Best Practices 5 min read

How Nonprofits Can Identify Crucial Volunteer Skills

Eric Burger September 17, 2024

10:46

Your volunteers contribute valuable skills, from social media marketing to tour guiding, that help your organization achieve its goals. However, as your volunteer base shifts and your nonprofit grows, you may find yourself needing new skill sets.

It is important to identify the skills your volunteer base currently has and the skills you still need. Regularly assessing volunteer skill gaps plays a major role in assuring your organization has the resources it needs, and it can also inform your volunteer recruitment practices.

The Importance of Assessing Volunteer Skill Gaps

Assessing volunteer skill gaps is critical to effectively mobilizing your volunteers. Assessing volunteer skill gaps allows your organization to:

Assign the right volunteers to the right positions
Improve organizational productivity
Allocate resources more efficiently
Target volunteer recruitment efforts
Refine volunteer training processes

In addition to all of these direct benefits, skill gap analysis can also improve volunteer retention. 44% of volunteers will leave an organization if they feel like their skills aren’t being properly utilized. Volunteers are much more likely to stay if they are doing a job they think they are good at, as opposed to struggling with a confusing or less ideal task. So, assessing volunteer skill gaps directly supports volunteer retention.

How to Conduct a Volunteer Skill Gap Analysis

Properly assessing volunteer skill gaps requires a structured approach. You need to understand the skills you need and your organization’s goals, as well as developing a plan for data collection, analysis, and action.

Step One: Know When to Assess Volunteer Skill Gaps

Assessing volunteer skill gaps can be time-consuming, but the improved efficiency, productivity, and retention are worth it! You will get the best results if you time your skill gaps analysis properly.

When you’re thinking about assessing volunteer skill gaps, consider the following factors:

Your organization has never conducted a volunteer skill gaps analysis.
Your volunteer base has recently seen high turnover or, conversely, significant increases in membership.
Your organization’s mission or goals have shifted.
Your organization is implementing new initiatives or programs.
It has been multiple years since the last volunteer skills gap assessment.

If your organization fits any of these descriptions, it’s time to conduct a volunteer skill gap analysis.

Step Two: Understanding the Types of Volunteer Skills

Before assessing volunteer skill gaps, you need to understand the skills your organization will need moving forward. These skills will depend on your mission and programs, but they will generally fall into two categories: hard skills and soft skills.

Hard skills are specific competencies that can be developed through formal education, whereas soft skills prioritize emotional intelligence and are typically gained through experiential learning.

Soft skills are extremely transferable, so if a volunteer has robust soft skills, they can usually be trained on the hard skills required to fulfill a position. However, if a volunteer has been struggling with soft skills, they may need more extensive mentorship to develop them; they may be better utilized in a hard skill-heavy role for the time being.

Hard skills include:

Software proficiency
Language fluency
Copywriting
Coding
Content creation
Accounting

Soft skills include:

Leadership
Communication
Problem-solving
Collaboration
Organization
Time management

To get the most out of your volunteer base, you will need to effectively leverage both hard and soft skills.

Step Three: Self-Reflection

As you prepare for assessing volunteer skills gaps, ask yourself the following questions:

What skills do we value as an organization?
What positions do our volunteers currently hold?
What volunteer roles are we struggling to fill?
Are there any areas where we could use volunteer support?
Is the organization having difficulty meeting certain goals, and could volunteers help?
What new initiatives are we planning on starting, and what skills would be necessary to implement them?
What skills will we need as we scale the organization?

The answers to these questions will guide your skill gap analysis strategy.

Step Four: Data Collection

Once you know how you want to shape your skills gap analysis, it’s time to begin collecting data. Using multiple methods will help you get the most comprehensive results. Try implementing a combination of:

Skills-based volunteer surveys
Individual performance reviews
Segmentation within your volunteer database
Informal discussions with volunteers

Keep track of all of this information and start looking for commonalities, as well as gaps.

Step Five: Skills Gap Analysis

As you analyze your data, look at it on two levels:

Individual: Focus on the skills individuals can offer so that you can assign them to the correct positions. You can also consider whether an individual needs additional training to fulfill certain roles.
Organizational: Take the individual data and look at it on a macro level. What skills exist in your volunteer base already, and what skills are you missing? Can you close those gaps through training, or do you need to recruit new volunteers with specific skill sets? Do you need to create new volunteer positions? Should you re-define current job descriptions?

With these valuable insights, you can start implementing changes in your volunteer assignments, recruitment, and training processes.

Step Six: Take Action

After assessing volunteer skill gaps, you need to take action to close them. Start with addressing as many issues as you can internally.

Refine job descriptions: Revisit volunteer job descriptions and make them as specific as possible. Consider restructuring certain positions or shifting tasks to better fit your current volunteers’ skills.
Shift volunteer roles: Once you have refined volunteer job descriptions, move volunteers to the positions that best suit their skills and interests.
Promote accessibility: Make it as easy as possible for skilled volunteers to lend their talents to your organization. Offer flexible scheduling, virtual volunteering, micro-volunteering, and other accessible options.
Conduct training: Provide your volunteers with additional training to address common skill gaps. Training is especially valuable for hard skills, like software proficiency and organizational processes. You should also refine your training procedures for new recruits to make sure these skills are addressed early on, eventually eliminating the need for additional training.
Nurture soft skills: Soft skills are more difficult to develop than hard skills, since they are built through experience and emotional intelligence instead of memorizing facts and instructions. Consider implementing mentorship programs or offering soft skills-focused workshops, seminars, or retreats.
Emphasize personal and professional development. Keep volunteers engaged by showcasing how addressing skill gaps can help them outside the organization. Volunteers will often be excited to learn new skills that can support their professional goals and enrich their personal lives, making them more likely to actively participate in training efforts.
Hire temporary staff: If your volunteers need more extended help addressing skill gaps, you can consider hiring temporary staff or consultants. Bringing in a professional can ensure that your volunteers get the high-quality training they need. While hiring additional staff does increase your training budget, it can be very cost-effective in the long-term.
Remain empathetic and respectful. Some volunteers may be sensitive during the skill gap analysis process. They may feel undervalued or like they are not meeting expectations. They may even be worried that they will be fired. Explain that the purpose of assessing volunteer skill gaps isn’t to judge or punish individuals; it’s to make sure that you help every volunteer excel.

Step Seven: Recruitment

Some skill gaps may be too wide or too specific to address internally. In these cases, you will want to launch a recruitment campaign. Target your recruitment efforts to the skills you need:

Reach out to your volunteer base. Inform your current volunteers that you are looking to fill specific positions. They may know a friend who has the skills you need, or they may even be willing to independently train to fulfill the new role themselves.
Use specific messaging. Craft your recruitment materials to specifically attract the skills you need. For example: “Looking for a creative volunteer social media manager” or “Seeking dedicated volunteers who are comfortable with QuickBooks.”
Get the word out. Advertise on social media, local news outlets, and community message boards.
Leverage community resources. Reach out to local professional or civic organizations that may already have people with the skills you need. For example, if you need Spanish language interpreters, connect with a local Hispanic society, the high school Spanish Club, or a college’s Spanish department.

Step Eight: Check-in

Keep tabs on your volunteer base to see if your work assessing volunteer skill gaps has been effective. Check in with your volunteers, either through informal conversations or a formal survey, to see whether they feel confident and comfortable in their refined roles. You should also monitor organizational outcomes, such as funds raised, beneficiaries served, and return on investment, to see whether your skill gap assessment has had the desired effects on efficiency and productivity.‍

Optimize Your Volunteer Program with VolunteerHub

Assessing volunteer skill gaps is just one part of optimizing your volunteer program. To maximize volunteer efficiency, you will need a robust volunteer management software like VolunteerHub.

VolunteerHub is the number one volunteer management software. We have been helping nonprofits like yours streamline their processes for over two decades, impacting thousands of organizations and billions of volunteers.

VolunteerHub’s intuitive, all-in-one platform offers solutions for every step of the volunteer management process, including: