Have you had any experience utilizing volunteers for fundraising efforts?

What You Need to Know
How to Answer
1st Answer Example
2nd Answer Example

Volunteers fill a number of support positions for nonprofits, ensuring successful program delivery. A number of volunteers also have special skills and may be interested in assisting with fundraising efforts including prospect research, grant writing, special event planning, gift acknowledgment, and more.

Share with the interviewer any experience you have in training and supervising volunteers to assist with fundraising efforts. You can simultaneously emphasize your interpersonal relationship and management skills in your answer. Be specific about capital raised as a result of volunteer participation in fundraising.

"The organization I currently work for utilizes more than two thousand volunteers on a daily basis to deliver services to families in need. While the majority of volunteers are involved in direct service work, we have roughly fifty volunteers who assist the development team with special event planning and implementation. I have developed relationships with each of these individuals, and they have remained consistent volunteers during my tenure. They help us set up and staff our largest annual fundraiser, and because of their efforts we have been able to count on at least $50,000 a year from this event."

"Recent economic challenges in our city have led to an overall decrease in individual and corporate giving. As a result, I have had to adjust my fundraising plan to expand our efforts to draw in new donors from younger generations. I believed we needed to include the perspective of individuals from those same generations, so I reached out to my university network and met two senior students interested in completing volunteer internships related to nonprofit development. I trained them in the fundamentals of prospect research and guided them through the steps of qualification and establishing first contact. These volunteers contributed to us meeting our annual goal of one million dollars and helped us secure thirty new donors."