5. Unsolicited Offers

It is rare for someone to call a campaign or catch a candidate on the street and ask to donate money. However, there are several campaigns that are shocked by the number of people that offer to volunteer their time and abilities to the campaign without being asked. To be ready for unsolicited offers to volunteer, make sure you always have small, pre-printed cards for possible volunteers to complete, and be sure to follow up and include them in the campaign.

6. Volunteer Networks

The friends and families of the people who are already volunteering can also be used for the campaigns. See if your volunteers will recruit their own friends and family to assist with the race, and give an original opportunity for them to do so: throw a pizza party for the volunteers and have them bring along their interested friends, let volunteers who are not already busy call their friends from campaign head office to ask them to join, and so on.

7. Campaign Events

Once the campaign has asked for votes and/or donations at campaign events, they should also let anyone interested in volunteering fill out an information card. You can do this recruitment at any kind of events: the kick-off rally, fundraising occasions, coffees, and the like. If it is worried that a solicitation like this would risk detracting from the main reason for the event, the recruitment can be available on the way out at tables or staff at the back of the event.

8. Paid "Volunteers"

A small paid staff is used by most campaigns as the center of the campaign, and they use volunteers for things like literature drops and phone banks. Still, occasionally the campaign just lacks enough experienced volunteers to carry out the jobs that must be done, and need to hire college students, senior citizens, or others to do the work typically done by volunteers. These workers are normally paid hourly and are most frequently used for election-day-get-out-the-vote efforts. If the campaign must use "paid volunteers", it needs to make sure that their work is thoroughly supervised, to guarantee that the work the "volunteers" are paid to do is really finished.