volunteer coordinator

4 Steps to Building a Volunteer Administration Team

Most churches have volunteers who serve at weekly services in various capacities. Volunteer greeters, ushers, childcare workers, and more make weekly services happen. One area that tends to be overlooked when it comes to volunteers is administration. We don’t often consider administration as an area where volunteers could serve. However, this could be a great fit for members of the congregation who prefer to help behind the scenes.  In addition to offering a way for more people to participate in the work of ministry, these volunteers can also reduce the administration workload for your team. The key is to make a clear path to show potential volunteers how they can contribute, and invite them to get started. Here are a few tips to building a church volunteer administration team: Tip #1: Decide what administrative tasks to delegate to volunteers It doesn’t make sense to start recruiting people until you know what tasks you’d want them to handle.  If you’re not sure where to start, here are some potential options: Consider tasks you could delegate to volunteers that would free up your time to handle other projects.  Tip #2: Document each task You don’t want even the most talented volunteers to make it up as they go along.  The next time you perform a task you’d like to hand off to a volunteer, document each step of the process. This will make training volunteers easier and will greatly reduce the number of mistakes you’d have to fix later. Tip #3: Invite people to volunteer Start by finding detail-oriented, organized individuals who have a background in administrative type work. Someone who has experience as an administrative assistant, a bookkeeper, or in general office work might be a great fit.  When you’re ready to start recruiting, one-on-one invitations will probably work better than a general invite from the stage. Spread the word with small group leaders and other volunteers at your church to see if they know someone who would enjoy and be good at administrative work. Tip #4: Provide training and get them started Once you have people signing up, use the documentation you created and train each volunteer. Find out how often and when they can serve. Provide a variety of scheduling options such as: Set a schedule so they know when you need certain tasks completed.   Establishing a volunteer administrative team requires some creativity in scheduling, knowing what you can delegate, plus detailed documentation. While it does mean you’ll have some extra work to do initially, a strong volunteer administration team can save you a great deal of time in the long run. 

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How to Develop Current Volunteers for Future Growth

You may have just enough volunteers to get by today. But what will happen when your church experiences a growth spurt? Now is the time to lay the groundwork for a strong volunteer team. You might be thinking, “We don’t have enough people staying committed to serving now. How are we supposed to plan for the future?” Fair question. First off, you’ve got to stop the bleeding. That starts with learning why volunteers keep drifting in and out of serving. Here’s how: Talk with people who used to volunteer and, without judgment or accusations, ask why they stopped. Talk with your staff and see if they know why people have stopped serving. You’ve got to identify the problems before you can fix them. Start addressing those issues right away. Issue: Volunteers received multiple requests from different staff members to serve in various roles at the same event and got frustrated by the lack of coordination. Solution: Use your church management system (ChMS), or a spreadsheet if you don’t have a ChMS yet, and track who volunteers in what roles within that system. Start a new process: before staff members contact people to serve, they have to check the system to make sure that person isn’t already committed on that day/time, or that someone else hasn’t already contacted them. This also means your team has to become disciplined at entering that information into the system. Issue: Some volunteers may have entered a really busy season (new job, buying/selling a house, new baby, etc.) and had to take a break. (See this post on “Why Volunteers Quit”) Solution: Ask them if they’re ready to come back. Also, provide volunteer opportunities that are 1-2 commitments per month instead of every week. Whatever the root cause of volunteers not coming back, figure out how to address it and take action immediately. Next, make sure you’re providing sufficient training and clear expectations to new volunteers. If they don’t know what you want them to do, they’ll do their best, and make it up as they go along. That creates a lot of opportunities for mistakes and errors, and you’ll both be frustrated. If a volunteer feels stressed out and confused every time they serve, they won’t last long. Once you deal with the immediate issues and have at least enough volunteers to keep things moving, now it’s time to focus on the future. What are the goals of your church leadership team for the next 1-5 years? All of those goals will require more volunteers to help you be successful. First, you need to determine how many more volunteers you’ll need and in what roles. You need a target to aim at here. Talk with your staff about these goals. Get their input. Do you have the right roles and reasonable numbers included in your plan? Change it as needed, based on their feedback. Next, how many volunteer leaders will you need? These are volunteers who’ll coordinate and lead teams of other volunteers. Consider your current volunteers and think of those who are already natural leaders in the group.Focus your initial efforts on developing them as leaders. When you share the vision and the “why”, you inspire people and help them realize that they can play a vital role in achieving that vision. Finally, make sure your congregation knows why you want them to get involved beyond attending a service. Volunteering can’t be all about getting stuff done. While that’s a valid need, focusing on a volunteer program as discipleship instead of just a volunteer workforce is much more effective. A discipleship mindset will impact how you approach asking people to serve, how you train and develop them, and how you communicate with them. When we serve, we grow. I’ve developed lifelong friendships, learned from my fellow volunteers, and became a stronger Christian as a result of volunteering in ministry. Focus on developing an environment where those are the normal results. It takes time and focused effort, but it is so worth it. If you get discouraged, ask God to show you how your volunteers are growing spiritually. He knows we’re only human and can’t see the eternal impact of our work. Ask Him to help you get a glimpse of what He’s doing in and through you. Hold on to those testimonies and use that as motivation to keep asking, developing, and building a strong team of faithful volunteers. By investing in your current volunteers, you’ll start adding to the team and will create a strong foundation of volunteer leaders as you grow. That foundation is key to maintaining and propelling church growth.

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How to Make Changes Without Scaring Off Volunteers

Have you ever announced a change to your volunteers that didn’t go over too well? Have they ever resisted implementing a new process and you couldn’t quite figure out why? I’ll let you in on a little secret: The issue probably wasn’t the change itself. The issue was probably in how the change was rolled out. Most of your volunteers are ingrained in the current process. They’ve developed habits and know what to expect each week. When you announce a change, even one that should make their work easier, you’re creating uncertainty. How do you go from “We need to change” to actually implementing the changes without scaring off your volunteers? Here are some key steps: #1: Get input from volunteer leaders. Discuss the upcoming changes with them. Provide a compelling vision for why the changes are necessary. Get their feedback and ask how they think their teams will react. #2: Send an email update to all volunteers. Start by thanking them for serving. Mention that “we’re always seeking to improve and have a few new things to roll out soon.” Cast a compelling vision as to why change is needed and how it will make their work even more effective. Then give them the specifics about what’s changing and when. #3: Discuss the changes at the next pre-service volunteer meeting. Reiterate the reasons why you’re changing and invite them to ask questions. Give them grace and don’t be too rigid about how they implement the changes at first. #4: Follow-up with volunteer leaders. Ask how their teams felt about the changes, and how implementing them went that day. Talk individually with volunteers who had concerns. Now, that can be a lot of work. It would be nice if you could announce a change and everyone adjusted immediately. However, that’s not always likely to happen. Even good changes can be disruptive, so you need to give people, especially volunteers, some time to see the benefits and process the new way of doing things. Remember: you’re working with volunteers who are donating their time. You have to motivate them with a clear vision and a compelling reason to change. Even the most faithful volunteer will become discouraged and may consider quitting if you change too much too quickly. Use wisdom and listen carefully to your volunteer leaders. They want to support you. Make it easier for them to do so by getting their support first and listening to their feedback.

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How to Fire a Volunteer

One question I frequently receive when talking about recruiting and retaining church volunteers is what to do about a volunteer who isn’t working out. In other words, how do I “fire” a volunteer?  This is obviously a delicate situation that you need to handle carefully. This individual is donating his time and efforts; he’s part of your congregation and a brother in Christ. You don’t want to offend him or damage the relationship but his performance in the volunteer role is hurting the team. So, what to do? First off, deal with any issues that involve breaking the law, overt sin, or safety concerns immediately. However, assuming that this is a matter of the volunteer not meeting expectations, having a poor attitude, or isn’t doing the work as needed, then here are a few options for you to consider. #1: Is this person in the wrong role? Someone in the wrong role doesn’t mean you need to fire a volunteer. It may indicate that person needs a different role. How do you assign new volunteers? Do you simply match up a warm body with a spot you need to fill? Do you let new volunteers choose whatever role they want regardless of skill-set or personality factors? That might be the real issue. Your poor-performing, hard-to-get-along-with volunteer may be a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. In this situation, establish a process for all volunteers (current and new) to guide them into a role that will align with their skills, interests, and personality. Part of this process should include a spiritual gifting and personality test (i.e., DiSC, Myers-Briggs). Also, develop job descriptions for each volunteer role and include which spiritual gifting and personality types would be best for each. Once your volunteers complete these tests, see if each person’s results line up with their current role. If not, talk with those volunteers about what role(s) might be a better fit and suggest they try a different one. #2: Does this person know what you expect? Have you provided this volunteer with documented instructions, a training session, and periodic reminders of what you need him to do? If not, do that before you decide he has to go. You can’t reasonably expect a volunteer to perform with excellence without knowing what a win looks like. Set your team up for success. #3: Discuss the issues before deciding to fire a volunteer Before you fire a volunteer, you need to give him a chance to change. Does this volunteer have a dreadful attitude and is consistently gossiping about church leaders? If so, you need to clearly yet kindly confront him about his behavior. It’s probably best to not do this alone, so have one other leader present for the discussion. A few pointers for this discussion: Try something along these lines for the first confrontation. If you’re still noticing issues, then a more direct approach may be necessary. So, what if you’ve tried all of the above and things still aren’t working out? The first step is to pray and seek God’s direction. You may not realize that there’s a difficult family drama or other issue going on in this person’s life right now. Perhaps he’s had a bad experience at another church and that’s impacting his response, etc. Pray for him and ask God to give you the right words. Next, set up a time to talk with the volunteer (do this with another leader at least around if not directly involved).   Never do this via email or over the phone. This is too personal of a discussion and you need to do everything you can to make sure the volunteer’s relationship with God and with the church remains intact. Start off the conversation on a positive note by honestly complimenting and stating how much you appreciate him serving at the church. Ask how he’s feeling about his volunteer role. Mention that you like to check-in with volunteers on occasion to see if they’re happy where they’re at, if they want to take a break from serving, or if they’d like to be reassigned to a different role. See where that takes the conversation. Perhaps he’s uncomfortable in that role but didn’t know how to approach the issue. Give him an easy, face-saving way out. If that’s not working, then remind him of prior discussions you’ve had to correct his behavior and/or offer a change in roles. State that you haven’t noticed any changes and that you need him to take some time off from serving. Reiterate that you value him as a brother in Christ and as a member of the church. Ask for his thoughts and if he has any questions. Close out the meeting in prayer and follow up with him within the next week to see how he’s doing. There are three key priorities in this situation: Ministry is messy and this is a perfect example of the mess church leaders must be willing to dive into with volunteers. However, when these moments are handled well the outcomes can be pretty amazing.   Hang in there, pray for wisdom, and seek Godly counsel. God placed you in this leadership role for a reason and He will equip you for these moments. Trust that He’ll lead you to do what’s best for your volunteer and for the congregation as a whole.

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What Makes People Hesitant to Volunteer at Church?

You need volunteers. You need them in the nursery, greeting at entrances, checking in children, making coffee, running sound, and much more. If you’re running short on volunteers, consider how you’re presenting the opportunity to serve. There are several unknowns that makes people hesitant to volunteer at church. Here’s what makes people hesitant to volunteer at church: #1 – They don’t know what you’ll expect. Potential church volunteers need to know what they’re getting themselves into. You probably wouldn’t apply for a job (much less accept it) if you had zero information about the expectations and responsibilities associated with that role.  Potential volunteers feel the same way. Develop a brief description for each volunteer role that includes the following: #2 – They’re worried about failing. What if a volunteer signs up for a certain role and realizes a few weeks in that it’s a bad fit? You need to give new volunteers a graceful and shame-free way out. If they serve in the bookstore for a couple of Sundays and realize they’re better suited to be a greeter, make that an easy transition. Let potential volunteers know they can try out a role for a few weeks before making a longer-term commitment. #3 – They don’t know what volunteer role to sign up for. You’ll have better success with volunteers if you take the time to match each person to the role that’s the best fit for him/her. You can have them take a personality and/or spiritual gifting test. You could also take 5-10 minutes and talk with the individual. Get to know potential volunteers and then assign them to a role you both think they’ll enjoy and be successful in. #4 – They don’t have a clear reason to volunteer at church. Now, most potential volunteers won’t come right out and ask you why they should serve. However, it’s something we all consider at least subconsciously. Why should I serve? If you can’t answer that one question, answering all of the others listed above is a waste of time. They have children to raise, bosses to report to, errands to run, and a ton of other responsibilities.  If they don’t know why serving is important (for them and for others), then serving won’t be able to compete with all the other items on their to-do lists.  Help them see how they can easily get started and how vital their participation is to the vision of the church. After all, this isn’t just about why you need people to serve in the nursery. This is about why followers of Christ should serve others. Weave that answer into your communications about serving at your church. Volunteering helps us grow in our relationship with God, make life-long friends, and enjoy the feeling that comes from knowing we’ve helped someone else. Help potential volunteers understand why, remove any mystery about your expectations or the commitment involved, and help new volunteers get acclimated quickly. This isn’t an overnight solution. However, if you’ll take the time to answer those questions you’ll end up with more volunteers who’re passionate about serving.

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2 Keys to Retaining Church Volunteers

The challenge with recruiting volunteers is it’s not always sticky, meaning just because you’ve signed up several new volunteers doesn’t mean they’ll stick around. After learning a few lessons the hard way, I know a thing — or two — about keeping your volunteers coming back. What’s the secret to retaining church volunteers? You have to effectively onboard and train them. Here’s how to develop a successful onboarding and training plan. #1 – Onboarding Before you get to the details of training for specific roles, you must first get all your onboarding to-dos checked off. Start by vetting your volunteers through background checks, interviews, and by checking references. This is especially important for those volunteers seeking to serve around children, in security roles, or with your church’s finances. If a volunteer is given the green light, find out where their interests, skills, and availability intersect with your church’s needs. Then, assign them a role! Once you’ve given an assignment, I highly recommend giving your volunteer a trial period of about a month. This is helpful for both you and the volunteer in determining if the role is a good fit before either of you makes long-term commitments. #2 – Training No matter the role, every volunteer position will require some level of training. Even if you think a job is self-explanatory, it’s important to provide clear directions so volunteers understand your expectations. If you don’t do this, things will probably not get done to your standard. Pointing out the “wrong” in their work when you never trained them the “right” way is one reason why volunteers quit. Set them up for success from the start and they’re more likely to stick around. Working with Children While it’s true that all roles require training, some roles will inevitably need more than others. As mentioned before, volunteers working with children, in security roles, or with your church’s finances will require extensive vetting. They will also need more specific and sensitive training. Ensuring the safety of your church members should be your top priority when recruiting volunteers. Taking the extra step to properly train them is beneficial to not only them but to the members they serve. Tips For Your Training Program Keep in mind, these training sessions don’t need to be lengthy and arduous, but they should happen often. Try conducting them at least once a month and provide handouts during the training for reference. It’s hard to expect anyone to remember everything you tell them, so providing documentation will help to reinforce the main points of the training. Plus, some people just learn better by reading. Take your training program a step further by assigning each new volunteer a mentor. The mentor should be another volunteer who has served in their specific role for at least a few months. This gives the new volunteer an opportunity to get to know someone else on the team and learn from them. It also communicates to the volunteer mentor that you trust him/her to help the new volunteer succeed in this role.  This is key if your goal is to increase volunteer retention. When it comes to retaining church volunteers, remember: nobody enjoys being recruited for a job and then not told how to properly do that job. Your volunteers have taken time out of their lives to serve their home church. Now, it’s your turn to take the time to help them help you. For more reading on leading the volunteers in your church, check out my book “The Volunteer Management Toolkit (Church Edition).”

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How to Get Feedback that will Help You Retain Volunteers

For most churches, recruiting volunteers is crucial to the success of your mission. Though a lot of effort goes into this recruitment process, it’s not always enough to keep those volunteers helping long term. Learning how to gather feedback from volunteers will allow you to make changes so you can retain volunteers for a long time. If this is a familiar struggle, ask yourself what your church is doing to encourage volunteer retention. Often, in the midst of recruitment and everyday church functions, retaining efforts get overlooked. When implemented, however, there are several strategies to improve retention and communicate more clearly with your volunteers. If you want to find out what’s working and what isn’t, request feedback from current volunteers. After all, they’re the ones checking in children, talking with parents, seeing jams in the parking lot, hearing comments from guests, and more. When you take the time to ask for their input, you’ll gain more insight into the happenings of your church, while showing them that you appreciate their service. Here are two methods for gathering feedback that will help you retain volunteers. Method #1 — Run An Annual Survey of All Volunteers One easy way to survey volunteers is to use an online tool like SurveyMonkey. You can create the questions, send out a link to the survey via email, and collate responses quickly. Keep the survey at a reasonable length (no more than 10 questions) to ensure people will take the time to fill it out. Here are several sample questions to ask: #1 – How long have you been serving at <church name>? If you don’t have records of when each volunteer started serving, this is a useful piece of information. If your church has been around for 20 years, but the average volunteer has only been serving for less than one year, you may have a high volunteer turnover issue. #2 – Why did you decide to start serving? This helps you identify people’s motives for serving. It can also reveal what communication methods worked best in getting people to sign up to volunteer (personal invitations, announcements during a service, the desire to meet more people, etc.). #3 – How did you get started as a volunteer? Did this person sign up on the church website or talk with a staff member about serving?  Did they fill out a card and put it in the offering plate? Knowing which signup methods have been the most popular can aid your decision-making process when it comes to which methods to promote the most. #4 – How would you describe the process of signing up to serve? By asking this question, you’ll learn whether or not your signup process is a smooth one. Maybe there was a glitch with the signup software you used, maybe it wasn’t clear who they should contact to sign up, or maybe it took weeks for someone to follow up with them. This is all good information you need to know. #5 – Have you made any new friends from serving? A sense of community is often what draws people into volunteer work. In my own experience, I’ve seen 94 percent of survey respondents say they made new friends as a result of volunteering at church. This is a great statistic to mention when you invite people to volunteer. #6 – Did you attend a training session and receive any documented instructions before you started serving? If not, you either don’t already require training before someone starts serving or there’s a hole in the process. Every volunteer role needs at least some training. It might consist of a 20-minute session with a short handout or something much more in-depth based on the role. Providing training helps you retain volunteers since they’ll know what you expect and how to accomplish it. #7 – What do you think prevents more people from serving at <insert church name>? When you’re on staff at a church, it can be challenging to see things from a newcomer’s perspective. Getting insights from volunteers on this topic will help you make adjustments as needed. #8 – Have you invited anyone to serve at <insert church name>? If not, has your experience in serving kept you from recommending that others volunteer? Volunteering with friends is a huge draw for some. If volunteers aren’t encouraging their church friends to also help, this could be a sign that there are issues within the volunteer process. #9 – Do you feel appreciated and valued as a volunteer? If not, please let us know what we could do to change that, because, we really do appreciate you! We all like to be recognized for doing good work, especially if we’re not getting paid for it. Make sure your volunteers know that their work is appreciated and their time valued. Strive to show them how their work has positively impacted your church’s mission. #10 – What else should we know about serving at <insert church name>? We want to improve and need your honest feedback to help us get better. This last question is so crucial. Give them some space to include their thoughts, concerns, or even praises that give you more information as to how you’re meeting volunteer expectations. For all surveys, make sure to set a deadline — I suggest two weeks — for volunteers to respond. This gives them enough time to give thoughtful answers but not so much time that they forget about it. Method #2 — Meet With Volunteer Leaders Hopefully, you have volunteers who lead various teams for weekly services (parking, greeting, bookstore, etc.). If so, ask those leaders to meet with you as a group at least once a quarter.  Here, come prepared with snacks, pen and paper, and a list of questions to ask. Here’s what to ask: The biggest takeaway here is to listen WAY more than you speak during these meetings. You may receive unpleasant feedback that makes you feel defensive. Resist the urge to

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Why Volunteers Quit

Volunteering at church can be an incredible experience. It helps us connect with our church family, develop stronger relationships, and further our growth as disciples of Jesus. While there are many excellent reasons to serve, sometimes volunteers fade away and we’re left wondering what happened. So, why do volunteers quit? I’ve enjoyed serving and usually said, “yes” to requests to volunteer, there were times when I stepped away from serving. You may run into this with your volunteers. A long-time volunteer may tell you he needs a break and wants to step down in a few weeks. Your most dependable leader in the nursery may say she’s ready to move to another ministry area. While this can be frustrating and discouraging, it’s something you need to be prepared to handle. Why do volunteers quit? Some reasons have nothing to do with the church: Other times, the reason has everything to do with the church: What can you do to you prevent more volunteers from quitting? #1 – Don’t let people overcommit Every volunteer coordinator loves people who’re willing to sign up for more than one responsibility. However, while it’s great when a reliable volunteer is willing to help in several areas, you need to protect him from himself. As a general rule, don’t let volunteers serve in more than two services per week. Also, if someone is serving weekly don’t ask her to serve at every single special event (especially if your church has special events each month). #2 – Know what’s going on in their personal lives Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t about getting too nosey. This is about getting to know your volunteers (especially those in leadership roles). These types of life events can be wonderful but also energy draining. If a volunteer is serving in multiple areas and has a demanding job or new responsibilities coming up, you may need to be prepared for him/her to step back from something. Talk with your volunteers and gauge how each is doing. #3 – Develop a leadership pipeline It can be hard to find qualified and reliable volunteer leaders, so when you find a few it’s tempting to load them up to max capacity. Please don’t do that to them or to yourself. Constantly be on the lookout for people with leadership potential and invite them to serve. Put them under the leadership of your current volunteers and work together to develop them. Then, as your current volunteer leaders need a break or fewer volunteer roles, you’ll already have others who’re ready to step up. #4 – Honor your volunteers Don’t expect to keep volunteers for long if you… You’ll frustrate, discourage, burn out, and frankly just tick people off doing that stuff. As Carey Nieuwhof pointed out in his post on why churches lose high capacity volunteers, “Few things are more demotivating than giving up your time as a volunteer only to discover the staff person responsible didn’t set you up to succeed.” Instead, take the time to plan ahead for each service or event: #5 – Request feedback Meet with your volunteer leaders at least quarterly. Find out what they’re hearing from their teams and what they’ve noticed personally. #6 – Be open about shortcomings As someone progresses from attending, to serving, to leading other volunteers, he will get closer to seeing the inner workings of the church. This includes the great things right along with the less-than-ideal stuff. If a volunteer has the pastor or other church leaders on a pedestal, he may become disillusioned when he sees the real deal. Here are several ways to counteract that issue: #7 – Provide Clear Expectations Create job descriptions for each volunteer role. Include why the role exists along with specific tasks someone filling that role should perform. We provide sample volunteer job descriptions in The Church Operations Toolkit to make this effort easier. There’s a lot you can do to retain volunteers. Protect them from themselves, plan ahead, communicate often, express your appreciation, be open about what needs improvement, and ask for forgiveness when needed. What are some other reasons you’ve heard of volunteers quitting?

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