Volunteer Highlight From Flint Clouse, Regional Volunteer Services Officer

We know that our greatest resource is our volunteers. The team accomplishes so much more working together.

Many of you have already heard of our new Friends and Family Referral Program. This program enables volunteers to help recommend qualified people to join the Red Cross. The four steps are:

1. A current Red Cross volunteer encourages a friend, family member, or colleague to apply as a volunteer.
2. The current volunteer submits their personal connection’s information through the referral form located in Volunteer Connection.
3. If requested, an email will be sent to the potential volunteer to encourage them to apply.
4. The potential volunteer applies through redcross.org/volunteer and becomes a volunteer.

We will hold in-person and online sessions to review the resources in more detail, including email templates and where to find the program in Volunteer Connection. To learn more, reach out to your Chapter Executive Director or a member of the Volunteer Services team.

Tracking the referrals in Volunteer Connection will allow us to keep you updated on their application process and have monthly drawings for those with at least three volunteer recruits that log hours in that month, beginning in October. Among other appreciation items, our Pop Socket will be exclusively available for the Friends and Family Referral Program monthly drawing. More information to come.

SURVEY NOTE: You may have heard us talk about the Net Promoter Score or NPS. In your annual survey, we ask how likely you are to recommend the Red Cross to a friend as a good place to volunteer. We appreciate the 9 and 10s because you are likely to recommend us. A rating of 7 or 8 is neutral, and anything lower means “not at all likely” to recommend us. If you are not recommending us as a great place to volunteer, please help us make changes. We don’t want to wait until an annual survey to solve problems. Volunteers make up over 90 percent of the Red Cross workforce, and we recognize that volunteers have valuable feedback to improve our programs.

Thanks for the feedback in reducing the volunteer opportunities on the public website. We went from 35 to 6 pages. Please keep the solutions coming.

And thank you for sharing our volunteer opportunities with your friends. That’s the biggest compliment our programs can receive.

Best wishes,
Flint