
At NationBuilder, I work with campaigns of all sizes. Consistently, I have noticed one thing: regardless of size, many campaigns are not using the simple but extremely useful volunteer tools NationBuilder has to offer.
But it's not too late to start!
You can easily create an awesome volunteer sign-up page. From recruiting for specific volunteer roles to setting up automatic follow-ups, anyone can run a sophisticated volunteer recruitment program.
First you need to set up your volunteer roles. Roles are important when encouraging people to sign up to volunteer. It sets expectations and gives them an idea what they're doing that day. So provide options! Here are a few examples of campaign-based volunteer activities:
- phone banker
- canvasser
- house party host

This is extremely important for maintaining a healthy database with accurate data. Setting up a tagging structure for simple searching is essential for having relevant tags to use in Advanced Search within your nation.
So how do you do this? What I tell customers is to create tags with this structure: "Volunteer – Role." Then when you are building lists of volunteers, you can quickly see a list of all your volunteer roles.
In Advanced Search under Tag simply type in Volunteer, and a list of anything labeled "Volunteer – Role" will appear. From here mouse over the role you are searching for and click it. Any volunteer with that tag will come up.
