practical guidance for managing, motivating and engaging the modern volunteer driver

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Letter from the author

Digitally Managing Your Volunteers

Engaging Your Volunteers

Motivating Your Volunteers

SPEDSTA - Practical Guidance for Managing, Motivating

and Engaging the Modern Volunteer Driver

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The baby boomer generation’s life has been tough. The typical middle class boomer in the US

has grown up with a 9 to 5 job, steady career growth, nice car and a spacious house. This is certainly

tough compared to the younger generation’s perception of infinite work possibilities, flexibility and

desire to make an impact. Don’t count the Boomers out though as they enter their encore (retirement)

years and looking to make a bigger impact than just the bottom line…volunteerism is on the rise which

could be a boon for volunteer driving programs and volunteer senior transportation across the USA and

Canada.

So how do you leverage this fast

growing and impact seeking population

to volunteer their time and resources to

your cause? The simplest answer is to

give them what they want and on their

own terms. This could be mean more

group lunches, parties and other

benefits that potentially consume your

staff time and resources or it could be

leveraging new tools through Mobile

Technology and software to provide

emotional and tangible benefits at a

much lower cost.

The facts and trends around mobile technology are clear:

• Every adult who has a mobile phone has it within arms reach 22 hours a day

• Average consumer takes 28 hours to report a lost wallet. It takes 68 minutes to report a lost phone.

So lets dive into some ideas on how to digitally manage, motivate and engage the modern volunteer

driver.

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Digitally Managing your Volunteers

One recent study that a typical US consumer spends 85% of

their income within 5 miles of their home and that most car

accidents happen with 3 miles of their home. We have an affinity to

things, people and organizations that are in our local neighborhood.

This affinity also applies to volunteerism. The closer to home you

can have the person perform their volunteer duties the easier it is

for them to choose to do it. Volunteer transportation is no exception.

We would rather provide rides to people within 3 miles of our

home than 5 miles and the drop-off in participation can be up to

80% between the two distances. Giving the ability the volunteer to

understand spatially via GPS and Mapping technology where they

are relative to a potential passenger is one of the key enablers of

participation. Add in other relevant information such as time to

pickup, length of ride etc all adds to a positive decision making

process on the part of the volunteer driver.

People who volunteer can have busy lives and making it

easier for them to join on their own time and be notified of events

that are relevant to them are all part of a great experience.

Providing the option to digitally upload the requirements for joining

such as insurance, license and other details directly through Apps

and other benefits as paperless reimbursements (no odometer

readings) all add to the decreased burden on the volunteer.

“Location, location,

location”…this has

been the maxim of

the real estate

business for years.

But it also pertains to

everything volunteer

related.



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Engaging your Volunteer

Part of the attraction of volunteer driving is to give back to

the community and have an impact on other peoples lives who

need it the most. In typical cases, volunteers do their duty and

go home with an internal feeling of satisfaction. Leveraging

technology could make their engagement more concrete and

provide them with feedback they would not normally receive. If

you are trying to form a habit with the volunteer to give more,

then constant feedback is one of the key elements to

participation.

One simple way to do this is allowing the passenger to

provide ratings and feedback to the driver. These comments

can be a wonderful way for the driver to get an idea of how

specifically they are helping in real time. This type of feedback

allows the volunteer to build a narrative of how they are helping

and the more real-time the feedback is the more powerful affect

it can have on providing more rides.

In cases where new passengers are being added into

your transportation network, allowing the passenger to tell their

story through building their own online profile can also increase

engagement. Drivers who volunteer are mostly friendly and

customer service orientated. By allowing the driver to find

common interests with the passenger through digital means

allows another layer of getting to know the passenger before

any real ride even happens.

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Online Social Communities

As much as there has been a public and media perception that

the older generation does not participate in online communities

such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn the data certainly does

not show that. In fact, on Facebook today the fastest growing

demographic on the platform is the 55+ group. In elderly

transportation communities, we have seen participation of up to

20% of the community providing online feedback. This is

compared to a general average of 1% for online communities.

With over 1 billion daily active users globally on Facebook, social sharing is a phenomenon that

certainly spans age, geography and gender. The universal appeal of these social platforms is rooted

deeply in our human nature to share and give back . As simple a process as “liking” a photo or a

comment that you have made online can generate positive feelings in the person providing the content.

Although these are small events, these small events all build up our perception on how we are helping

and sharing with our community of friends, family and colleagues. Putting mechanisms of social

interaction through ratings and comments into your transportation network all generate that stickiness

you want in the volunteer.

Another mechanism that social platforms leverage is our constant need for learning and growth

through comparing what we are doing relative to other people. “Gamifying” your transportation program

by providing data points relative to how other drivers are doing or measures of performance provide a

mechanism of feedback and improvement to how you would like the driver to aspire to. For example,

putting in measures of ride cancellations, send a strong signal to the driver what is important for your

community of senior passengers. Other things such as response time to emails or other requests all

add to a more efficient and effective senior transportation program.

Motivating your Volunteer



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Free for 30 Days.

From managing your drivers to increasing your

transportation budget, Spedsta brings your entire

transportation program together. The result? Better

experience for the driver and senior passenger and a

lower cost way to manage your transportation

program.

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www.spedsta.com/signup

[email protected]

888 756 3617



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practical guidance for managing, motivating and engaging the modern volunteer driver

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