Open Forum

Hi all!

We are trying to map out the best schedule for active volunteer recruitment and wanted to see what others are doing! Currently, we have a rolling application process and do one-off trainings, but we would like to develop a more structured approach.

Does anyone do a quarterly training or how often are you accepting applications and providing volunteer trainings/orientations?

Thanks in advance!

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Kelsey Chung
Visitor Services Coordinator
Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
Stanford CA
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I'm the Museum Coordinator for a County Museum.  We have no paid staff - everyone is a volunteer, including me, the Board, and all the staff.  I staff the Museum one day a week.  The Volunteer Coordinator and I do the initial training of new volunteers.  Then we ask the current volunteers to help with training as they staff the Museum.  We have a Museum handbook that goes thru all the exhibits in the Musuem, we have a Volunteer Handbook that covers how to open/close, sell merchandise, handle material donation offers, etc, and an Office Handbook on how the equipment works.  The Volunteer Coordinator and I hold at least two recruitments a year.  This year we used the semiquincentennial as a reason to have three.  Each time we've gotten about 15 to attend the recruitment event.  We ask the person to fill out a form at the event and then spend a hour or so talking about the organization.  Then we read the interests off the form and from the list of needs we made up before the event, try to find ways to fit the volunteer into something we need.  Failing that, we continue the conversation with the volunteer to find a mutually agreeable activity.

We recruit every day we're open from the visitors who come in.  We recruit at every event (program, book club, Spirit Tours, Walking Tours, school Field Trips, etc).  Current volunteers are coached on how to recruit once they're comfortable with their activity. 

Hope this helps.

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Cindy Schmidt MBA
Volunteer Museum Coordinator
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Original Message:
Sent: 9/28/2026 11:27:00 AM
From: Karen Lara Templin
Subject: RE: Volunteer Recruitment - How often?

Hi Kelsey,

 

I am very interested in seeing other responses to your topic!

 

We are doing the same thing (rolling recruitment) and having the same desire to have more structured recruitment and trainings.  I currently try to have a couple of multi-part "big" trainings per year, but end up doing a lot of one-on-one rolling training, which is less efficient and also misses out on the input of multiple people in a class. We have a handbook and homework readings and they can "shadow" and mentor with other volunteers, but as a department of 1 full time person, I don't really feel like the rolling system I inherited with my position is sustainable.

 

We recruit youth volunteers once per year, just after school gets out in the spring, and do a week of intensive training with them and then they volunteer all summer and on weekends during the school year.  With that model in mind, I'm hoping to do summer and winter recruitments for adult volunteers  - January and February are our traditional slowest times and biggest training opportunities, and summer part time/volunteer help plus slower September visitation makes a late summer/early fall training session more possible also.  That would stagger my responsibilities to three main training times per year.  For these larger training sessions,

• for adults we meet once per week for a few hours each for 5 weeks, covering cultural and historical content and teaching methodologies, with homework readings/questions for them to answer in the week between each of the training sessions
• for teen volunteers (13+) we do 5 all day sessions (9-4) during one week in late May/early June depending on area school calendars, with the day broken up between classroom time (Methodology, Content) and hands-on practice time with mentors, and they "clear" to do their presentations at the end of the week.

 

Looking forward to more ideas!

Lara

K. Lara Templin | Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

Education Administrator - Gallery Experience Manager | Public History

P.O. Box 1607, Williamsburg, VA 23187-1607

P: (757) 253-7311 | (757) 847-3126

 

Greetings from Sarasota, FL!

Our museum is in a community with a large seasonal population, so the majority of our volunteers are in the area at the same time we have our greatest need. There's always space for new volunteers in our front-facing roles, so we recruit on a rolling basis as well and collect applications all year long. We conduct orientation sessions for new volunteers once per month; it's a comprehensive 3-hour session to review a bit of history as well as important polices and procedures. They receive their volunteer handbook and ethics policy as well as other materials. Following orientation, individuals are referred to our staff Assignment Coordinators for position-specific training that can vary in length and content based on the specific requirements of the role.

The exception is Museum Guide (Docent) recruitment. We have a 2-part interview process that's been pretty successful (I can provide more detail to anyone interested), and after individuals are accepted into the program, they complete orientation and modular training courses that also vary in length. We try to conduct our recruitment and training for new Guides in our off-season so they can begin leading tours when enter our busiest months.

Regards,

Hollie 

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Hollie Corbitt
Volunteer Program Coordinator
Ringling Museum of Art
Sarasota FL
hollie.corbitt@ringling.org
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