Our five-step opportunity builder helps even the most inexperienced volunteer manager create an informative (and compelling) volunteer role advertisement.

From the organisation's perspective: these advertisements outline how your organisation supports people in the community. It also defines what task a volunteer will perform for the organisation, the skills they need and what a volunteer will gain from participating.

From the volunteer's perspective: these advertisements help volunteers understand what's expected and to determine if the role is right for them. That's why we also prompt you to add further information to help a volunteer search for their dream role. We have specific search capability for:
• Skills
• Causes
• Suitable for
• Location

Adding skills, causes and 'suitable for' criteria to your volunteer opportunity advertisement a potential volunteer search more accurately for roles of interest.

Best practice is NOT to add a laundry list of tags - only select between one and five. This is not only based on effective searches, but also best practice for data compilation in reporting.

Causes

We have a list of 25 different causes which a volunteer manager can select from when creating a volunteer opportunity advertisement. While you won't see the causes you select on your advertisement, there are two important reasons why the correct (and finite number of) causes should be included.

This information feeds into the volunteer opportunities search function on Be Collective to help prospective volunteers find a role which aligns to their unique causes of interest. So, whether it's lived experience, a cause they're passionate about or aligned to their area of study - it's important to ensure you keep the cause list relevant. Don't just take our word for it, ask your volunteers!

While the causes you select don't appear in your advertisement, they will feed into your social impact reporting. As per above, it's important to keep the inclusions on this report relevant to maintain integrity. After all, your social impact report is a useful tool for demonstrating the value of your organisation, particularly when asking for funding.

Experience gained

Listing accurate ‘experience gained’ to your advertisement not only helps with the search criteria, it also appears in the volunteer's social record and social CV once they have completed a role. Experience gained is important to cite particularly for volunteers seeking pathways to employment or further study through volunteering.

Example: one organisation recently listed all the experience gained below in an advertisement for a Volunteer Recruitment Assistant role:

Skills acquired: Business Planning, Community Development, Customer Service, Employment Law, Event Design & Planning, Executive Administration, General Administration, Human Resources Information Systems, Human Resources Legal Compliance, Human Resources Recruitment, Human Resources Training & Development, Marketing & Communications, Office Reception, Public Relations.

Here is the list again with what we consider appropriate for a role at this level:

Skills acquired: Community Development, Customer Service, General Administration, Human Resources Training & Development, Marketing & Communications,

We currently have 181 skills available for you to select from while building a volunteer role advertisement. These have grown organically over time, some used more than others. We plan to make some improvements to this list like grouping together skill types. Stay tuned!

Suitable for

We have 15 'suitable for' categories you can select from to indicate your organisation has taken specific actions to make an environment and/or volunteer role suitable for a volunteer's specific needs. Always consider the most relevant criteria for your volunteer role - because someone is really depending upon on (sometimes emotionally or physically for) your organisation to get this right.

Refer to this article in the Help Centre for clarity on what each category means: https://support.becollective.com/portal/kb?text=Suitable%20for&entity=articles&id=275

Image credit: Gerd Altmann, Freiburg/Deutschland.