Many museums across the world would not be able to offer the experience they do if it wasn't for the support of their volunteers. This support can range from a volunteer offer that adds value to the operation of a full staff team, to an entirely volunteer-run and -managed organisation. Wherever your museum sits on that spectrum, there's no doubt that volunteering is such a huge part of any museum visitor experience that it deserves its own chapter.

In the following pages, we’ll explore the use of volunteers in delivering the visitor experience, and how you can get the best out of your volunteer team. For the purposes of this, I’ll be focusing on how to manage a volunteer team alongside paid staff, although I know there are many small museums that are run entirely on a voluntary basis. Hopefully, some of the advice below will be useful for all concerned.

How to use volunteers

One of the first questions when considering volunteering in museums is how or when to use volunteers.

There are many reasons to bring volunteers into your organisation. They may bring new skills, knowledge and experience that you don't currently have in your employee pool. They widen your reach as an organisation, because if volunteers are socialising, gaining skills or having new experiences through you, it's all part of your engagement. This can then spread further, as the National Council of Volunteering Organisations (NCVO) point out on their website: ‘Volunteers are often part of the communities you work or fundraise in. By giving them a great experience, you can inspire them to become your greatest advocates’ (NCVO, 2021f).

One reason that shouldn't be a factor in using volunteers is the idea of ‘free labour’. This motivation can arise (unsaid or not) in museums in times of financial stress, for example after the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the Heritage Volunteering Group (HVG) have stated: