If you want to recruit more volunteers fast, the most reliable formula is a clear volunteer recruitment script plus a calling tool that helps you reach hundreds of supporters in a few hours without losing the personal touch.

To make sure that you get the most out of your calls, you need to be equipped with two things:

1. A well structured volunteer recruitment script. 
2. A tool to efficiently put the script into action.

This guide shows you how to make your volunteer recruitment calls more successful, from finding the right prospects to knowing what to say. You’ll get a copy‑paste phone script plus a simple checklist of calling software features to run high‑performing campaigns for political, nonprofit, and grassroots groups.

Why phone banking works for volunteer recruitment

Phone banking or calling campaigns let you reach hundreds of supporters in a few hours while still sounding personal and conversational. Unlike mass emails or social media posts, calls create space for dialogue, questions, and objections, which makes it easier to convert supporters into active volunteers.

When you combine a solid script with a calling platform that supports tags, dispositions, and merge fields, your team can recruit more volunteers per hour and track every commitment in one place.

How do I recruit new volunteers?

Volunteer recruitment is the process of identifying, contacting, and converting supporters into active volunteers for your campaign or organisation. Just knowing the right place to look for new volunteers is half the battle won. And what’s the best place to look for them? 

Your existing network. 

This comprises of your:

• Existing volunteers.
• Supporters.
• Friends and family. 

The trick here is to get the ball rolling. Once you get a few volunteers onboard, your base will start expanding as a ripple effect, i.e. people will start bringing people with them. 

Let me walk you through an example of how Democrats Abroad goes about recruiting volunteers. 

How Democrats Abroad recruited volunteers for phone banking

Democrats Abroad is the official Democratic Party arm for more than 9 million potential US overseas voters. They are responsible for making sure these voters have all the help they need to cast their vote.

Since their phone banking efforts are primarily driven by volunteers, volunteer recruitment is essential to their operation.

Their main tactics for recruiting volunteers are: 

1. Sending out regular appeals to their membership list.

They reach out to people who signed up to be Democrats Abroad members via email. Those who express their interest are added as calling agents on CallHub. 

CallHub’s integration with NationBuilder (Dems Abroad’s CRM) comes in extremely handy here. Interested members simply check a box and are automatically added as agents without any additional sign up process. 

2. Outreach during local events and gatherings. 

Local chapters of Democrats Abroad regularly organize social gatherings to engage with voters. In the process, they ask people to volunteer to phone bank. 

Additionally, the organization also uses strategies like: 

• Putting out appeals on social media,
• Appealing to enthusiastic or strong supporters during voter ID campaigns, and
• Peer-to-peer referrals. 

For the 2018 midterms, Democrats Abroad created a distributed campaigning model for volunteers around the world to call more than 150,000 members spread across 190 countries. This resulted in a 300% increase in voter turnout during the mid-terms. Learn more about how they achieved this in our case study here.

You can leverage these actionable strategies to tap into your network and recruit volunteers. 

Volunteer recruitment script

Strong volunteer recruitment phone script is clear, conversational, and easy for callers to follow. It should include the following elements in order:

1. Instruction for callers: This helps callers understand how to navigate through the script and carry out the conversation. 
2. Caller’s introduction: Prospects need to know who they are talking to so they can trust you and open up. Plus, it’s also good manners. 
3. Background on your campaign: Give them some context into why your campaign is relevant to them and why should they care about it; so much that they should actively participate in it and help you reach your goals. 
4. Volunteering asks: Have a primary ask, and a secondary ask. Start with the primary and then move to the next if they refuse. This maximizes the chances of getting their help. Since the secondary ask is a relatively smaller one, it may feel more compelling to supporters who may not be as passionate about your campaign. Once your foot is in the door, you can take them through the ladder of engagement to make higher barrier asks later. 
5. Contact information: Leave your contact information so they can get back to you if they change their mind or need your help. 

Copy-paste volunteer recruitment script

Use the volunteer recruitment script below as a template, and customize the merge tags and asks to fit your campaign, nonprofit, or advocacy group.

Instructions for callers:

• Read through the script before calling and use it as a guide, not a word-for-word monologue. Sound human and relaxed.​
• Text in { } are merge tags that will auto-fill with each contact’s details.
• Parts in italics are instructions for you, not to be read aloud.
• Bold sections show different branches depending on the person’s response.
• Always note unique objections so the team can improve the script later.
• Speak with a smile and keep your tone warm and respectful.

This volunteer recruitment script can be used 

• Independently or 
• Clubbed with your voter ID campaign script. So, when you come across strong supporters, you could ask them to volunteer immediately.  

Next, let’s get into what you need in your tool to put this script into action. 

Implementing your volunteer recruitment script 

The very first thing you need to make the most of this volunteer recruitment script is a good call center software. 

However, these volunteer recruitment efforts can only be driven efficiently with a tool that has the following features.

1. Tags and call dispositions
2. Interactive calling scripts
3. Merge tags 

Let’s understand these features (and why you need them) in detail. 

Tags and call dispositions 

Tags are labels that describe a contact based on the conversation. If you look at the script above, it has instructions to add specific tags to each contact during a call. 

In CallHub, you can select the “+ Tag” option on the calling dashboard below the contact name to add it. 

Call dispositions, on the other hand, describe the outcome of each call. A few examples of these are: 

• Meaningful interaction,
• Answering machine,
• User busy, 
• Left message, etc. 

Dispositions are part of the script in CallHub and can be marked accordingly during or after the call.

Why do you need it?

Two words: List segmentation. 

To get the most out of your voters, your targeting needs to be personalized. This means targeting contacts with specific actions based on their engagement and support level. 

For example, you’ll need to send contacts tagged as “interested volunteers” details on how to sign up. However, the ones that were uninterested will need to be engaged with regular updates to pique their interest. 

Interactive calling scripts

Interactive calling scripts let callers collect information directly on the script while they go through the script. This is what it looks like on CallHub. 

Why do you need it? 

They make data collection extremely easy and ensure that callers don’t lose the thread of the conversation. 

Moreover, it also eliminates the manual effort of data entry required if the caller was noting down the information separately. 

Merge tags

Merge tags are data tags that help you personalize your calling scripts with dynamic information like:

• First name,
• Caller’s name,
• Email ID,
• Address, etc. 

These tags pull in data from your CRM integrated with your calling solution and display them in the script during the call. 

Why do you need it?

Merge tags help you with two things: 

1. Script personalization: It really isn’t good practice to refer to voters as “Friend” or even ask for their name every time you call them.
2. Ensuring callers can read through the script smoothly: If they have to memorize these details or refer to another source for them, the interaction wouldn’t go as smoothly as you’d want.

Additional features for volunteer recruitment script

While the above mentioned features are an absolute-must to implement your volunteer recruitment script, these features will give your entire campaign a significant edge.  

1. Call scheduling
2. Dynamic caller ID 
3. TCPA compliant dialer

Let’s look at them in detail. 

Call scheduling 

A call scheduling feature in your call center software will allow you to set the 

• Start and end date
• Operational days
• Daily operational hours of your campaign. 

None of your agents will be able to make calls outside of this defined period. 

In CallHub, the final step of each campaign is setting a schedule. 

Why do you need it?

Scheduling your call center campaign helps you maintain TCPA compliance. This is essential if you want to avoid getting blocked by carriers. 

CallHub’s call scheduling provides an additional advantage with the “Timezone calling” feature that lets you set the calling hours based on the timezone of the area you’re making calls to. 

Dynamic caller ID

Dynamic caller ID automatically uses local-looking phone numbers that match the area code of the person you’re calling. When people see a familiar area code, they are more likely to pick up, which can increase answer and engagement rates by up to 20%.​

If you’ve already rented multiple numbers, the system can select the best matching number for each call from your pool.

TCPA compliant dialer

A TCPA compliant dialer is a dialer that uses human intervention to initiate calls from a calling tool. It entails a dedicated agent clicking a button to initiate the next call thereby making it TCPA and FCC compliant. 

However, since the manual intervention is minimal and the tool still aids with intelligent queuing and call routing, the speed of calling is not compromised at all.

Why do you need it?

This type of dialer allows you to:

• Legally call mobile numbers without explicit prior consent
• Avoid the cost and complexity of separating landlines from mobile numbers
• Call large, mixed lists efficiently with intelligent queuing and routing

Given how few people use landlines today, this kind of dialer has become essential for large-scale volunteer recruitment and voter contact.

Plus, it’s 2026 and landlines are not as common anymore which makes it even more necessary to have such a dialer. 

Read Also: SMS Compliance TCPA: How to Stay Fully Compliant in 2025

Launch your phone bank with volunteer recruitment script

To put this all together, follow these steps:

1. Define your target volunteer list (existing volunteers, donors, supporters, event attendees, and friends of your organization).​
2. Customize the script with your candidate name, organization details, primary ask, and secondary ask.
3. Set up a phone banking campaign in CallHub, including tags, dispositions, merge tags, and interactive script fields.​
4. Train your callers on the script, role-play common objections, and show them how to use the software.​
5. Launch your calling sessions, review results by tags and dispositions, and follow up with everyone who said yes or maybe.​

With this structure in place, you can consistently convert supporters into volunteers and scale up your grassroots organizing quickly.

Moving forward

So how do you move forward?

You start by using our sample script and adding your campaign details to it. 

Next, you’ll need to look for a calling solution that has all the above mentioned features to put the volunteer recruitment script to action. 

But that would be unnecessary, because you could just sign up for CallHub for free and start setting up your calling campaign. It checks all the boxes and offers many more intuitive features that make your calling campaigns seamless and efficient. 

FAQs on volunteer recruitment script

Nandhaan Verma

Nandhaan is a marketer with nearly 5 years of experience researching & writing about communication for nonprofits, advocacies, & political campaigns. His insights have empowered multiple organizations to streamline communications & drive change.