Within the last five years, the Council of Nonprofits cited an increased need for volunteers and an unfortunate 23% drop in formal volunteering. Those of you who spend time recruiting volunteers for your ministries, nonprofits, or community events understand that the ever-present need for more volunteers can feel like filling a bucket that has holes in the bottom. Along with that, you also understand the excitement that comes with finding a dedicated, able, and motivated volunteer and how that impacts the momentum of your team.
Every leader wants self-starters who are motivated and passionate about their work. However, not every leader is willing to invest in their volunteers to help cultivate such individuals. Every leader wants to run with their team, feeling the drive to progress, but not every leader is willing to slow down to care for their volunteers along the way. Every leader wants to be able to delegate ownership of tasks, but not every leader is willing to give up the control to actually do it.
Cultivating volunteers is meaningful and difficult work, but it will make lasting impacts on your projects and the culture of your team. In fact, as you are working towards building your dream team, I know you desire to invest deeply in your volunteers. You care about their work, development, and long-term health. As you do this, here are a few principles that will guide you toward building volunteer teams that build momentum while avoiding common “holes in the bucket."
Valuing your volunteers starts with sharing a clear vision and mission with them. They may have an idea of what they are signing up for, but don’t assume they know exactly where you are going. As part of their onboarding, build excitement for their key participation in accomplishing the mission and articulate the shared end goal. Without clear end goals, you may have volunteers wandering around feeling a lack of purpose or working towards different goals. From serving in children’s ministry to tackling financial support, knowing the measure of success is a key aspect of growing momentum as a team.
Additionally, establish systems or processes that bring the mission and vision in front of your team regularly. See these check-ins as course directing, ensuring you don’t get stuck in the proverbial weeds and end up in multiple destinations or no destination at all. These check-ins are momentum-building conversations because you unite again on the purpose for which you are working.
It’s always helpful to do a quick assessment and ask ourselves: “Is the mission and vision that I’m working towards clear, measurable, and shaping my volunteers? If I asked my volunteers what our mission is, would they be able to tell me with enthusiasm?”
If you are like me, these questions might feel more like checkboxes of yes or no. I would encourage us to look at them as goals with a scale of success that grows, meaning success in this area isn’t merely arrival.
It could be that constructing a new vision and mission is on your docket. If so, I would pass you on to “6 Questions to Diagnose and Organization’s Vision Statement” for help analyzing!
You might be reading this and find that you feel the pinch between urgency and onboarding well. Slowing down sometimes feels counterproductive when you have objectives to meet, projects waiting, and people in need. There is potential for it to present as less productive or inefficient. But what if slowing down meant you could be observant with your volunteers to cultivate a more productive, sustained, and meaningful team?
Volunteer programs often experience turnover because of burnout or a culture that leaves workers feeling used. Slowing down to care for volunteers could take on many forms. For some, it might be knowing your volunteers deeply through meaningful conversations over coffee or taking typical work time to pray together. For others, it's trusting your team to send one of them on sabbatical before they reach burnout.
Many great believers have written on the necessity of slowing down and creating a culture that prioritizes rest biblically. In John Mark Comer’s book “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry,” he addresses the pervasive and communicable effects of living without margin and true rest. He concludes his book with the statement, “Hurry kills relationships. Love takes time; hurry doesn't have it.”
When you aren't afraid to slow down to care for volunteers, assess health, and reorient as needed, you're able to balance the need for progress with the care required when serving with others. It acknowledges that those who pour out need to be poured into and that rest is necessary for progress. Cultivating this kind of culture requires leadership to value volunteers as part of their mission instead of as a means to accomplish a mission.
Encouragement is a powerful tool in the belt of those who lead and recruit volunteers. Encouragement is a culture-changing, volunteer-sustaining, and mission-empowering opportunity that, when used well, can build momentum and unity.
We’ve all been part of teams where the leader micromanaged the work and it quickly pulled the joy out of the team. Within volunteer work, it isn’t wrong to set clear expectations around the work. In fact, clear expectations are incredibly valuable. Yet, a common “hole in the bucket” draining volunteers is a culture that controls what is delegated, diminishing the volunteers’ freedom to give from their heart and gifting or minimizing the ease of providing feedback.
A culture of encouragement begins with those who lead and trickles down to those who serve. Simply said, encouragement done well is contagious. Contagious encouragement flies in the face of control because it seeks to empower volunteers for their gifting as a strength to the momentum and effectiveness of your team while also providing space for constructive feedback through trust. Practically, it is noticing small valuable moments and giving meaningful, heart-felt words as a gift to the volunteer. It’s taking time to acknowledge personal growth with excitement or lifting up a volunteer in front of the whole team for the way they positively impact the team. It’s seeing potential within your volunteer and pushing them past their comfort zone to reach greater impact. It’s delegating a task to a volunteer with trust and praising them when they use their gift to match the need in a way no one else could.
How are you leading with encouragement? What rhythms have you set up to notice and verbalize growth? Who on your team are natural encouragers and how can you raise them up to foster a culture of encouragement?
Building a team of great volunteers who are productive, committed, and purposeful is less about finding them and more about cultivating them. Part of this great work is acknowledging the “holes” in the bottom of the bucket and seeking to mend them. As you work, remember that the culmination of your small, intentional, everyday decisions with your volunteers drives you closer to the dream team because you are a leader willing to invest in your team.
