Six Working Ways to Engage Students in Volunteering

We can’t deny the fact that students are an important part of our society today. Their level of social awareness, their keenness in sharing knowledge, and their great enthusiasm for a cause that interests them make them a good fit for volunteers. Being a volunteer involves spending your time and energy in an activity that isn’t directly for your good, but rather for others. This helps the society a lot and the best set of people for this are students. The problem with getting students to volunteer is that their interests as young folk might not necessarily be what you want them to volunteer for. Below are six ways to encourage and engage students in volunteering.

1. Add an incentive to the work.

Anybody can be motivated to do anything as long as there is an added incentive for the job. While money is a very potent source of motivation, the reason they are volunteers is that they won’t get paid. Adding something that interests them as an extra incentive goes a long way in encouraging them. If you’re a teacher, you can add extra marks for volunteering and ask them to write about their experience as a volunteer. You can also give gifts or other things along their line of interest to keep them in the flow.

2. Let them see the benefits of volunteering.

Helping these young ones see the benefit of volunteering will only motivate them to want to volunteer. Volunteering helps the students to become more employable. Volunteering makes the students more experienced and skilled in handling specific issues, it shows a sense of commitment, responsibility, and self-belief, what is pretty important for professional essay writing and resume writing services or proofreading services. This makes them appear more well-rounded and competent to employers and this in turn, greatly increases their employability. Volunteering also serves as an avenue to socialize, meet people, make new friends and have fun. Preaching these benefits to students can encourage them to volunteer.

3. Use social media for your publicity.

The social media today is a force to reckon with. The most active social media users happen to be the younger ones, students. The social media is one of the few things that draw their attention. Creating a befitting social media profile for your volunteering service can go a long way to attract students to volunteer. Getting your volunteer to put more words out across these platforms can attract more volunteers.

“Peer pressure is an effective way of getting students to do things. They tend to generally get involved in things they see their friends do. Having your first set of few volunteers put words out on their social media network can attract their friends too.” —Grace Mitty, Resource Manager at BestEssays

4. Carry them along with the planning and organization.

Everyone likes to be carried along in making decisions that concern them directly or indirectly. As long as they are a part of the process, they will appreciate it if they were carried along. Can you imagine what the results of assignment writing services, professional dissertation writing, or CV writing service would be if researchers failed to carry writers along on academic projects? The same could happen to the purpose of volunteering if you refuse to involve students in decision-making processes.

“They wouldn’t volunteer for an organization if they will have to be taking orders without being actively involved in the process. Holding meetings with them, explaining what you are trying to do and achieve, having them ask questions and taking their suggestions, give them a sense of belonging. It makes them appear mature, they feel they’re adults too, they can belong to something meaningful and make decisions. There’s a sense of fulfillment that this gives them. Trust me this is what all teenagers crave for.” —Mary Chance, who works with professional assignment writing and superior papers.

5. Be encouraging in your approach and feedback.

Everybody loves to be champions and become appreciated in whatever they do, no matter how little it is. This gives them the drive and motivation to continue to do more and improve whatever they do. It is very easy to lose motivation when there’s a feeling of unworthiness when people see themselves as not good enough at what they are doing. This is mainly due to negative feedback that they get overtime.

To get students to volunteer for your organization, they have to have a feeling of worthiness. Make them feel important. Tell it to them that you can’t do anything without them and make sure they see themselves that way. Don’t just do this to get them to volunteer. Do it as frequently as they work for you. This encourages them to do more.

6. Create a strong connection with your volunteers.

People are encouraged to come back and volunteer, especially if it’s seasonal (maybe something that happens during the summer break) when they feel a strong sense of connection to the organization or organizer. They become more willing to do it again and do more when you can empathize with them and make them feel important. This could even encourage them to bring more of their friends on board.

“When you actively connect with students, you’ll always have them coming back to volunteer.” —Alice Bern, Team Leader at CareersBooster

Conclusion

Now you know the importance of making students see reasons to volunteer for your organization. Give them extra incentives and let them feel loved, important, and useful to the course. By applying the tips discussed here, you’ll find out how easy it is to get young people involved in volunteering.