Requesting Feedback from Volunteers

Rebekah Coenen Event Management Solutions, Event Solutions, General Interest, Happy Volunteers, How To's

What do you do after the race as been run, the kegs are empty, and the unsold art is safely packed away? 

Receiving feedback can sometimes be scary, but it is vital to improving our events and the volunteer programs that make them great.

It would be nice to have a break and not think or worry about your event for a few days, weeks, or even months. Maybe a few other things in your life have suffered as the event moved closer and your attention shifted to full-focus as you prepared for the big day. Before you can dust off your hands and say, “see ya next year,” we think you should consider one last item on that to-do list: get feedback.

Why is attendee (and especially volunteer) feedback so important? To help you uncover those blind spots. To make simple changes that can significantly impact the experience of all your volunteers on-site. To make the volunteer program more fun, accessible and impactful. To keep your best volunteers coming back, year-over-year.

Let’s dive in. There is more than one way to get feedback from your volunteers and you might find a combination of a few gets you the best information. No matter what you decide on make sure you read the responses and work to incorporate their feedback. 

 

Informal Questions/Chit Chat 

This includes conversing with volunteers as they check-out of their shifts, or at the post-event party. It can also include asking staffers or colleagues for their thoughts back at your desks, after the event is over. Sometimes, asking for feedback in this way (casual, informal settings) can produce the most honest, in-the-moment results – but you may not get the most thoughtful responses with this method.

Pros 

Cons
  • This doesn’t have to happen at the end of the event and could help inform some of your choices along the way. 
  • You can get feedback right away. It is easy for people to forget about what they would make comments about. 
  • Not everyone will be honest in an informal situation. 
  • You could get heat of the moment comments that aren’t accurate to the whole way someone feels

 

Digital (or Paper) Surveys

We recommend using a free service like SurveyMonkey or SurveyPlanet, but if you want to get fancy, you might consider a more advanced solution like Qualtrics. Online and paper surveys tend to have the highest submission rates when an incentive is offered to complete them – you could randomly choose one recipient to receive a free festival “basket” (leftover merch, anyone?!) or a set of passes to next year’s event.

Pros 

Cons 
  • People are more likely to be honest and they can think of how they want to word things. 
  • Can take place over week or two giving people time to think and give thoughtful feed back. 
  • There have to be a set of questions so it doesn’t leave much room for discussion or elaborating. 
  • You can’t force anyone to fill it out so you might not get as much information as you want. 

 

End-of-Year Meeting

This may entail bringing everyone together (staff, volunteers, and captains) in a conference room or – if you’d prefer a more open setting, a post-event party – to share ideas and feedback in a collaborative, discussion-oriented way. Virtual meetings count, too! Think: conference calls, Google Hangouts or Skype sessions.

Pros

Cons
  • Good time for everyone to get together after the event is over and maintain relationships
  • allow for more discussion on topics that are important to everyone. 
  • Not everyone is comfortable with conformation and may be less inclined to speak up about an issue. 
  • Happens at the end of the event so you can’t change anything during the event. 

 

Suggestion Box/Continual Feedback 

The old classic. It never hurts to have a brightly colored box stationed at check-in/out, with bits of paper and pencils nearby to deliver anonymous feedback in real-time. Sometimes, your biggest detractors (with the most valuable feedback) won’t take the time to complete an online survey, and certainly may not feel inclined to join the post-event gathering. An Honesty Box is a simple, low-cost and low-fi investment that is guaranteed to deliver.

Pros

Cons
  • Your volunteers will have the ability to be heard right away instead of waiting until they are called upon to deliver feedback, either virtually or in-person.  
  • You can start collecting feedback before the event occurs, and make changes leading up to the big day to ensure everyone has the best time possible. 
  • Feedback isn’t digitally stored or tracked in the cloud, so if you want any kind of reporting, you’ll have to manually enter this data into a system online.
  • If it is all anonymous it can lead to more of a venting tool than getting constructive feedback. 

Rebekah Coenen

Rebekah Coenen is a staff writer at VolunteerLocal. She loves Ultimate Frisbee, crafting, and brewing beer.