per se, but it connects to your volunteer opportunities and it gives your prospects a meaningful first experience with your organization. They see that you are, you’ve got it together. Because the delivery of it is automated. You don’t have to be around and may email it to people. 

It goes automatically through your system. And if it’s designed well, it works in terms of getting people something that piques their interest. So let me give you a creative example of brainstorming with one of our Impact Lab members a few years ago. We were doing a, just an online on a coaching call. 

Everybody was just saying, I said, tell me your cause and let’s brainstorm lead magnets for you. So we were going around the room, the virtual room in our coaching call, and this one I thought was particularly creative. So one of the volunteer pro impact lab members is a botanical, or was at that time a botanical garden and historic home. 

And folks were like, well, you could do a volunteer position description. I said, no, that’s not a lead magnet, that that is a part of your recruitment process. This is about attracting potential supporters and peaking interest and giving them something of value. So I said. You guys, what kinds of things do you grow in your garden? 

And we started talking about that. I said, what about herbs? Do you grow herbs in your garden? Yes, we do. I said, great. What about this? What about creating a recipe booklet, A PDF download that features herbs grown in your garden, recipes that use herbs that are grown in your garden. That other people could also create and make. 

And what if it was created by volunteers at your organization? That’s the connection to volunteers, right? And we thought everybody was like, that is a fantastic idea. I said, isn’t that great? And you could feature it on your website. The lead magnet isn’t saying if you want to volunteer or download this lead magnet, it’s not saying that at all. 

It’s saying, if you’re interested in our mission. You might be interested in our lead magnet in our, you’re not going to call it a lead magnet, you’re going to call it our recipe booklet, created by our volunteers. Now, can you put on the last page of that recipe booklet, quotes from volunteers. You could even put quotes from volunteers throughout the recipe booklet about the volunteering, and then you could have a call to action on the last page. 

Yes, you can do that. But folks who are interested in your mission, AKA gardening are aligned with your mission would be very interested in this. So this works for so many reasons. One is it showcases volunteer op contributions. It connects to your gardens. Educational mission, it attracts people interested in sustainability, gardening, or food, which means they will probably be interested if they are interested in volunteering, they may be interested in your opportunities. 

It naturally leads into volunteer opportunities like garden maintenance, educational programming, community events, et cetera. I have a few others for you as well, but this one I wanted to highlight because I think it’s quite creative and something of value. People would actually give their email to download. 

Right, so other mission aligned tools, there’s cause awareness tools like Beginners Guide Your Cause, or Myth or Fact Resources or Community Impact reports that are written for public audiences. I don’t think these are as fun or creative, so you’ve got to play around with what your audience actually will give their email to download. Okay. Volunteer readiness resources you can do like is volunteering right for you? A reflection workbook. And maybe it’s not just about your opportunities, maybe it’s about volunteering in general, skill matching worksheets. So what are your skills and what. What opportunities do we have? 

That’s kind of a fun one. Time commitment planners. Now those skill matching and time commitment planners, you’re going to have fewer people downloading those because they’re not yet ready. They haven’t decided they want to volunteer. So I might offer those later on. But I like to share a lead magnet that is a no brainer for someone who’s passionate about what you do and what they want to get from you. 

Okay, so those are just a few ideas. Think about something that aligns with your cause but isn’t heavy on the recruitment. It’s more about the interest around your cause. And you may say, well, we don’t have a garden. We actually do something really, really intense, like. We work with domestic violence, survivors of domestic violence or abuse. 

Well. Actually, there’s some really great resources you could provide. One might be what to do if you suspect someone is being abused as a guide. So someone’s interested in your cause and they are interested in helping somebody. They might be interested later in helping others or myths and facts. About domestic violence. 

Right. And I remember working with a client with this and I said, let you know what, there are things you can offer people that are positive, productive resources. So, but again, not a volunteer position description to be a domestic violence crisis counselor. No, that’s not our freebie. That’s something we give people later. 

Nobody’s going to download that and they’re not going to want to give you your email for it. So we’ve gotta think creatively around this. Alright, and it’s gotta be mission aligned. The bottom line is that the best lead magnets help prospects get some information that they’re passionate about and that helps them, but also. 

Helps them start to imagine themselves participating in your mission. So for example, in the guide of what to do if you suspect someone is suffering, you could also put on the last page, next steps. Are you ready to help others? Or do you need additional resources? All kinds of things you can put put there to help people start to think further. 

All right, so I wanna talk about one more really exciting lead magnet. That you could develop. I’m in the midst of developing one for Volunteer Pro and I’m working with a client who’s developing one right now, and it’s very exciting and interesting way to use technology and currently we have the technology to make it happen, which is awesome. 

Tech is getting so much easier than it used to be. Y’all used to be. Horribly difficult to do all these things. It is not anymore and fairly low cost. So I’m gonna come back right after the break and I’m gonna tell you about this added way to engage folks with this very super creative lead magnet. Don’t go anywhere. 

I’ll be right back after this break with more info on how to use a lead magnet to recruit more volunteers. So don’t go anywhere.  

Volunteer Pro Impact Lab 

Hey, are you looking to upgrade and modernize your volunteer program? Or maybe you’re building one from scratch and you’re just not sure where to start. If so, we’ve got the perfect resource for you. 

The Volunteer Pro Impact Lab, having built several direct service programs from the ground up. I know that it doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a clear process that takes careful attention with a focus on impact. In the end, you need a system in place that’s clear, standardized, efficient, and that gets results. 

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, we’re back with a discussion about how to use a lead magnet to recruit more volunteers. I promised before the break that I would talk about this very special, a little bit more advanced, but very creative and very cool. 

Way to engage with prospects. Start a conversation and educate them about your, your volunteer opportunities. Now this lead magnet specifically is related to volunteering and it’s called a volunteer quiz. So quizzes, and some people call these quiz funnels because it’s a quiz and then there’s a result. 

There are results pages. And then usually a set of nurture emails. So a quiz is as a lead magnet. They’re particularly effective because they feel fun and personalized. They provide immediate feedback to the person who took the quiz, and they help volunteers discover where they fit in. So it’s sort of a self-reflection exercise that’s quite interactive. 

Now, this quiz doesn’t have to be 20 questions long. It can be as little as six or four. Usually six is about the right length. If you think about Cosmopolitan Magazine back in the day, they used to do these Cosmo quizzes, and they were irresistible because you were gonna find out something about yourself. 

Now, they were pretty fluffy. I mean, there weren’t really serious things, but if you can make your volunteer quiz fun. And tell somebody about, about themselves. People wanna know about themselves. It is almost irresistible. So here is an example of one of my coaching clients who is using a quiz to help organizations. 

Get matched, or I’m sorry, help volunteers get matched, matched with roles in their organization. So this is a Main Street community organization. They’re a downtown revitalization group, and they’re creating a quiz called it’s, this is a working title and they’ll have a better name for it than I have. But what type of volunteer are you? 

What type of volunteer are you? So folks will answer a series of questions gonna be very short, and the quiz results will help prospects identify the right volunteer pathway for them. So whether it’s event-based, volunteering behind the scenes, support, ongoing leadership or committee roles, or short term project, volunteering, internships, et cetera. 

This quiz by answering a few questions. Folks will get directed to results pages that recommend and talk about that type of specific volunteer opportunity. Say, well, we think based on your answers, this is probably the best opportunity for you. Here’s, here are some opportunities coming up. Here’s a way to download, or here’s where you can download the position description, or you can go to this webpage and learn more. 

Also if you’re, if you don’t think this is the right fit, we also, here’s a link to all the rest of our opportunities. But it’s fun. They’re gonna make it super fun and engaging and it really helps. It’s an in a way for people to interact with your website. We really need to move. Past websites as virtual brochures. 

We are way past that in functional websites nowadays. I’m about to rework my website because it’s still working a little bit like an online brochure, but we have way too much text. We’re not interacting with our visitors on our website, and we’re not getting them engaged. But this is a way to reduce overwhelm for your prospects. 

Help you segment volunteers because with a quiz, you can actually set the software to tag people, a specific type of volunteers. So when an event comes up, you can send event calls to action only to folks that have that tag in your system. It improves placement and retention because volunteers are having a say, but also you’re helping them guide them to an opportunity that makes the most sense for them. 

And it makes your follow-up emails highly personalized because you can set up separate email nurture sequences. Now, these nurture sequences, 4, 5, 6 emails over the space of a couple weeks that are specific to the type of volunteer that they are. So when people get their results, they get that result immediately. 

And I would recommend that you ask for the name in the email prior to starting the quiz. Prior to starting the quiz. And then when they complete the quiz, they get sent to a results page on that results page versus, you know, those static downloads that we’re talking about before the break that goes to a thank you page with a quiz, goes to a results page, and that page should. 

Reinforce excitement, provide role recommendations and examples. Include testimonials from other volunteers in those roles, and offer immediate next steps. So maybe a link to your application form, so a quiz. It’s an amazing way to connect with your supporters on your website. And like I said, we have a client who’s working on it, but I am also working on one myself, so I’m really excited to, I’ll let you know when it’s up and running and you can go test it out. 

So. Let’s just end with some practical next steps to start building your volunteer lead magnet. First step is to identify your most recruit most urgent recruitment needs. Where do you struggle the most? Where do volunteers tend to drop off and make sure that your lead magnet. Is position and that your nurture sequences in particular are making sure you’re able to focus on those types of volunteers and also communicate more about preventing that drop off. 

So if people are dropping off after orientation training, then maybe in your nurture sequence you talk about why, what happens after? And. Orientation training, and maybe you provide some testimonials about why it’s important to stick with it. So just it’s good to know what your goals are. Step two, identify something that would be really appealing to your volunteers. 

Or prospects I should say, they haven’t even become volunteers yet. What is something that is a no brainer? That is a, Hey, absolutely this is a value. I will put my email in something that’s aligned with your cause, like remember talked about the recipe book booklet for the botanical garden, and then I talked about the quiz funnel. 

Those are things people will give you your email for. It’s of value. It can’t be something that’s not really that valuable. People won’t. Won’t sign up for it. So choose a lead magnet format. Could be a checklist, could be a guide, could be an ebook, could be a resource tool. Could be a short training, it could be a quiz, something of value. 

And again, it doesn’t have to directly be about volunteering, but it should be volunteering adjacent and it should be something. Maybe it’s something volunteers created. And it should have a call to action to volunteer at some point if it’s an ebook at the the end of the ebook. And then, you know, make sure you build that basic follow-up email series. 

Your welcome message, your mission education, your volunteer impact stories, and your invitation to volunteer should all be part and parcel of some of the emails in that series. And again, inside the Impact lab, we have swipe files. We we train on this. It’s a way to make it happen. And then. How do you get people to this lead magnet to, to opt in for it? 

Well, you’ve gotta promote it consistently. Promote it on your social media, promote it in your events. If you’re out speaking in the community, just use a QR code and ask folks to opt in. If people are doing outreach, you can put it on a, a card, like a, a rack card or a small postcard. You can. Email it out to your current list and say, Hey, please share this with others can do that. 

You can run ads to this like in social media, but I would say get your pipeline working really, really, really well and smoothly, and actually producing volunteers before you start paying ads for it, because there’s gonna be some things you wanna test and then you’re gonna. Need to start optimizing. ’cause usually these don’t work exactly right, right away. 

Sometimes the opt-in form or the landing page where the opt-in form is needs some tweaks to its copy. Sometimes the lead magnet needs some tweaks because it’s just not attracting people. There’s some things that you wanna test out, so it’s not a one and done. It takes a little bit of time to get it honed in, but once you do, then you might wanna run ads to it because you’re building that pipeline of volunteers. 

So recruitment panic happens, but it usually happens when systems don’t yet exist. It’s not because you’re not trying hard enough to track volunteers to your good cause, and so think about how you can start building that constellation of people who are orbiting your good cause and waiting for the right opportunity to land. 

Right. What small resource could you create today that would help someone take their first step towards volunteering with you? And that first step is often just learning more about what you do or interacting with you in a fun way, right? So make sure you think about this, and if you want, if you haven’t yet. 

Make sure you download our volunteer management progress report. That is a lead magnet for us. That’s a very intensive lead magnet. I don’t, I don’t recommend people do this because it’s a lot of work, but that report you can download as one of our lead magnets at Volunteer Pro. So go check that out. It is on the link is on our show notes page and the website is volpro.net. 

Volunteer management progress report with dashes between each word. And you can see how we do that double opt-in, how we deliver that lead magnet. And then I don’t think we actually have a nurture sequence. Connected with that, but you’ll definitely get on our list and start getting our weekly pro news newsletters if you don’t get them yet. 

Check that out as a lead magnet. Just see how it works and start to think about how you can use a lead magnet to build a contact list so you don’t have to panic every time somebody asks you to go recruit some volunteers. Alright, everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If there’s somebody you think could benefit from it, I hope you’ll share this with them and rate and review. 

We love five star reviews and we love to hear what you think about the show. So I hope you’ve enjoyed this. I hope you joined me next week. Same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Take care, everybody.