If it's based on CodeIgniter it should be pretty maintainable already. The documentation of each version has detailed instructions how to upgrade the code to get up to speed with the new version up to CI 3. CI 4 is however a complete rewrite and needs a lot of work I guess but I haven't gotten that far yet. CI 4 requires latest version of PHP.
Also keep in mind - a good chunk of the volunteers aren't tech-savvy, and are nervous when faced with changes. Just upgrading to a new phpBB version, with a new theme, was met with some grumbles.
I realize I'm a horrible salesman, but something about LibriVox just keeps me involved. I don't even participate in the audiobooks aspect of it, just tech. I was initially brought on as a paid sysadmin as part of that project to modernize our code that took that full-time developer months. When that ended, I stuck around as a volunteer.