Open Community Leadership

Module 02 — Welcome and Onboarding for Volunteers: Self-Guided

Welcome and Onboarding · Open Community Leadership

Working through this alone, at your own pace. Set aside about 40 minutes, a community you help run, and somewhere to write.

New here? Start with the module overview for the idea and the grid. Then come back and work the four steps below.

No owner, no onboarding.

Someone offered to help. What happened next decided whether they stayed. This module helps you see that moment clearly enough to fix one part of it.

Relevance to POPCOM

This module sits on Participation and Connection. A volunteer who offers and hears nothing has been denied both. They tried to take part and were not let in. They reached for a person and found a queue.

That is enough to begin. Want the full framework? → POPCOM overview

Before you start

Pick a specific person, not a category. This module breaks if you trace "volunteers in general."

  • Name one person. Someone who offered to help in the last month or two. If you can't name them, you don't have a case yet. Wait for the next offer.
  • Pick the version that matches. Organiser: they offered at an event. Maintainer: they offered on a project. Use the one that matches this person, not the one that describes more of your community.
  • Know what happened next, or know who does. Not the policy, the actual sequence: who replied, how long it took, what task they got, if any. If you don't know, ask the person who handled it before you start.

You'll also need the Volunteer Walk grid for your version (see Resources)

No one comes to mind? That's fine. You can skip this module for now. The next person who offers is your case.

Step 1 — The Volunteer Walk (15 min)

Take the person you named and walk through what happened to them after they offered. Not what you intended. What actually happened.

If you organise events:

  • Offer: How did they find out they could volunteer? How did they offer?
  • Reply: How long before someone replied, and what did the reply say? Did it tell them what happens next? How long until they heard again, and did they know they were waiting?
  • First task: What was their first task? Did they know how to do it? Who did they work with on the day? If they arrived early or late, what happened?
  • After: What happened at the end of the event? Do they know if they are wanted next time?

If you maintain a project:

  • Offer: How did they find out contributions were welcome? Where did they say it, and who saw it?
  • Reply: How long before someone replied, and what did the reply say? Did it point them to something to work on, or leave them to find it? How long until they heard again, and did they know they were waiting?
  • First task: Was there a first task they could actually do? Did they know how to do it? Did they get a working setup? Who did they talk to while doing it?
  • After: Do they know what to do next?

If you do not know the answer to one of these, that is an answer.

Step 2 — Mark it up (5 min)

Open the Volunteer Walk grid for your version and write the person's name at the top.

Take what you wrote in Step 1 and put it on the grid, phase by phase. Mark each part smooth, unclear, or missing, and add one line on what actually happened. Without that line the grid is a mood board.

Look at where the gaps cluster. That phase is where to start.

For each gap, ask: who is responsible for this right now? If the answer is "nobody" or "whoever happens to be nearby", you have found it. It has no owner.

Take your gaps to Step 3.

Step 3 — What works (10 min)

Open the Volunteer Walk Patch Notes for your version.

They are sorted by the same four phases as your grid: Offer, Reply, First task, After. Go to the phases you marked unclear or missing. Each one lists things organisers and maintainers do that work.

Not every fix fits every community. Pick the two or three that would close your biggest gap. You'll narrow it to one in the next step.

Step 4 — One change, one owner (5 min)

Write down:

  1. The gap you'll fix first:
  2. The change that would close it: (one of the fixes you marked in Step 3):
  3. Who is responsible for making that happen:
  4. What could stop them:
  5. How I'll know it worked:

Keep it small enough to do the next time someone offers. The aim is not a volunteer programme. It is making sure the next person who offers to help knows what happens next.

You're done when…

You can point to:

  1. Your Volunteer Walk grid, with a real person on it
  2. The one gap you chose and why
  3. Who owns the change
  4. What happened when you tested it

Submit your completion evidence to earn the Onboarding badge.

You have earned your Self-Guided badge!

To claim the Module 02 — Self-guided badge:

  1. Go to the OCL project on Badgecraft.
  2. Select Module 02 - Self-guided - Welcome and Onboarding for Volunteers.
  3. Click Get this badge and log in or create a Badge Wallet account.
  4. Submit your evidence and send it for review.

You did it!

You found out what actually happens when someone offers to help, and you gave that moment an owner.

Now wait for the next offer. Catch it.

Want to go further?

CC BY 4.0 — Open Community Leadership. Free to use, adapt, and share with attribution.