Differentiating recruitment strategies for direct patient care, clerical, and fundraising hospice volunteers

A survey of direct patient care and nondirect patient care volunteers in two hospice programs generated information about various aspects of their volunteer experience. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of identified recruitment strategies for direct patient care, clerical, and fundraising volunteers. People learned about the opportunity to volunteer at hospice most frequently from personal experiences, friends, and newspapers. Significantly more direct patient care volunteers learned about the volunteer opportunity through newspaper feature stories than did nondirect volunteers. Friends recruited significantly more fundraising volunteers than direct patient care or clerical volunteers. The events triggering direct care and clerical volunteers to serve were most often personal experiences, whereas friends appear to have triggered direct care and fundraising volunteers to serve.