A volunteer page should describe each role the way a good job posting would, minus the pay: what the volunteer does, when and where, how much time it takes, what screening or training comes first, who supervises, and what happens after someone signs up. Keep each role specific and current, and have HR or counsel confirm that every unpaid role fits the rules for volunteers.
Some volunteer pages say "we couldn't do it without you" above a generic form. The people reading them have practical questions. A retiree wants weekday mornings. A student needs documented hours. A company wants a group project for twenty people in October. An assistant asked where to volunteer with animals on weekends has little to work with when the page leaves those details out.
This is a content-planning question for volunteer coordinators and communications staff. Whether a role can be unpaid is an employment law question for counsel or HR, and how volunteers treat expenses on their taxes is a question for their own advisers.
Describe roles, not enthusiasm
Give each ongoing role its own short card. Warm language has its place, but a prospective volunteer is deciding whether a role fits their week. Passion is not a role description. A role card that says "Saturday 9 to noon, sorting donated clothing, standing most of the time, minimum two shifts a month" lets the right person say yes and the wrong person move on without wasting a coordinator's afternoon.
| Role card field | What it tells the reader |
|---|---|
| What you will do | The tasks, in plain verbs |
| When and where | Days, hours, site, and whether remote work exists |
| Commitment | Minimum shifts or months, and how to step back |
| Requirements | Age, physical demands, skills, and any screening the organization actually uses |
| Training | What happens before the first shift and how long it takes |
| Supervisor | The staff role the volunteer reports to |
| Next step | What the form starts, and when someone replies |
The rules behind the word volunteer
The Department of Labor's fact sheet on nonprofits and the Fair Labor Standards Act says "A volunteer generally will not be considered an employee for FLSA purposes" when the conditions it describes are met. It also says "Individuals generally may not, however, volunteer in commercial activities run by a non-profit organization," and that "paid employees of a non-profit organization cannot volunteer to provide the same type of services" to their own organization that they are employed to provide. Bring your role list to counsel or HR before publishing, especially for roles in any revenue-earning operation and any role that staff might also want to fill on their own time.
Volunteers also ask about taxes. IRS Publication 526, in its 2025 edition, says "You can't deduct the value of your time or services," and that volunteers "may be able to deduct some amounts you pay in giving services to a qualified organization" when the conditions it lists are met. A volunteer page can link that publication and tell people to ask their own tax adviser. It should not promise anyone a deduction.
Tell people the honest timeline
Silence after the form leaves a new volunteer guessing. Say what happens next and how long it takes: an email within a stated number of business days, an orientation date, any background check the organization actually runs and roughly how long it takes, and when a first shift is likely. Your volunteer coordinator knows the real timeline, and the writer should not have to invent a promise like "start this week" that the process cannot keep.
Run one test before publishing. Ask your coordinator, "When someone fills out our volunteer form, how many days pass before a person replies, and does the page say so?" If the answer is uneven, fix the process or describe it honestly.
Answer the practical questions that decide whether someone can take part at all. Say whether a site is wheelchair accessible, whether parking or transit is nearby, whether any roles can be done from home, and what volunteers should wear or bring. If students need documented service hours, say whether the organization signs hour forms and who does it. Each of those answers removes an email from the coordinator's inbox and a reason for a good volunteer to give up.
A fictional example: an animal shelter's three roles
A fictional animal shelter in Arizona replaces its single "Volunteer With Us" page with three role cards.
- Dog walker: weekday mornings 7 to 9, before the summer heat; ages 18 and up; one orientation plus two shadow shifts; reports to the kennel lead; minimum one shift a week for three months.
- Foster caregiver: care for a cat or litter at home for two to eight weeks; home check and supply pickup; reports to the foster coordinator; the shelter covers listed medical care.
- Weekend adoption event greeter: one Saturday a month; ages 16 and up with a guardian's signed form; no animal handling; reports to the events lead.
Each card ends with the same line: the coordinator replies within three business days, and orientations run on the first Tuesday of each month. Those are the shelter's own fictional facts, confirmed by the coordinator before publishing. A writer should not have to invent the age limits or the shadow-shift rule, because the kennel lead set them years ago and can state them in one sentence. Group and corporate requests get a separate short section saying which projects fit groups and how far ahead to ask, which keeps those inquiries out of the individual queue. Our page on event content that lives on afterward covers how to keep event pages, including volunteer shifts at events, useful once the day passes.
Keep the page as current as the schedule
Volunteer pages go stale fast. A role ends, a site moves, a seasonal need passes, and the page still recruits for it. Assign the coordinator as page owner and review it whenever the schedule changes. Remove filled or paused roles instead of leaving them up with no explanation, or mark them as paused with a date to check back.
Some volunteers go on to give or join, so the page connects to the rest of the site. Our page on what donors and members ask before they give or join covers those next questions. For a quick look at your own website, the free AI visibility check is an eight-question self-check that takes about two minutes.
Hudson South's four steps apply here as elsewhere. The Authority Asset gathers approved knowledge and evidence, such as role descriptions and the coordinator's real process. Hudson Twenty-One records how the organization communicates across 21 dimensions so the page sounds like your volunteer team. Market Intelligence researches what prospective volunteers ask, and AEO Creation turns those inputs into answer-first content. The nonprofit and association overview lists the other pages these audiences read.
Help the right volunteers say yes
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- Fact Sheet #14A: Non-Profit Organizations and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Read 2026-10-16.
- Publication 526 (2025), Charitable Contributions. Internal Revenue Service. Read 2026-10-16.