Many Nonprofits Struggle to Recruit a Diverse Volunteer Force

As a single mom in her early 20s, Nicole Smith spent up to four hours a week at her church leading the dance ministry. She didn’t think of herself as a volunteer — she was just helping out.

Many studies have found higher rates of volunteerism among whites than among people of color, and higher rates among socioeconomically advantaged groups than among people with low incomes. But researchers also note that the desire to help others is strong among people of all races — and that people of color are helping others in informal ways, just as Smith, a Black Latina, did at her church. These contributions don’t always get picked up in statistics.

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Formal charities, especially those that work with low-income and racially diverse clients, benefit from the perspective volunteers bring when they have some of the same experiences as the clients. So recruiting a more-diverse volunteer force remains a goal for many charities — albeit a challenging one.

Now Smith is on the other side, serving as the director of volunteer services at the national nonprofit Back on My Feet, which has chapters in 17 cities and combats homelessness by getting people engaged in exercise and providing other support services. Smith admits that her employer has some of the same challenges that charities across the country are facing in recruiting people of color as volunteers.

“The biggest step is that you have to admit the reality of it, understand that you want to change, and then intentionally make efforts to do just that,” Smith says. “That’s what we’re doing — hopefully in a year it will look different.”

Smith knows firsthand the payoff will be worth it. When she meets other Black Latina women, they typically have what she calls an “unspoken understanding” — and that bond helps move the relationship forward quickly. Smith says that by adding more people of color and people who have had similar experiences to the charity’s clients, those volunteers will be better able to empathize with the people the organization helps. Volunteers without those experiences would take considerably longer to get to the same place, Smith says.

Amid the racial reckoning of 2020, many charities took a hard look at whether they were paying enough attention to diversity on their staff, leadership, and board. But volunteer programs are also drawing scrutiny — and rightfully so. As recently as 2018 and 2019, the Volunteer Management Progress Report, put out annually by VolunteerPro, run by volunteer-management expert Tobi Johnson, found that 91 percent of volunteer managers were white. The most recent survey, in 2021, found slightly more diversity in the position, with only 84 percent of the managers reporting they were white.

“Nonprofits need to diversity their staffs — that will help attract people of color as volunteers,” says Karmit Bulman, executive director of the Minnesota Alliance for Volunteer Advancement, which has published several reports on the topic. “If nonprofit organizations are primarily run by white people, and the majority of staff are white people, why would volunteers of color want to help there? It sets up a dynamic in which the white people are paid, and the people of color are unpaid. Nobody wants that.”

‘Remove the Roadblocks’

Jennifer Bennett, director of education and training at VolunteerMatch, says charities need to do a better job of working with diverse communities to allow new ideas and strategies to bubble up from within. That will help overcome the long-held perception that largely white groups come into low-income communities with outside ideas and an intent to “save” people who are struggling.

“You can say that everyone is welcome,” Bennett says, “but if you haven’t had conversations about implicit bias or microaggressions or paternalism, you can onboard all the people you want, but if they don’t feel like they are part of the organization, they won’t stay.”

Courtesy of Mary Zhu

Steps toward simplifying the process of becoming a volunteer can also help. “Examine your policies and procedures, and where possible, remove the roadblocks,” Bulman says.

If an organization requires a lengthy orientation session, consider shortening it or moving it online. Also, consider whether background checks are necessary for all volunteers. “Not every volunteer is alone with a vulnerable person,” Bulman says. “If it’s not necessary, why do it?”

Charities can also take steps to make volunteering easier. If an organization offers volunteer roles only during the workday, most working people won’t be able to participate. Consider offering opportunities at night or on weekends. Other steps experts like Bulman suggest include offering free child care and providing free parking or transportation vouchers.

The Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden is examining its policies and considering changes to attract more diverse volunteers. One idea is allowing new volunteers to sign up over the phone rather than through a written application. Susan Cory, the garden’s volunteer coordinator, says the charity is also looking more closely at who chooses to volunteer at the botanical garden, based on measures like age and race. She plans to talk to younger volunteers to get a fresh perspective on why some potential volunteers may be staying away.

“We’re looking at who isn’t volunteering here,” she says. “Can we figure out why?”

Foundations and corporations may support efforts to attract more diverse volunteers. Develop for Good, a two-year-old charity that connects college-student volunteers to charities that need tech help, noticed that some talented students were expressing interest but then dropping out of the program, in some cases because they needed to help support their family after a parent had lost a job. The charity secured a grant from Amazon Web Services to pay for fellowships for students who can’t afford to volunteer; the student recipients will receive grants of $975.

“Volunteering is associated with being a generous person, but some people don’t have the ability to volunteer even though they really want to,” says Mary Zhu, Develop for Good’s executive director. “We wanted to eliminate that burden.”