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Timely Communication
Posted on Aug 24,2016
Communication is vital in any organization. This is especially true in volunteer organizations as you have to keep your members, interested parties, and sponsors informed and engaged. Engaged is a key word here. People are drawn to your volunteer organization for a reason, they resonate with your purpose, cause and goals. There are lots of other good causes out there, so how do you keep their attention? Timely communication is a great way of doing this. In addition to sending out your regular newsletters or event information, look for other opportunities to send out timely, and useful information. It might be a significant update on one of your projects, a call for help / new volunteers (have different participation levels - from a one time for a few hours to several days a month), a new or pressing issue, asking for their opinions or feedback on an issue, a 'profile' on a particular project or volunteer (if a project started several years ago then new people might not be aware of the history or reason for it), or a proposed governement policy or initiative that would impact your organization goals. We recommend sending out some form of communication once a month, not too often to annoy your audience but frequent enough to maintain a significant presence.

Welcome
Posted on May 2,2016
Your new volunteer is arriving today, reporting for duty. Are you prepared? What did you do that will make them feel special and welcome? Wouldn't it be great if someone on your team, who has never met the new person, rushed up to meet them, prior to even an introduction, and called the new person by name and welcomed them to the team. How special would that make them feel? And the prep work - telling your team that the new person is arriving and then 'testing' people periodically to see if they remember the name of the new person. Do you have their task ready for them, what do you want them to do on their first day - something easy, meaningful and that at the end of their first day they can say that they achieved something. You want them to get their hands dirty, not just sit around and watch others. Have you given them a task that they can be successful at? The training, steps, tools, and people are ready for them to dive right in. If it is an existing task, that others have done previously, then you should have the steps written down ready for the new person to follow, and if the steps include 'lessons learned' from previous task owners then that is even better - do talk to this person, don't do this as we tried it before and it didn't work. If the task has never been done before is it appropriate for the new person? At the very least give them some guidance that if they are spending more than 30 minutes on a particular step then go see this person to brainstorm if there might be a better way forward. Some other things to consider are length of time - do you really want their first day to be 8 hours long - they are volunteers remember! Has there been a social interaction during the day - refreshments with the team, some chit chat about what they are interested in, their passions, some get to know them and the team time. At the end did you tell them 'Great job', if so well that is not enough, show that you know what they actually accomplished by saying 'I amazed at how well you did step x, good ingenuity, I wouldn't have thought to look that up on YouTube, great job!' Recognizing their accomplishments by telling them is great, but you should also tell your team and your members about their efforts as well - at the next meeting, in the newsletter, next eAlert and you know what - what about a seperate email to the group dedicated solely to the new recruit. Yes we are all busy and a great welcome will take a bit of extra effort but it pales in comparison to the amount of effort to recruit a replacement volunteer. First impressions!

Who Are You?
Posted on April 30,2016
Your volunteers are vital. If you make the effort to really get to know them then you already know what makes them tick and how to give them a role in the organization to keep them ticking. But it is also easy to figure out a strategy for all your volunteers. What is your group known for? What is your primary cause or focus? That's what your volunteers signed up for - to further the cause of your organization. So whatever that is, make sure that each one of your volunteers can say to themselves that they played a significant role in achieving that goal. Don't give them a desk job if your cause is about saving the environment, or if you must give them a desk job make sure it is only a small percentage of what they do - send them out in the environment to get their hands dirty as well. Also volunteering fills a social role - make sure your volunteers are out there meeting new people and having fun socializing. Remember volunteers signed up because your group is who you are - volunteers want to be directly involved in your cause, it is your job to make sure they get what they signed up for.

You Didn't See That Coming
Posted on April 22,2016
Your best volunteer just told you they are quitting. They have had enough. Just too much stuff going on. Yet they were your go to person - they did almost everything and, more important, knew how to do everything. Who's going to pick up the slack, how will a new person figure it out? I think, unfortunately, the old 80 - 20 rule applies here - in some volunteer scenarios there is always one person who seems to have endless energy and enthusiasm - they end up taking more than their fair share of the work - yes 80% is probably an exageration but I'm sure you have all seen it before. In other scenarios a person ends up with the bulk of the work because they just know how to do it - it is easier to just keep doing it than having someone else try to do it. But the day of reckoning has come - they're leaving. Now what? There is no good answer here - there never is. That is why it is so important to plan ahead. Prevent the scenario. Don't allow a person to be over committed, don't allow a scenario where one person is the only one who knows how to do something. Make sure all your volunteers have an equal load, that more than one person knows how to do every task. Make sure your tasks are as simple as possible and steps clearly identified. Move your volunteers around once in a while - have them switch jobs - so they learn new things, have new experiences, and work with new people. You automatically now have backup people for any given task. You may find that some of the processes get written down, making it easier for the new volunteer to take over. You may find the new people asking why do we do that - if the answer is because we've always done it that way and yet no-one can figure out why or what value it adds then stop doing it. Common approaches and solutions may start finding their way into all the tasks, instead of everyone doing their own thing, their own way. All of this benefits the organization and the people. Yes people hate change, and like doing what they know how to do, instead of the unknown ... but often change is the best thing for everyone and it doesn't take long for people to adjust, and find themselves glad they did it. And, of course, make use of tools wherever you can, don't re-invent the wheel and always ask if a manual step can be done quicker and easier. We all are busy and over committed and it doesn't matter who you are this equals stress, which eventually catches up to everyone.

Your Volunteers are Vital!
Posted on April 5,2016
What is the most important part of your association? It is your volunteers of course! Where would you be without them? They are the heart of you. So how are your volunteers doing? Are they happy? Are they fulfilled? Are they doing what they signed up to do? Are they still passionate about what they are doing? When was the last time you asked your volunteers if they were happy? It is vital that you check in with them regularly about their feelings towards what they are doing. It takes a lot of effort to recruit volunteers, you want to ensure that you retain them. In addition guess what? Volunteers talk to their friends and family. Are they saying good things about your association which perhaps might entice more volunteers to sign up? Or are they talking about their frustrations which can have a negative impact on volunteer recruitment. If you haven't done so lately now is a good time to check in with your volunteers.

Why Vital Volunteers?
Posted on March 23,2016
Vital Volunteers was a natural progression of passion. I had been the president of a lake association that suffered from a common issue - lack of volunteers, particularly on the executive. Since the many hands make light work didn't seem to be working I took another approach - automating the collection, storage and utilization of the information used in our day to day tasks. The capabilities grew and with them I quickly realized that the problems and issues for a lake association, were the same for any volunteer, club or not for profit group. I could help these groups too!

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