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5 Tips to Help You

Recruit and Keep Volunteers

Having enough volunteers involved in ministry is a challenge for most churches. It seems that there are never enough people to do everything that needs doing. Why is it so difficult to find and recruit people to work in the ministry? I’ve found that some of the difficulty anyway is our fault. We make some incorrect assumptions and then go about things in ways that make it hard for people to volunteer. Here are a few tips I’ve found for recruiting and keeping volunteers. 

1. Make it easy for people to get involved. Don’t hide your volunteer recruiting notice on some back hallway bulletin board. Set up a table in your foyer inside your main entrance. Man the table with the head of the department you are recruiting for. They will be able to answer questions and better and will have more passion for the ministry than anyone else. Passion sells! Put a link on your website for volunteers to sign up. Use an online tool like Sign-Up Genius to make it easy for people to sign up for specific time slots and jobs. Volunteers are there. They just won’t spend a lot of time and effort looking for ways to get involved. It’s up to us to make it as easy as possible. 
2. Cast vision. Too often, we rely on stereotypes or make assumptions about how much people know when recruiting volunteers. For example, everyone assumes that volunteers in the Children’s Ministry are there to help the children learn more about God. That much is true. But the vision for Children’s Ministry goes far beyond the children. not only are we there for the children, we’re also there for their parents. Imagine what your service would look like if the children were taken into the adult service. In smaller churches, this may be a possibility. In larger churches, however, children in the adult service create a distraction. Parents aren’t able to listen to the message when they have to worry about whether little Johnny is going to bite the ankles of the person sitting in front of them! If the parents can’t pay attention to and apply the teaching, their spiritual growth is stunted. We need to cast a vision beyond a duty. We need to help people understand the value of what we are asking them to do. people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Let’s help them.
3. Match people with their purpose, not your needs. When I was on the worship team, I played every week. I didn’t feel tired or burned out from serving every week. In fact, I looked forward to getting to the service, strapping on my guitar and playing. Why? Because playing music is a passion for me. I love it! On the other hand, if you were to place me in the Children’s Ministry as a volunteer, I can guarantee you I wouldn’t last a month! Not only is it not my passion, I don’t really have the patience or aptitude to deal with a room full of squealing children! But that’s how we typically place our volunteers: where we need them. On one hand, it makes sense. We need help in this area or department, so let’s place some of our volunteers there. The problem with this approach is that if the volunteers don’t enjoy what they do on some level, they won;t stay. And chances are we won’t get them involved anywhere again. But if we place people where their gifts and aptitude is, chances are that they will not only stay, but may even look forward to coming and serving. If you need help in determining the spiritual gifts of your volunteers, you can access a Spiritual Gifts Assessment here. If you would like to be notified of the results of your team, contact me and I will set you up to receive the results of your team’s assessments.
4. Recruit for specific positions. Too often, we make a blanket plea for volunteers and then choose from a pool of responses to place people into positions we need to be filled. If we change our approach just a little, though, we can get better responses and recruit people who are more apt to remain in those positions longer. For example, if we need more volunteers for the usher team, the cleaning team and the Children’s Ministry (who doesn’t need more volunteers in the Children’s Ministry?), then let’s break our approach up into 3 separate appeals. Make one appeal for the usher team with specific qualities you are looking for. Make another appeal for people to join the cleaning team. Make a 3rd appeal for children’s workers. Since each of those positions require different schedules, personalities and skills, why lump them all together into one mass appeal for volunteers? In the long run, you’ll have better success if you recruit for specific positions in the ministry.
5. Show some love! The last thing I want to mention here is one of the most important things you can do to keep volunteers. Show them how much they are appreciated! This can take a couple of different forms. The most obvious is to say “Thank you!” often. Make sure they know that you appreciate them personally. One of the strategies I have seen that is successful is to have a “Volunteer of The Month” honoree. Choose one of your volunteers, or have a panel of peers nominate them. Place their picture in a prominent place in the church along with some kudos from their fellow workers, members of the congregation, or the staff. For example, contact the parents of one of the teachers in your Children’s Department with the news that their child’s teacher has been nominated for Volunteer of the Month. Ask them for an endorsement of the teacher to post. Be creative! Give the winner(s) a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant or theater. Believe me, you will receive much more than $25 back from that volunteer in effort. The point is that people like to feel appreciated and know that their hard work and sacrifice is recognized.

These are a few ideas to help you recruit and retain volunteers. What else would you add to the list? What have you found to be successful?

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