Category Archives: Significance

The Volunteer Project: Three Observations From Year One

Community, Empowerment, Our Experiences, Significance, Support

This month, we are celebrating the one-year anniversary of the release of our book The Volunteer Project: Stop Recruiting. Start Retaining. I know, it seems weird to celebrate a book. But when you’re a first time author, and you invest hours and weeks and months into jotting down words and fine-tuning your ideas, you spend a lot of time asking yourself: Is anyone actually going to read this stuff?

It turns out that, at least for The Volunteer Project,the answer is yes! Within our first month in the marketplace, we met 50% of our goal for first-year sales. To date, we have more than tripled that goal. Apparently church and nonprofit leaders are itching to figure out how to make their volunteer cultures the types of environments where volunteers not only stay involved, but invite their friends to join them as well.

Something that makes The Volunteer Project unique is our Zero Recruitment Model (ZRM) Survey. The ZRM is an online assessment tool for measuring volunteer satisfaction. It captures data from both leaders and volunteers, and provides a picture of areas within the four strategies (celebrate their significance, provide first-class support, fuel meaningful connections, and empower their passions) where leaders can invest to improve their volunteer cultures and ultimately their retention rates.

Over the past year, over 100 ministry teams have participated in the ZRM. These ministries have varied from volunteer groups of 10 people to 1,000s of individuals. Some of the leaders who utilized this tool are seasoned veterans with 20+ years of experience, and many are young leaders who are striving to create a fresh culture for their volunteers. Many of you reading this post may have even taken the survey and benefited from your personalized results. Today, I want to share some big picture ideas we noticed when we combined data from all of the churches and nonprofits that have participated.

In the volunteer portion of the survey, we ask volunteers to respond yes or no to the question:Do you see yourself continuing to volunteer at this organization six months from now? 95.2 percent of volunteers said yes. That’s great news! 95 out of 100 volunteers plan to continue serving! However, what about the other five percent? We wondered if there are some commonalities among those choosing to leave. So we compared their scores to those who indicated they planned to stay. The results were revealing. In all categories, the five percent scored lower than those who indicated they planned to continue in their volunteer roles.

Master Gauges

Here are three of the observations we made this year, in light of the combined data provided by the churches and organizations that have participated in the survey:

1. Volunteers aren’t making the connections they expected to If you want to raise your retention rate, the lowest hanging fruit is to provide better connections among your volunteers. We discovered that, across the board, from leaders to volunteers, nobody thinks this is happening well. One of the benefits volunteers expect when they sign up to volunteer is stronger friendships. The greatest thing you can do to help your volunteers feel more satisfied in their roles is to elevate their connections to one another.

2. Leaders think they are providing great support, but their volunteers just aren’t feeling it.While everyone agrees that we’re not knocking it out of the park when it comes to connection, there are some areas—like providing support—where leaders think they are doing great, but volunteers often disagree. Among the five percent who chose to terminate their participation as volunteers, many say they did so because they didn’t feel supported or empowered enough.

Have you ever seen one of those commercials for air fresheners or deodorant in which the individual no longer realizes that their living space, car, or body stinks? When it comes to supporting volunteers, many leaders think they are providing more resources and training than they actually are. If you want to raise your retention rate, ask yourself the question:If I was informed that an anonymous, undercover volunteer was serving in my ministry next month, what elements of support to volunteers would I immediately change, improve, fix or speed up?

3. Everyone agrees volunteers are making a difference—however, ongoing feelings of underuse will eventually override the staying power of significance. Establishing feelings of significance within your volunteers is a powerful thing. People love knowing they are making a difference. It’s obvious that what you do at your organization matters! Unfortunately, this won’t retain volunteers if they don’t feel empowered or that they are in roles that fits their gifts and skills. If you want to take your volunteer culture to the next level, lean into empowerment. Help your volunteers to achieve their goals and to find ways they can grow both in their roles and as individuals.

Thank you to everyone who engaged with The Volunteer Project this first year, shared it with your teams, and participated in the Zero Recruitment Model Survey. We’ve had a lot of fun hearing your stories and interacting with the volunteers you lead. Our team is excited to continue to learn and explore the intricacies of what makes volunteers stick.

VP-Order

Shut the Revolving Door!

Significance

At the heart of volunteer retention is a desire to hear volunteers exclaim, “I love this role because I get to make a difference!” There is a direct correlation between how volunteering makes an individual feel and how long he or she will desire to stick around your church or organization. Volunteers begin to experience significance when they see a return on their investment. This very principle is what makes it important that we slow down and cheer volunteers on by elevating stories of life change and helping them understand why what they do matters.

If we forget to celebrate the progress being made by current volunteers, instead turning the majority of our attention to a need for more volunteers, we will lose already established volunteers through the back door as quickly as new ones come through the front door. The big reality we have to remember is this: volunteers are not a renewable resource.

So here’s what to do:

  • Be specific when you say thank you. Volunteers need to hear the words thank you. But thank you becomes even more powerful when it is said like this, “Thank you for getting down on the floor to play cars with Joey. His mom told me he gets excited to come play and makes coming to church more enjoyable for their entire family!”

  • Enlist senior leaders in celebrating volunteers. Your volunteers love you and care about what you think of them. But let’s face it – we all love a pat on the back from the big dogs. At Parker Hill, we saw volunteer satisfaction increase from something as simple as our senior pastor peeking his head into a classroom and saying, “Thanks for being here today!”

  • Be available to answer questions and provide resources. Well resourced volunteers are released to be agents of change. If they know in advance what to expect and what to do, they can focus on being present with those around them, and on what their role calls them to do.

  • Have fun! We will say this over and over – volunteers do not need another job! They have busy lives and you want volunteering to be so satisfying, so rewarding, so fun that it’s a can’t-miss on their calendar.

Peel Back the Layers

Significance

Something magical happens when a person’s search for significance collides with an opportunity to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They begin a journey of becoming who God uniquely created them to be… a part of God’s story. I don’t know about you, but there are few things in life that give me greater joy than to watch that unfold!

Think about your own life. Aren’t your most memorable moments the ones when someone came into your life and helped you discover your true north. That’s what we’re called to do. Leaders that create significance have a life calling bigger than themselves. A new volunteer is like an unopened present with layers and layers of wrapping. As leaders, we get to peel back the layers as we give opportunities for them to use their gifts to make a meaningful difference. God provides each one of us with unique gifts so that we can work together to advance his kingdom.

How do you help peel back the layers for your volunteers to experience significance in the roles in which they serve?

Warning: Tricky & Harmful

Significance

Want to move towards volunteer excellence? Then shift from “do I have the spots covered?” to “are my volunteers in their sweet spot?” Now this one is incredibly tough to fight through and I do not have any immediate solutions. In fact, it will get worse before it gets better. When you make this mental shift and leadership commitment there will be a high price to pay for a few months. But if you commit to this principle and lead with excellence the tide will begin to change and a new spirit and culture will deliver results. Fulfilled volunteers produce an amazing culture of acceptance, friendliness, fun, and mission – it is electric, attractive and irresistible. I’ll say it- begging to fill holes sucks! You hate it. They hate it. Everyone hates it. So lets stop doing it! Instead let’s offer the opportunity for our friends to live out their life with meaning. Every time I have done this well I have had more volunteers than I could handle in that area.

WARNING: Some of us fall prey to a real tricky, but harmful phrase- “the whatever you need myth.” This one is really dangerous because it gives the leader a false sense of success and sets the volunteer up for discouragement ultimately hurting the organization as a whole. We must be committed to give them purpose and push against the temptation to just fill in. My jaw dropped with agreement when I heard Christine say the following: Letting volunteers choose the attitude of “I’ll do whatever you need” causes burnout, and is the reason “they will leave your church and come to mine.”