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How to Onboard New Volunteers

This is a guide for existing volunteers, describing how to welcome and onboard volunteers who are coming in for the first time. No need to take this prescriptively, but it's a good starting point for the conversations you can have!

At the start of the shift​

  • Introduce yourself and any other volunteers or regulars who are present. Share when you started volunteering for the tool library.
  • Thank the volunteer for taking the time to come in and for being excited about our mission. Reiterate to the volunteer the three things that the tool library offers to the community (ie, pay-what-you-can item borrowing and workspace, and free classes), and that we’re an all-volunteer team, so we only exist because of the hard work of volunteers like them.
  • Give the volunteer a tour of our space, if they haven’t gotten one already.
  • Share some of the common tasks that a volunteer might need to do during a shift, and also share some of the outside-of-shift tasks that other volunteers take on (eg, marketing and outreach, teaching classes, repairing inventory, etc)
  • Set the volunteer up with WiFi, if they have a smartphone
  • Verify their MyTurn account and grant them admin permissions so that they can catalog and check in/out items
  • Ask what they’re excited about working on, and give tasks as needed for that shift. Some ideas, if nothing obvious presents itself:
    • Show them how to catalog new donations into MyTurn inventory
    • Check patrons’ items in and out at the front desk; show them how to do these tasks in MyTurn, and make yourself available to answer questions or buddy with them
    • Organize or tidy up a specific section of the inventory room. Make sure you give clear goals/suggestions.
    • Try repairing inventory; show them the shelf of broken items, how to see the existing maintenance notes in MyTurn, and what to do if the item seems to be un-fixable

At the end of the shift​

  • Share what brought you in to the tool library initially, and what keeps you coming back
  • Invite them to Slack
  • Show them how to sign up for more shifts on the Google Sheet. Mention that they can come in for whichever shift works best for their schedule.
  • Tell them about the coming month's volunteer social event
  • Thank the volunteer again for their time!