Promotion & communication (post-arrival)

Research: In this chapter the focus lies on the communication and promotion activities carried out by the three organizations. From the research questionnaires we can picture a status quo based on the results, how volunteers became aware of work camps in the first place and how satisfied they were with the communication with their organizations’ team.

Conclusions regarding the improvement of communication and promotion activities can be drawn from the status quo as well as the results of the 3 research questions.

Findings & results: The overwhelming majority of volunteers came initially into contact with workcamps by a personal recommendation or by actively searching themselves for such a kind of experience. In all three countries “through media (online, printed, websites)” was the 3rd most common way for volunteers to get to know about workcamps.

In Hungary and the Czech Republic “personal recommendation” was the most common answer; in Germany this answer only came second after the active search. According to our research in the Czech Republic it was almost 6 times more likely that volunteers joined their first camp because of a personal recommendation, than because of getting to know the concept via media. In Hungary it was almost 3 times more likely and in Germany only 1.3 times.

The answer options that fall into the "social media" category (Facebook & Instagram) resulted in a combined value that was slightly higher than the value for media (online, printed, websites). However, this was only the case in the surveys in the Czech Republic and Hungary. Social media played virtually no role in the results of the survey in Germany.

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Where did you first here about workcamps? (Egyesek)

Our research shows that the communication with the organization before, during and after the workcamp is perceived as positive and the volunteers are satisfied by a large majority. A closer look at the results in this area also reveals two details that may indicate potential for development:

The number of volunteers who are “very satisfied” with the communication by the organization drops slightly in all countries when comparing “before the camp” and “after the camp”. So there is a room for improvement for all organizations in the “post-camp communication”. The target should be the high standard of the pre-camp communication.

During the workcamp the number of volunteers who are “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” increases significantly. This can easily be explained by the fact that there is usually no need to communicate with the volunteers during their camp, unless there are urgent issues or emergencies. It may be worthwhile to explore, if more communication already during the camp experience can be a tool to boost volunteer engagement after the experience.

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How would you rate the communication between your organization and you before, during and after the workcamp? (IBG)

In the research questionnaires the volunteers were also asked to rate their communication with their respective organization in 5 different areas in order to better understand qualitative aspects of our communication practice. The ratings concern the amount of information about the activities of the organizations, knowledge how volunteers can get involved in specific activities, comprehensibility, convenience of the amount of information and support from the staff of the organizations.

A great majority of respondents in all three countries were satisfied with the communication with their organization in all five areas. Disagreement or neutral answers were slightly more frequent only in the area that concerns knowledge of how volunteers can get involved in specific activities.

This suggests that opportunities for participation may need to be emphasized more explicitly- in a clear “call-to-action” way - when organizations communicate about their specific activities.

(See chapter 5 → Clear and accessible information: Respondents across all countries emphasized the need for clearer information about available opportunities, including details, schedules, and contact data.)

In the final part of the research we wanted to find out which communication channels

are used by the volunteers to find volunteering opportunities for themselves

they want our organizations to use to communicate with them about our opportunities

Common findings across all three countries were that Websites & Email are playing the dominant role for volunteers when it comes to searching for volunteering opportunities.

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