• When your organization is fortunate enough to have people volunteering their time and services, it's a good idea to survey them to find out more about who they are and what they may like or dislike about the volunteering experience. Use this information to help increase volunteer retention and to learn about any improvements your volunteers want to suggest.
  
  

Personal Information

• Survey your volunteers to ask for their contact information, gender, age or age range, and how long they have been volunteering at your organization. Ask how they got involved in the organization, and whether they have any personal ties to the work you are doing. For example, if your organization is affiliated with a religion, ask if they are members of the religion; if it is a group supporting research to cure a disease, ask if they know someone who has the ailment. Find out what kind of time commitment they can offer in the future, such as coming in once a week to answer phones or serve meals.
  
  

Types of Volunteerism

• Ask volunteers what types of activities they've performed. Find out if they answered telephones, solicited donations, provided clerical support, made repairs or wrote press releases. Survey them to find out if they would have preferred to do a different kind of task, or if they enjoyed what they did and would like to do it again in the future. Ask if there is a service they feel they could offer but there didn't seem to be an opportunity to provide it.
  
  

Satisfaction

• Use a survey to ask volunteers to rank their experiences that day. Poll them to see if they enjoyed volunteering, what they thought of any training they were given and how they responded to their supervisor if they had one. The survey should have them rate their answers on a scale such as "Extremely Satisfied, "Somewhat Satisfied," "Unsure," "Somewhat Dissatisfied" or "Extremely Dissatisfied." Include space for volunteers to add expanded comments about the ratings they give. Ask if they have any ideas about improving their experiences and any criticism. They may have ideas you haven't thought of before, which could benefit your organization.