Working With Volunteer Fundraisers
Campaign volunteers and peer askers, distinct from board governance: how to recruit them, brief them, pair them with staff, and thank them, so that the people who love the mission can invite others into it.
Through the Healthcare lens
Grateful-patient volunteers who tell their own care story to solicit peers carry unusual power and unusual risk at once, since the story is often deeply personal and may brush against details HIPAA governs even when the patient is the one telling it. The staff partner's role in preparing and bounding that conversation matters more here than in most sectors, precisely because the volunteer's credibility comes from vulnerability the organization did not create and must protect.
Continuing education
1.00 points
Volunteer Involvement · Securing the Gift
Learning objectives
- Explain why a peer's invitation reaches donors that staff cannot, and distinguish volunteer fundraising from board governance.
- Recruit volunteer solicitors with an honest ask, brief them in the Invitation Framework, and pair each with a staff partner and a short list of relationships.
- Equip volunteers with a role description, a conversation guide, and a way to report back, and thank them as the donors they are.
- Analyze a volunteer-led effort and identify the decisions that made it finish.
Designed for CFRE continuing education. Not yet accepted; no CFRE points can be claimed.
Lessons
- 18 min
Video lesson
The volunteer who asks: why peers raise what staff can't
VII Multiply · Volunteer Involvement
- 20 min
Field guide· PDF
Recruiting, briefing, and pairing volunteer solicitors
IV Invite · Volunteer Involvement
- 18 min
Template· DOCX
Volunteer solicitor kit: role description, briefing agenda, and conversation guide
IV Invite · Securing the Gift
- 14 min
Case study· PDF
Case study: twelve volunteers, forty conversations, and a campaign that finished
VII Multiply · Volunteer Involvement
This is members-only material.
Members get every lesson, template, and worksheet in all eight tracks, plus the support to put them to work in your shop.
More in this stage
Major & Principal Gifts
Building a Major Gifts Portfolio
Move from reactive asks to a managed portfolio: qualification, moves management, and a caseload you can defend.
Donor Communications & Stewardship
The Case for Support That Writes Itself
One master case document that powers every appeal, proposal, and conversation, built from your mission's real evidence.
Annual Giving & Direct Response
Annual Giving Systems: Calendar & Segmentation
Graduate from one-off appeals to a segmented, scheduled program with lapsed-donor recovery built in.