In any fundraiser, volunteers are key in helping throughout the entire planning process of a fundraiser and a duck race is no exception. Whether they’re year round volunteers, students who need school volunteer hours or members of the community who want to give back, there are plenty of opportunities to offer which helps off-load some of the work of your full/part time staff.
Adoption Events: Volunteers are great for adoption events to help hand out marketing material, providing information about your race/organization and directing people on how they can adopt ducks online or in person at your table. Best practice would be to create an adoption event schedule with a sign up sheet based on 2-4 hour windows and how many volunteers you’ll need for each adoption event. 
Tagging Party: Depending on the size of your race, having at least 8-10 volunteers for every 5,000 ducks that need to be tagged are suggested, based on a 2 hour tagging party. The key to having your tagging party run as seamless as possible is having separate groups of volunteers removing the current tags on the ducks and another group placing your designated tags on the ducks. If it’s a longer time frame for the tagging party, offer snacks, soft drinks and throw on some music. Although the task can be tedious, who says your tagging party can’t be fun?
Clean Up Crew: The last tasks at hand before you send your ducks on their way, is to clean them up. Have a group of volunteers on the sidelines ready to collect your ducks once your winners are found. Some racers use pool skimmers and others (if the water is shallow enough) have used laundry baskets to scoop the ducks out of the water and get them back into the totes. Be sure to give your volunteers a briefing on how the ducks need to be packed so they’re best prepared on how to clean and pack them up.
*We know putting on a fundraiser can be an all hands on deck kind of work, be sure to send your volunteers a thank you card to show your appreciation after you race.
