Find volunteers to support your organisation

Volunteers are people who voluntarily and (in most cases) unpaid support a non-profit organisation through their work. In its original meaning, an honorary position (Ehrenamt) is carried out on a long-term and regular basis. Today, however, volunteers often want to get involved on a project-related or one-off basis to see how well the work suits them. However, a short-term commitment can also develop into long-term voluntary work if the conditions are right for the volunteer.

You can reach a diverse target group via vostel.de, which is predominantly made up of young and international people. Around half of the volunteers registered on vostel.de are between 18-34 years old. Around 60% have a newcomer background. Newcomers are people who were not born in Germany but live here (e.g. people who have fled their home country, au pairs, expatriates or exchange students). We therefore recommend that you indicate in your volunteering opportunity what level of German skills the volunteer needs for the task and whether you can communicate in English or other languages.

In just a few minutes, you can register your organisation on vostel.de and create a profile. After checking your details, you will be given access to your personal dashboard and your search for volunteers can begin.

You can set up your volunteering opportunities on vostel.de in different ways. For example, you have the option of creating shift schedules that volunteers can sign up for directly and bindingly. Alternatively, you can choose the option to have interested parties get in contact with you via our messaging function. In addition, you have the option of creating lists for interested people to gauge general interest in your project. We will be happy to advise you on the best approach for your volunteer search.

It is often assumed that young volunteers in particular would prefer to volunteer on a short-term and spontaneous basis. However, our own survey from 2020 shows that there is still a tendency towards longer-term volunteering among young people. And also the behaviour of the volunteers registered on vostel.de shows that there is a high willingness for long-term volunteering commitment.

Nevertheless, we have seen time and again that providing "starter projects" in the form of one-off, low-threshold volunteering opportunities is a great way for non-profit organisations to attract new volunteers. In this way, both the organisations and the volunteers can develop a feeling for whether they are a good match and thus ideally agree on a longer-term commitment.

In addition to helping you find volunteers, vostel.de also supports you in managing them. You can use your dashboard to contact volunteers by message and manage registrations for your shift schedules. You can also add as many organisation employees as you like to your profile on vostel.de, who are then individually responsible as contact persons for selected volunteering projects. Email notifications from us will inform you about new registrations, messages or entries on your list of interested parties so that you always have your volunteer management well under control.

We also use a multi-stage registration and reminder process to ensure that people who register for a project actually turn up. If something does go wrong and volunteers do not show up for a project despite signing up, you have the option of informing us via your dashboard on vostel.de. This way, we can keep an eye on unreliable people and remove them from our volunteer pool if necessary.

In addition, all volunteers involved in your organisation have the opportunity to give feedback, which you and your employees can view. This way, you always know what is going well and where there may still be room for improvement.

The use of our website and our service are completely free of charge for non-profit organisations and initiatives as well as private volunteers. We cover the majority of our costs (mainly personnel and the development of the platform) through the planning, organisation and implementation of corporate volunteering programmes for companies and by offering our own workshops.

On vostel.de, any type of organisation can look for support from volunteers that has a recognisable social added value. The non-profit status does not necessarily have to be stipulated in the legal form, but it should be clear in the ideas and work of the organisation. We check this individually for each organisation and follow guidelines for our decision, which you can read in detail in our FAQ.

By addressing volunteers in a friendly and attractive way, volunteering opportunities can be made particularly appealing. Describe as clearly as possible what tasks await the volunteers, what skills they should bring with them and what added value their activities will have for your organisation and your target group. It is also worth describing your organisation and its goals clearly and concisely to give potential volunteers a good impression of exactly who they are supporting. You can also find more detailed tips in our blog post on the topic.

To support you in this process, we will check your volunteering opportunities and give you valuable tips on how to optimise them if necessary.

Most organisations in Germany have already taken out insurance (usually liability and accident insurance) for their volunteers. If this is not the case in your organisation, we advise you to request written confirmation from the volunteers that they have accident and liability insurance. This will allow you to exclude any liability claims from volunteers in the event of an accident or damage.