Staff & Volunteer Retention Tactics

We are seeking an experienced HR volunteer to help our nonprofit improve volunteer board engagement and retention. The focus is on the orientation, onboarding, and first-role engagement of new volunteer board members, where we currently see the highest drop-off. By improving this stage, aim to increase satisfaction, engagement, and long-term retention across our volunteer boards.

Project Activities May Include:
- Leading collaborative brainstorming sessions on retention tactics
- Distilling brainstorming outputs into a prioritized list of recommendations
- Advising on best practices for implementing recommended tactics
- Developing orientation/onboarding and first-job assignment workflows
- Supporting chapter presidents in guiding new recruits to become active, engaged board members

We estimate that this project will take from 4-6 weeks to complete and use (on average) 2-4 hours of volunteer time per week.

Gift of Adoption has 10 staff and about 300 volunteers. Volunteer board presidents face challenges in engaging new recruits. By improving onboarding and early engagement, this project will strengthen volunteer satisfaction, enhance retention, and reduce frustration for chapter leaders.

We will provide orientation programs, training modules, retention data, and insights from many successful volunteers. The organization will collaborate with volunteers throughout, sharing stakeholder details, prior retention tactics, and ideas for improvement. Implementing recommendations from this project is a top priority for the team.