Abstract In the fierce competition that volunteer involving organizations face nowadays over people's willingness to donate their time, marketing strategies should be used. In order to enhance the organization's recruitability (ability to recruit suitable volunteers), it is important for volunteer organizations to understand what the positioning of the organization is and the type of volunteering that is being offered. In the current article we suggest using a marketing tool to increase the ability to recruit volunteers: positioning and perceptual mapping. Our perceptual mapping – the volunteer matrix is based on two dimensions: price (different costs attached to the volunteer experience) and quality (the overall quality of the volunteering experience). Thus, the matrix includes four different positions, and we demonstrate the manners in which different volunteer organizations or roles are positioned in each. Discussed are also the possible implementations of the matrix in order to recruit suitable volunteers and retain them. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.