How to use social media and TikTok to promote your volunteer programme
In short
Social media, including TikTok, is often where people first find a charity, so treat your profiles as your front door. Ilana Green advised building trust before asking people to volunteer, making it simple to get involved and sharing real content filmed on a phone. Start with one or two platforms and post less often if it means posting better.
In this Lunch and Learn, Ilana Green, Senior Social Media Strategist at Born Social, shared how charities can use social media, including TikTok, to reach their next volunteers. She covered why social media matters for recruitment, the two messages every charity should share, and how to get started without a dedicated team.
Key points
Social media is often where people, especially younger people, first find a charity, so treat your profiles as your front door.
Build a following by showing who you are and why you matter before you ask people to volunteer.
Make getting involved simple, with clear steps, a link and answers to common questions.
Real, unpolished content filmed on a phone often works better than a polished campaign.
Start small, test what works, and post less often if it means posting better.
Watch the full session below, including the charity examples she showed and a busy Q&A. Under the video, we’ve summarised the key takeaways.
Why use social media to recruit volunteers
Ilana pointed out that fewer people now seek out volunteering on their own, so charities need to keep reaching new people. Younger generations care about causes and value openness, and many use social platforms to search, get advice and form first impressions. So think of your social accounts as your website for that audience.
Two messages every charity should share
Who you are and why it matters. Build trust before you ask. Mind shares short quotes and tips on Instagram, and Battersea shares pet advice and animal videos on TikTok.
How to get involved. Keep opportunities current, explain exactly what to do, show what a session looks like and share a link to sign up. Answer common questions in a saved post, and reply to comments and messages.
Ideas for volunteer content on social media
Keep it real: filmed on a phone, quickly edited, with real people.
Put faces forward: staff, volunteers and, with their consent, the people you support.
Treat volunteers as your influencers. Most enjoy being featured and will share footage if you ask.
Show a day in the life of a volunteer role, so people know what to expect.
Try trends with your own twist. Use sounds the platform provides for organisations, such as TikTok’s Commercial Music Library.
Add captions or on-screen text so people watching without sound still get the story.
Use two or three relevant hashtags, not a long list.
Getting started when social media isn’t your full-time job
Focus on one or two platforms you can do well. Plan as you would your volunteer programme: the big moments across the year, what’s in the news each month, and perhaps an hour a week to check what content you have. Reuse old posts and volunteer stories rather than starting from scratch. When the RNLI launched on TikTok in July 2022, it treated it as a low-key test, and it gained more than 100,000 new followers within days.
Questions from the session
Should volunteering have its own social media account?
Usually it works better on your main account, because volunteers care about what your charity does. A separate account can keep committed supporters engaged, but reaches fewer people.
How often should we post on TikTok?
Consistency helps, but quality matters more. Ilana’s advice was to post less and look better rather than force out several posts a day.
Is Facebook still worth using to recruit volunteers?
Yes, if your audience is there. Local and community groups run on word of mouth, so post like a member of the group rather than an advert, and use Instagram or TikTok alongside it to reach younger people.
Give people a simple place to sign up
With Volunteero’s recruitment tools, you publish an opportunity once and it appears on your website search board, the Volunteero Marketplace and GoVo, so every post has a clear link to apply. Book a demo to see how it works.
Related reading
About Ilana
Ilana Green is a Senior Social Media Strategist at Born Social and a digital marketing specialist focused on social change. She has helped organisations and nonprofits use social platforms, including TikTok, to grow volunteer participation.
Written by
Co-founder and CEO
Ashley Staines is the co-founder and CEO of Volunteero. After seven years in investment banking, he started it to make volunteering easier to organise.
