When Volunteer Churn is a Metric for Success… and a Coordination Problem

The Job Hackers help people move forward in their careers through free and low-cost training, including their Agile MBA. The non-profit supports people who are starting out, changing careers or trying to return to work after a career break. Much of their work is powered by volunteers. Some stay for years. Others contribute for a few months before moving into full-time employment. Unlike most charities that aim to retain volunteers, high volunteer turnover can actually be a sign of success: it means the programme has worked and volunteers have been supported into new employment.

It does pose a challenge, though: how do you maintain momentum when volunteer turnover is high? Every departure removes institutional knowledge and context. Every new joiner has the potential to slow momentum if they are not efficiently onboarded.

This is where improving prioritisation and alignment became vital. The Job Hackers needed to make the most of their volunteers’ time and expertise. Before they began utilising OKRs, meetings didn’t always have a clear agenda. Working groups were active, but their activity didn’t always connect clearly to the charity's priorities.

From Assumptions to Evidence: Using Data to Adapt Their Strategy

One of The Job Hackers’ core services is the Agile MBA programme. Historically, free places were available early in the registration process and influencers were used in their advertising. In Q1, this brought in high numbers of registrations, with an attendee rate of 36.06%. In Q2, they weren’t able to use an influencer to advertise registrations. This caused the overall registration number to drop, but the attendance rate increased to 48.72%.

The board realised that widely advertised, free registrations didn’t result in the same level of attendance. When fewer people signed up intentionally, the rate of attendance improved. That evidence, collected and visualised in Stellafai, has changed The Job Hackers’ marketing strategy for next quarter. Instead of offering free places and using influencers for promotion, The Job Hackers are testing a scholarship application model.

Applicants will explain their circumstances, why they want the place and how they expect the programme to help. The principle is simple: introduce enough effort that people make a considered commitment rather than grabbing a free place because it’s available. Kevin described the broader shift within The Job Hackers as:

“It’s actually forced us to become data-driven and evidence-based.”

Stellafai encourages curiosity and focus, both of which enabled The Job Hackers’ board members to identify and solve this issue.

From “Front of Mind” to Focus: Aligning Eleven Working Groups Around Outcomes

The Job Hackers’ volunteers brought ideas, enthusiasm and a willingness to contribute to the charity, but without a shared direction of travel, their efforts became fragmented. Kevin North, one of The Job Hackers’ board members, described earlier volunteer meetings as lacking focus. Conversations were often driven by what was “front of mind” that week rather than by a consistent set of organisational priorities. The organisation also had multiple working groups, each with its own responsibilities. It was clear that the board needed to ensure these fragmented efforts aligned to create actual impact.

They started with the organisation's North Star, then defined the quarterly objectives that would help deliver it. Finally, each working group set its own key results, which would feed into achieving the objectives. This encouraged proactive suggestions from volunteers while clearly demonstrating how their contribution would help the organisation achieve its North Star aim.

Instead of tasks being allocated, working groups could see the direction of travel and identify their own ways to contribute. For example, volunteers have started suggesting partnership and sponsorship opportunities because they can see which organisational outcomes need support—making full use of volunteers’ varied expertise, knowledge and networks while improving morale and maintaining momentum.

By mid-July, their quarterly objective to ‘Identify partners/partnerships’ had been achieved, with two partners approached and ten more identified.

Morale and momentum are particularly important when people are giving their time for free. Through the Stellafai platform, volunteers can instantly answer the questions below:

• What matters now?
• Where can I help?
• Will this piece of work actually contribute to The Job Hackers’ aims?

This improves onboarding, supports morale and helps maintain momentum as volunteers churn and change.

Prioritisation With Purpose: Only Work Linked to OKRs Moves Forward

The Job Hackers have fully integrated their OKRs and the operating system into their decision-making framework. Previously, new requests and ideas would have been added to ClickUp using a Kanban-style workflow without questioning their relevance to the organisation’s strategy. Now, new ideas enter a Requests stage and are then triaged. One of the first questions posed is:

Does this contribute to one of our current OKRs or KPIs?

If the answer is no, the idea is moved into a “Not Now” parking lot to be reconsidered when the next quarterly OKRs are set. Only work that meets the organisation's “Definition of Ready”, which includes alignment to an OKR or KPI, moves forward. Kevin summarised the impact of this shift:

“This is where it’s really informed our prioritisation.”

For charity leaders, good ideas aren’t in short supply, but capacity is. With volunteers, money and time all finite, The Job Hackers now have a clearer way to distinguish between something worth doing eventually and something worth doing now.

Making Impact Visible: Tagging Work to OKRs for Clarity and Focus

The change goes deeper than prioritisation.

The Job Hackers have eleven working groups, and their ClickUp system now tags activities and tasks against the OKRs their completion contributes to. That means users can filter the operating system and see, for example, everything currently being done to “support the goal of becoming a sustainable, self-funding organisation”. Leadership can see where effort is concentrated. Working groups can see why their work matters. Volunteers can understand the impact of their individual contributions.

Stellafai holds and visualises the outcomes—their progress, blockers and context—while ClickUp manages the task list. Rather than replacing the charity's existing systems, the aim is to connect activity (tasks) to impact (outcomes). The team is now exploring deeper integration between Stellafai and their tech stack, including ClickUp, Slack, Google Workspace, Zapier and Metabase, so updating key results can become automated and users can spend more time analysing the data.

Making Context Transferable: OKRs as a Knowledge Backbone

Volunteer turnover makes knowledge transfer a strategic issue. Some of The Job Hackers’ volunteers remain involved for years, while others may contribute for only a handful of months. Many are between jobs, building experience or moving through a career transition. That means processes cannot rely on people “just knowing how things work”.

Kevin described that requirement clearly:

“Everything we do in terms of process has to be easily transferable in terms of knowledge.”

OKRs help preserve the context behind decisions and experiments. A new volunteer does not just inherit a key result. They can see:

• Which outcome it supports
• Why that outcome matters
• How success is being measured
• What the organisation is prioritising this quarter
• Where their working group sits within the wider mission

The Job Hackers are also looking at using Stellafai as an accessible shared space, where activity is celebrated, knowledge is shared, context is built, change and improvements are championed and assets such as Miro boards are embedded. The aim is to make organisational context easier to inherit by hosting it in one location, where a new volunteer can log in and find everything they need to start contributing to the mission immediately.

When volunteers change, the strategy remains.

From “Bitty” to Built-In: Embedding OKRs Into the Decision-Making Process

The Job Hackers have begun changing the way decisions are made. Meetings are expected to start with the OKRs and progress updates. New work is checked against organisational priorities before it begins. Working groups can see how they contribute. Strategy is being challenged with evidence. And the systems surrounding volunteers are being designed so that context survives when individuals move on.

Kevin's overall assessment is a strong one:

“The whole culture of transparency and being data-driven has come as a result of adopting OKRs.”

That is the clearest expression of the change so far. The platform is not simply helping The Job Hackers keep a list of goals. It is helping The Job Hackers create a more transparent, evidence-led way of operating.

Directing Volunteer Time Where It Matters Most

For charities, there will always be more worthwhile work than the capacity to deliver it. More people who could be helped. More partnerships that could be explored. More ideas worth testing.

The challenge is ensuring that the time, goodwill and expertise people donate are directed towards the activities most likely to advance the mission. For The Job Hackers, OKRs are becoming the structure that helps them decide this. Stellafai gives those outcomes somewhere visible to live. ClickUp connects everyday work back to the strategy and, increasingly, volunteers can see not simply what needs doing, but why doing it matters.

If your charity relies on volunteers, has more ideas than available capacity, or loses valuable knowledge as people change, Stellafai can help you build an operating rhythm around the outcomes that matter most.