How to Attract Community Volunteers to Your HOA

With a new year coming up—and a new season of HOA elections, budgeting, and planning—many communities are once again thinking about how they can enlist more community volunteers. Volunteers power any HOA-governed community, and yet attracting community volunteers can be difficult.

With that said, there are some things your HOA can do to make the volunteer experience more alluring to community members.

  • First, remember that you are competing with other organizations for people’s time. Homeowners are busy enough with work and family, so if they are going to devote their spare time to any organization, they need to know that it will make a difference. Make it clear that there is real, important work for volunteers to do. Gather ideas from residents and make sure the priorities of your HOA align with the values of your community members.
  • Volunteerism is driven by emotions, so don’t rely on a generic bulletin board post or Facebook status update to get volunteers to join up. Ask people personally and individually.
  • With that said, it also pays off to make sure your volunteerism campaign is visible and consistently branded. Come up with a motto or a tagline for it. Make sure to mention it in your organization’s publications—newsletters and social media sites—regularly.
  • Make sure that volunteers receive all the training they need; often, the biggest impediment to volunteerism is a lack of knowledge about how to perform the required tasks. Host a training event in your community, or post informative resources on the HOA website.
  • Express the appreciation that you have for your community volunteers, perhaps bringing in snacks or meals while they’re hard at work.
  • Spotlight the work of your volunteers on the HOA blog, Facebook page, or newsletter. A little bit of recognition can go a long way!

By following these tips, you will hopefully make some inroads toward generating interest in volunteerism within your HOA community.

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Bryan Kuester

Bryan Kuester

Bryan is the CEO of Kuester Management Group. He has over 15 years of managing community associations throughout North and South Carolina.

His specialties include Community Association Management - maintenance, budgeting for operational and reserve funding, long-range planning, covenant enforcement, amenity management, onsite management, large scale management.