From helping hands to loyal donors: A smarter approach to volunteer management

ASU researchers try to solve the puzzle of how many volunteers are too many.

Many charitable organizations depend on volunteer labor, which helps them save money while building community engagement. But beyond the hands-on help, volunteering can also be a gateway to deeper support — motivating volunteers to become financial donors.

However, managing volunteers is more complicated than simply getting enough people to sign up. Volunteers are often unpredictable — some skip shifts, while others bring extra help, leading to a surplus of hands with nothing to do. Either way, an unstructured volunteer system can create a frustrating experience that reduces the likelihood of volunteers returning or donating in the future.

To solve this challenge, Mahyar Eftekhar, associate professor of supply chain management, and his collaborators developed a new workforce management approach. Their research offers charities a way to optimize volunteer scheduling while strengthening donor relationships, ensuring that helping hands don’t go to waste.

More than volunteers — potential donors in the making

Eftekhar studies nonprofit operations and has long been interested in the relationship between volunteering and financial giving. While many assume people choose between donating time or money, research suggests a more complex dynamic: Volunteers gain insider knowledge of a charity’s needs, which can make them more likely to donate later.

In previous studies, Eftekhar found that past volunteers often contribute more financially than those with no volunteering experience. But keeping them engaged — and satisfied — is key to converting their goodwill into long-term support.

Why managing volunteers is harder than it looks

One major challenge Eftekhar and his colleagues uncovered is that volunteers tend to be unreliable. Free food and T-shirts aren’t enough to guarantee attendance. When volunteers fail to show up, others are forced to pick up the slack. When too many arrive, some are left standing around with nothing to do. Both scenarios create frustration and discourage future participation.

"It's very important to have volunteers, but it's also important to provide them a good and pleasant experience," says Eftekhar. That’s why he and his team sought to answer a crucial question: How can charities determine the right number of volunteers for each shift?

To find out, Eftekhar partnered with his doctoral student Chao Wu and his colleague Joline Uichanco, associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Together, they developed an optimization model to help charities fine-tune their volunteer workforce.

A smarter way to manage charity workforces

The researchers worked with the Phoenix branch of the Society of St. Vincent DePaul (SVdP), a major nonprofit that serves homeless and low-income communities. In 2019 alone, SVdP’s 6,000 volunteers contributed 705,400 hours of service — yet the organization still struggled with under-volunteering (no-show rates of about 30%) and over-volunteering.

Using SVdP data, the researchers identified two types of volunteers:

• Episodic volunteers — occasional participants who show up sporadically.
• Formal volunteers — regular, reliable contributors who tend to form stronger connections with the organization.

The key insight? Formal volunteers thrive when they work together consistently, creating a more reliable and fulfilling experience.

To model this dynamic, the team adapted a classic newsvendor inventory model — originally designed for newspaper vendors to predict how many copies to stock without over- or under-ordering. By applying this concept to volunteer scheduling, the researchers helped SVdP estimate the ideal number of volunteers needed for each task.

Key takeaways for charities

The study offers actionable insights for nonprofits looking to improve volunteer engagement and donor conversion:

1. Collect better data on volunteer participation. Even if volunteers resist clocking in and out, tracking attendance is crucial for optimizing workforce planning. The researchers suggest future studies explore non-intrusive ways to monitor participation.
2. Break down silos between volunteer and donor management. In many charities, fundraising teams and volunteer coordinators operate separately. But volunteers are potential donors, and organizations should strategically engage them across both roles.
3. Prioritize the volunteer experience. Volunteers aren’t just free labor; they seek meaningful engagement. Ensuring the right number of volunteers per shift leads to higher satisfaction, retention, and donations. "Charities need to understand that when they have volunteers, it’s not just people who are doing something," Eftekhar says. "People are looking for a particular experience, and therefore charities must offer a good experience to volunteers."
4. Use workforce planning tools. To help charities predict volunteer needs, the researchers developed a free Excel-based decision support tool. They offer training to nonprofits unfamiliar with Excel to help them implement it effectively.

Looking ahead: Optimizing charity operations

The research underscores a fundamental shift in how charities should think about volunteers — not just as labor but as long-term supporters with the potential to become donors.

"We are open to collaborating with charities and humanitarian firms to learn about their problems and help solve them," Eftekhar says. With better data, smarter scheduling, and a focus on volunteer experience, charities can improve operations while growing donor support.