How to write a volunteer handbook

If your organisation works with volunteers, writing a volunteer handbook can be a great way to make sure they are all are provided with a warm welcome and access to all the necessary information upfront to help them help your cause.

Both charities and their volunteers can benefit from a volunteer handbook. While it helps charities save time by answering frequently asked questions in advance, make the most of volunteers’ time, and manage risks by clarifying rules and expectations at the outset, it helps volunteers understand the organisation, turn up prepared, and make sure they are supported in the best way for them throughout the experience.

The NCVO’s 2023 ‘Time Well Spent’ survey found that some of the most common reasons for volunteers stopping formal volunteering are feeling that their efforts were not appreciated, it causing them too much stress, and being unhappy with the way their unpaid help was managed and organised.

In this article, we discuss how charities can address these potential problems through writing a fantastic volunteer handbook, making the most of the relationship with their volunteers.

Think about your audience and the handbook’s purpose

The volunteer handbook is a great opportunity to create a positive experience with your charity from the very beginning of a volunteer’s journey. Make sure the handbook is written and designed in a way that is engaging to your specific audience.

At the same time, it is always important to design resources with your charity’s branding in mind. Make sure your logo, key colours, and fonts are used in the handbook to strongly associate it with all your other work and present yourself as reliable and legitimate to readers.

You should also make sure you are speaking to your audience appropriately. Nonprofit expert Joanne Fritz advises: “You might have young volunteers, family volunteers, and older volunteers. With the latter, it’s especially important to speak to them respectfully without using cliches or stereotypes.”

The goal is to make readers want to keep reading, and finish feeling informed and excited to support your cause. Don’t be afraid to spell out how volunteering for you will benefit them, even using past volunteer testimonials or referencing your charity’s impact.

It’s also a good idea to consider the usability of the handbook itself. If you expect volunteers to keep it physically on hand while they are volunteering, think about whether it is an appropriate size, weight, and material for them to carry around while doing their tasks.

Make sure key information that might need to be found quickly, such as emergency plans or maps, are easy to find within the handbook. If volunteers might benefit from taking notes in their role, consider providing a place for them to do so within the handbook.

Be inclusive

Rather than making assumptions about who would be interested in supporting your work, make sure your volunteer handbook has inclusivity and accessibility built in from the beginning, for example by using simple fonts and providing alt text for images.

When writing the handbook, use accessible language. You can use tools such as Hemingway Editor to make sure your prose is as clear as possible. You should also be careful to be inclusive in the type of language you use, for example avoiding gendered language, culturally-specific expressions, and language that only “insiders” would understand.

Within the handbook, you should also include accessibility details about the physical environment that volunteers will be working in, including car parking, bathroom, and refreshment facilities. Provide details for who volunteers can contact with any accessibility questions. You could also include images of the venue to help volunteers know where they need to go ahead of time.

It’s also a good idea to create both physical and digital copies of the handbook and ensure that both are easily accessible for volunteers and potential volunteers. With digital copies, ensure PDFs are accessible, or provide access to another version in Microsoft Word, to ensure that people who use screen readers can have access to the same information as everyone else.

While using digital communications can be a more sustainable choice, circulating enough physical copies is also important to ensure that those without access to digital technologies aren’t excluded.

Prioritise the contents

The core elements of volunteer handbooks are a welcome letter, an explanation of the charity’s work and mission, an introduction to the team and key contacts with contact details, a code of conduct, logistical information, an emergency plan, a map, outlines of the different volunteer roles, and a guide to key tools and resources.

Elements such as the welcome letter are important to express your gratitude to volunteers right from the beginning, letting them know how valuable they are to your work.

Depending on the type of organisation and the type of work that volunteers will be doing, other types of information will also need to be included. For example, some volunteer’s work may involve risk of injury. In this case, charities might include injury liability information in your handbook. Talk to human resources and legal professionals within your organisation to make sure the handbook does all it can to manage risk.

It’s important to balance this with the need for the handbook to be approachable, accessible, and engaging. Be careful to only include the most important and relevant information to make the volunteering experience as inviting as possible.

A good way to do this is to ask past volunteers about what information is necessary from their perspective. Another way is to go step-by-step through your current volunteer journey and consider the ways the handbook could be used to make things easier on both sides.

You could also take inspiration from other charities who do similar work to you, focussing on what key information they have chosen to include in their volunteer handbooks, and whether this would be necessary for your charity’s volunteer activities.

Be approachable

Including the contact details of key team leaders who volunteers will be in contact with can help ensure questions are directed to the right person and save time passing around queries within your team. These could be presented along with photographs of each team member in case volunteers will need to recognise them in person.

In addition, the handbook should have details about how volunteers can provide feedback about their experience, whether positive or negative. This can help you improve your processes over time as well as making volunteers feel heard and satisfied in their roles.