If you’ve led training for your nonprofit’s staff and volunteers, you’ve likely encountered microlearning. Maybe your supervisor heard of this method and wants to incorporate it across your nonprofit. Or maybe you were researching a way to jazz up your training, and it was an intriguing suggestion that popped up.

Before you go into your learning management system (LMS) and begin adjusting your training, take a step back. What is microlearning? How can it be used to train your team? Microlearning courses can be valuable in training nonprofit staff and volunteers, but there are also many misconceptions about the format. In this guide, we’ll cover the basics of microlearning and explore intentional ways you can use it in your nonprofit’s training.

What is microlearning?

Let’s say you’ve been asked to create microlearning materials for your team. If you already have longer training resources, the simplest solution might seem to be to cut them into smaller, bite-sized pieces and call it a day. However, it is a common mistake to assume that microlearning is simply shorter training.

Microlearning can more accurately be described as short, focused learning content built around a single learning outcome. For instance, rather than a video about navigating your entire CRM, you can break down key skills in short lessons, such as a five-minute tutorial on entering donor data to align with your organization’s formatting requirements. Instead of a broad lesson on soliciting gifts, you might craft a short scenario that helps learners practice responding when a donor says no.

Microlearning is also typically self-directed. Niche Academy’s overview of microlearning highlights that these short lessons are easy to deliver right when someone needs them. They are also easier to fit into a busy schedule than large blocks of training time, and because the format is asynchronous, they can fit into each learner’s unique schedule. These benefits of microlearning are especially valuable for nonprofit teams with part-time, hybrid, remote, or off-hours staff and volunteers. 

How can nonprofits use microlearning?

Your approach to microlearning depends on what you want your nonprofit’s training resources to accomplish. If you already have long-form courses covering your main training topics, resist the urge to take metaphorical scissors to them. Longer courses still have a time and place, particularly for orientation, complex topics such as audit preparation, and anything else that requires context and depth. In this situation, microlearning works best as a supplement to your existing training materials rather than as a replacement for them.

Your nonprofit may also choose to focus on short training materials, creating separate lessons for each role or task so that every learner can focus on what applies to them. This approach can work well, but it takes more time to build and maintain. If your team is short on time, budget, or training experience, consider starting small. Even one well-designed microlearning lesson on a single topic can make your training more consistent, and you don’t need extra staff or a training background to create it.

3 ways for your nonprofit to implement microlearning

1. Reinforce key concepts

Consider the last movie you watched or novel you read. You probably remember how it ended, but not every small detail along the way. Training works similarly. Long-form courses are valuable, but it’s easy to forget the smaller points, even when some of them are too important to gloss over. Microlearning is a great way to reinforce small, yet crucial details.

For example, say you’re the volunteer coordinator at a local humane society. You may already have a long-form course on dog handling, but the section on recognizing when an animal is frustrated is buried in the middle. To improve the onboarding process, you might create an additional short video lesson on that topic alone so that volunteers are more likely to spot those signs of frustration and respond appropriately. 

As you create microlearning resources to cover key concepts, consider the following tips:

  • Show the concept in action. Demonstrate the topic or process you’re covering in your microlearning resource, rather than just describing it. For instance, if you are explaining how to use a piece of equipment, include a video or annotated images in addition to written or spoken instructions.
  • Keep production simple. You don’t need professional videography skills or elaborate equipment to create great training materials. A short clip filmed on a phone or a screen recording can be effective for microlearning, as long as it focuses on a single learning outcome and includes captions to make learning accessible for everyone.
  • End with a quick knowledge check. Use a short quiz with two or three questions to confirm that the key takeaway has landed and to see who has completed the lesson.

Use microlearning to provide more detail about a topic that would not receive as much dedicated attention in a longer session, and make it available for your staff or volunteers to access whenever they need a refresher.

2. Encourage staff to work through scenarios

Some skills only improve with practice, such as responding to a hesitant donor or handling a difficult conversation with a community partner. Nonprofits rely on these skills, but staff members may feel uncomfortable practicing them on the fly. Microlearning provides learners with a low-stakes environment to navigate challenging situations. A short, scenario-based lesson can present a realistic situation, ask learners to choose how they would respond, and show them what happens next.

To make practice lessons stick, include two or three scenarios that help your team get the hang of things. You might include several acceptable responses in each scenario, since there’s rarely a single right way to handle a real conversation. Explain why it works or what to try instead after each answer to help your staff understand the reasoning behind making certain decisions.

For skills that require feedback from another person, follow these microlearning scenarios with a role-play situation or practice with a colleague or mentor.

3. Provide just-in-time support

Microlearning also works well for supporting your team when they need a quick refresher, such as when a staff member has to file an incident report months after a once-a-year training and can’t remember the details. Just-in-time training materials offer a solution by addressing knowledge gaps as they arise. Instead of retaking the full course, that staff member can open a brief tutorial or step-by-step checklist and move forward with submitting the report.

Keep these best practices in mind when creating just-in-time lessons:

  • Match the format to the task. A checklist works well for a fixed sequence of steps, while a decision guide suits questions where multiple paths make sense. Either way, make the lesson easy to skim, since the goal is to help someone complete a task or make a decision, not to cover every detail on the topic.
  • Place lessons where learners will need them. Store your lessons in one central place your team already uses, and make them easy to find when needed. For instance, a nonprofit LMS can help you organize all of your organization’s training resources and categorize them by topic.
  • Keep content updated and track usage. Focus on the most common challenges and update lessons as processes change. If your platform shows how often learning modules are opened, use that data to identify which resources are most helpful.

Just-in-time resources help your team find training helpful on a day-to-day basis rather than viewing it as a yearly obligation. It also empowers staff members to work more independently and frees up your managers from answering the same recurring questions.

Microlearning can be a powerful addition to your nonprofit’s training. To get started, identify one topic your team struggles with or forgets most often, and consider how a focused lesson with a clear learning outcome could support it.