Recruiting & Training Volunteers

Freegle Volunteer Wiki › 🌱 Recruiting & Training Volunteers

Every Freegle group runs on volunteers, so finding, training and keeping them is one of the most important jobs a group has. This section walks through the whole journey: spotting and recruiting good candidates, training new moderators step by step, and looking after your team once they're on board, plus who to turn to nationally for help along the way.

Start here: Recruiting, Training and Retaining is the classic index of everything below in one place; Group Volunteer Recruiting and Mod Training cover the two big jobs of finding and training people.

Finding volunteers

• Recruiting, Training and Retaining - the original hub page linking out to every guide on recruiting, training and keeping volunteers.
• Group Volunteer Team - the range of volunteer roles worth having on a group team, beyond just moderating.
• Group Volunteer Recruiting - the overview of the recruiting process, linking out to the role-specific guides below.
• Group Events Volunteer (GEV) Recruiting - a full step-by-step guide to recruiting an events volunteer: who to approach, sample letters and admin posts, an application form, and how to assess candidates.
• Group Media Volunteer (GMV) Recruiting - the equivalent step-by-step guide for recruiting a social-media-focused volunteer.
• Volunteer (Moderator) Recruiting - a guide, with sample letters, for spotting, approaching and recruiting new moderator volunteers from your own membership.
• Volunteering - practical notes on volunteering while claiming Jobseeker's Allowance, plus general volunteering resources.

Training new moderators

• Mod Training - sample letters for newly recruited mods, suggested training stages, and tips for keeping style consistent across a team.
• Freshers Config Crib Sheet - a quick reference to the standard reject/edit buttons and messages used on the practice moderating group.
• Moderating a Post - Vee Martin's step-by-step crib sheet for working through a pending post from start to finish.
• Problematic Posts - Vee Martin's companion crib sheet listing common problem posts (borrowing, payment, personal details, pets) and what to do about each.
• New Group Owner Training Step 1 - orientation for a brand-new group owner: Freegle's history, your group's settings, publicising your new group, and where to get help.
• Microvolunteering - small moderating tasks members can opt into on the website, as a stepping stone towards becoming a full moderator.

Support once they're in

• Help and support for new volunteers - Freegle Freshers and the main discussion groups (Tech, Funding, Central, Cafe) a new mod can join for help.
• Central Support - the routes to support: the Central Groups, the Mentor Team for one-to-one help, the Mailbox Team, and the formal Complaints Procedure.
• Confidential Volunteer Support - who to contact in confidence about a delicate local team issue that can't be resolved internally.
• Retaining Volunteers - practical tips for keeping a happy team: swap numbers, meet regularly, and check the workload isn't falling on one person.
• Local Support Groups - why (and how) to set up your own small support group for your team, including a step-by-step Gmail-based approach.
• Regional Support Groups - links to regional groups for Freegle volunteers by area of the UK.
• Freestock - the annual volunteer get-together, usually a camping weekend, with a year-by-year history since it began in 2009.

National training team

• Training Team - the national team's role and remit, membership, and how it works with the New Groups Team and Mentors.
• Training Team Reports - the Training Team's monthly activity reports posted to Central.

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Prefer to browse? Every page here is also listed A-Z in the Recruiting & Training Volunteers index. Back to the home page.