Volunteer and Mentor Management

Best Practices for Recruiting Effective Volunteers

If volunteers play an important role in your R3 efforts, then you need to put effort and attention into recruiting them. If someone outside your R3 team does the recruiting, make sure they understand the role you need the volunteers to play and the type of individual best suited for it. Do not leave this to chance.

So, how do you know if a prospective volunteer has the qualities you’re looking for? Here are some ways to help determine if they will be a good fit:

• Discuss their interest in and experience with hunting and shooting sports.
• Look for volunteers who have pertinent teaching and field experience.
• Look for volunteers who know hunting and shooting techniques, safety procedures, and conservation ethics.
• Use partnership networks to find candidates (conservation organizations, shooting leagues and organizations, diversity organizations, etc.).
• Host recruitment events, like open houses or seminars, where potential volunteers can learn more about the roles and meet current volunteers and staff. These events can provide a personal touch and foster a sense of community.
• Do a background check on all volunteers.
• Ensure that potential mentors understand the ethical considerations of the mentorship role, the importance of setting and respecting boundaries, and being a welcoming ambassador for the hunting and shooting sports culture.
• If your volunteers are spread out geographically, ask staff members from their area to meet with them and provide feedback.
• When recruiting instructors, consider the three core competencies that make up an effective educator:
  • Human – their ability to relate, communicate, and connect with others.
  • Outdoor – tangible outdoor skills.
  • Educational – their ability to convey new information to students that results in long-term, transferrable knowledge retention.

It is the combination of these three competencies that makes an effective educator. If an individual has strong outdoor skills but cannot relate to students, their efficacy as an educator will be diminished. Likewise, if an educator communicates well and has sound educational practices but lacks outdoor skills, their ability to help students reach educational objectives will be limited.

• Go on a “practice” guided hunt or session at the range. Observe their knowledge of the habitat and landscape features, how they anticipate and navigate various target shooting and hunting scenarios, how they instill confidence in participants, and how they creatively navigate physically and mentally challenging situations in the company of others.

How to Retain Volunteer Mentors and Educators

Effective communication and volunteer management technology can be beneficial in retaining volunteers. Clear, consistent communication fosters a sense of community and belonging among volunteers. It makes them feel valued and connected to the organization’s mission. It enables timely dissemination of information, recognition of their contributions, and provides a platform for feedback and support. All of these things are vital for volunteer satisfaction and engagement. Meanwhile, volunteer management technology streamlines the administrative aspects of volunteer engagement, from scheduling to tracking participation and impact.

Recommended support for volunteers:

• Create online message boards and volunteer support groups through social media platforms.
• Schedule follow-up hunts, shooting events, or other activities with volunteers. Share insights and observations.
• Schedule off-season social events or training events for volunteers.
• Connect mentors with conservation organizations and include diverse perspectives.
• Encourage mentors to invite new hunters and shooting sports participants into the field. Set a goal to invite x number of new participants each year.
• Provide incentives or recognition for various levels of participation.
• Get in the practice of providing heartfelt thanks.
• Connect seasoned volunteers with newcomers. This peer mentorship can ease newcomers into their roles and responsibilities.
• Continuous Learning: Highlight the personal and professional development opportunities that come with volunteering.

Federal Matching

Most federal grant programs require matching funds. State agencies often have difficulty allocating enough funds to take full advantage of the available grant money. Fortunately, federal guidelines allow many kinds of goods and services to be applied as in-kind match for these grants.

Matching volunteer hours

In many situations, volunteer hours can be used as in-kind match for federal grant funds. Sometimes these may be underutilized. Time spent driving, mentoring, teaching, hosting, or other volunteer activities often qualify but are not always used. In some cases, volunteer hours from non-government partner organizations can also be used by states for federal match.

Organizations sometimes have difficulty maintaining records of volunteer hours. Here are a few methods for recording volunteer hours.

• Organization formatted timecards established specifically for your use and records.
• Share workbooks online through spreadsheet vendors.
• 3rd party volunteer time management software.
• Clock-in/Clock-out systems used alongside state employee database.
• Integration with state Volunteer Management Systems.
• Other R3 community resources.

According to the Code of Federal Regulations, listed here as a resource, “Rates for third-party volunteer services must be consistent with those paid for similar work by the non-Federal entity. In those instances in which the required skills are not found in the non-Federal entity, rates must be consistent with those paid for similar work in the labor market in which the non-Federal entity competes for the kind of services involved.”¹ This means that a volunteer rate must match or be similar to the rate that a full-time employee would receive for the same task. In situations where the state does not have a similar position doing similar work that the volunteer is performing, the rate must be similar to the current labor market rate for that task. This highlights the importance of and opportunities for capitalizing on volunteer time matching.

Note that you can track more than just volunteer hours from R3 efforts. Any type of volunteer effort can be tracked and used as matching funds.

Matching partner donations

Some federal programs will allow third-party donations of equipment, staff time, or goods and services to be used as match. Your organization saves money with the donation and receives federal matching dollars as well. Requesting assistance is never a bad idea, especially when you have a special event, class, or course you would like to implement.

Training Effective Educators & Mentors

Hunting and shooting sports educators and mentors can make or break a new or potential participant’s early experiences. You need to ensure your volunteers are well-trained to provide an informative, fun, and consistent experience for students being mentored or taking classes at different times in different places.

First, you will have to provide your instructors and mentors with the same up-to-date resources.

You should provide:

• Lesson plans
• PowerPoint slides & videos
• Handouts
• Checklists
• Field/How-to exercises
• Evaluation templates
• Standard operating procedures and risk management practices

Once the resources are developed, train your volunteers to be effective educators. This is critical as educational practice is just as important as educational topics. If content is not presented in a manner that students can understand and retain, then the efficacy of the training is lost, regardless of how good the content is. Provide periodic, train-the-trainer lessons for all volunteers. Conduct this training face to face if possible. Since new educators and mentors join at various times, you could use video or interactive lessons on demand to onboard them. You could also use video lessons to teach existing instructors about new lessons as they are developed.

Train-the-trainer efforts should include:

Lesson Plan Walk-throughs for Specific Lessons – Instructors and mentors need to understand each program they are assigned to teach.

• What are the effort’s objectives?
• Who is likely to take it?
• Is there any new, unique, or special content?
• How will the effort be evaluated?

Since you’re unlikely to be able to onboard every new instructor or mentor individually, we recommend these lesson briefings be created in an on-demand video or interactive lesson format. They don’t need to be cinematic masterpieces. You could record yourself in a Zoom or Teams meeting, walking through the lesson plan and critical slides.