Experts and academic sources concur that institutions hoping to find volunteers can do so fairly readily. Choudhury (2010) states that “Most volunteers are attracted to non-profit organizations, particularly religious ones” (p. 593). Choudhury emphasizes the need to have a quality web-platform for attracting volunteers. Catholic Charities of Oregon does have a solid web-based volunteer portal that should be, if possible, leveraged for these reading centers. Lisa Gallegos (personal communication, March 15, 2022), the Development Director at Antioch Adoptions, has over 20 years of experience working with volunteers. Before Antioch, she was a Senior Account Manager for the March of Dimes and the Director of Volunteer Services for Trios Health. She suggests that attracting volunteers is a matter of advertising and connecting on the platforms that the types of people needed use. She found her most reliable volunteer base in older populations as younger populations tend to do more episodic volunteering vs. consistent volunteering. This does not, of course, rule out any specific demographic. However, based on the needs of Catholic Charities of Oregon, Lisa recommended recruiting from retirement homes and churches. Choudhury (2010) also recommends asking current volunteers to recruit other volunteers.

There should be some vetting involved in bringing volunteers in. Alfes et al. (2017) states that, “it is important to understand potential volunteers’ motives for volunteering in the first place” (p.71). These motivations must be aligned with the needs of Catholic Charities of Oregon, and be specifically tailored to the needs of the reading centers. As detailed below, those who want to make a difference should likely be more highly sought out than those who are looking to ‘do something with their time’. (More details will be offered on this concept in the motivation section.) Catholic Charities of Oregon appears to already have a lot of information available to volunteers regarding opportunities and mission and values on-line, which is excellent.

Lisa Gallegos emphasized the need to interview volunteer applicants to assure their skills and motivations match the organization’s needs. Alfes et al. (2017), note that the environment must be matched to the volunteer. “The matching approach focuses on the match between volunteers’ motives and the volunteering environment” (p.71). For your reading centers, the environment must be carefully considered. One would assume it will involve self-motivated individuals who are somewhat good with technology guidance, enjoy books, can work in an an environment that can be slow and at other times hectic, and are open to diverse populations. While this might sound like a tall order, if the environment is carefully defined, then when volunteers are found who work well in that environment, they will have a much higher success rate. Alfes et al. (2017) also focus on what they call the ‘loyalty approach,’ in which non-profit organizations can emphasize the organizational mission and values, or specific programs or activities that volunteers carry out” (p.73). Volunteers can be presented with the organization’s mission and vision and the goals of the reading centers and asked how well their motivations and goals align with those elements. The greater the alignment, the greater the success rate.