Volunteer: Volunteer Onboarding & Retention System for a Growing Nonprofit

This is a volunteer opportunity provided by Taproot Foundation, a nonprofit creating social change through pro bono connections.

Help us recruit mission-driven leaders to our nonprofit! We are seeking a volunteer to help us craft a comprehensive recruitment plan. Project tasks will include: -Meeting with our organization's leadership to establish which roles are vacant -Conducting interviews with board or staff members involved in recruitment or prospecting to establish which tactics have and have not been successful in the past Face Friends Foundation is an all-volunteer, fully virtual nonprofit based in Sugar Hill, Georgia, serving the Gwinnett County corridor. We are currently building the Sugar Hill Workforce Academy — a culinary incubator kitchen and technical literacy lab designed to create real economic opportunity for youth, unemployed adults, and small business owners in our community. Our most persistent operational challenge is volunteer onboarding and retention. We recruit talented, qualified volunteers consistently — however without a structured onboarding system, new volunteers arrive on our platform, receive inconsistent welcomes, unclear role expectations, and little follow up. The result is rapid disengagement and dormancy, often within the first 30 days. We have attempted to address this through a dedicated onboarding team, however without a documented system, clear accountability standards, and a structured orientation framework, the team has struggled to deliver consistent results. The problem is not the talent we recruit — it is the infrastructure that receives them. What we need is a complete, documented volunteer recruitment and onboarding system built specifically for a virtual, asynchronous nonprofit environment. This includes a welcome and orientation process, a 30-day onboarding framework, performance accountability standards, a retention strategy, and a simple tracking system compatible with our Bitrix24 platform.

By the end of this project we expect the pro bono consultant to deliver a complete, ready to implement volunteer management system specifically designed for a fully virtual, asynchronous nonprofit environment. The specific deliverables are: 1. Volunteer Welcome & Onboarding Playbook A step by step documented process covering everything from the moment a volunteer accepts their position to the end of their first 30 days. This includes welcome messaging templates, platform orientation guidance for Bitrix24, role introduction protocols, and a first assignment framework. 2. 30-Day Orientation Framework A structured week by week schedule outlining what every new volunteer should know, do, and deliver within their first 30 days — regardless of department or role. 3. Performance Accountability Standards Clear, documented expectations for volunteer engagement including check in frequency, task update requirements, and a fair, professional process for addressing dormancy and underperformance. 4. Volunteer Retention Strategy A practical, low cost strategy for keeping volunteers motivated, recognized, and engaged in a fully remote environment where financial compensation is not available. 5. Bitrix24 Tracking System A simple, documented tracking framework the onboarding team can use inside Bitrix24 to monitor every volunteer's onboarding progress and engagement status in real time. What success looks like: Every new volunteer who joins Face Friends Foundation receives a consistent, professional, and energizing onboarding experience from day one. Dormancy drops significantly within the first 90 days of implementation. The onboarding team operates independently from a documented system rather than relying on the Executive Director to fill the gaps.

Success looks like a foundation that no longer loses good people to poor onboarding. Every volunteer who joins Face Friends Foundation arrives on our platform, receives a warm and structured welcome within 24 hours, understands their role clearly, and has a defined path through their first 30 days. Our onboarding team operates from a documented system that works consistently without Executive Director intervention. Volunteer retention improves measurably — dormancy in the first 90 days drops significantly and departments stay staffed and productive. The foundation's ability to recruit, retain, and mobilize talented volunteers directly accelerates our path to opening the Sugar Hill Workforce Academy and achieving our $150,000 escrow target. When our onboarding infrastructure works, everything else works — grants get written, partnerships get closed, and the community we serve gets the Academy it deserves.

Face Friends Foundation Mission: To empower individuals with facial differences to achieve their full potential by providing support, resources, and advocating for a more inclusive society where every face is valued and respected. Our mission is to help alleviate the issue of food insecurity in our communities.