7 Needs of Your Volunteers
Ted Harro of Willow Creek Community Church (South Barrington, IL) recently shared with Christianity Today his insights on keeping volunteers happy.
Consider these excerpts, paraphrases, and additional thoughts on seven things your volunteers need:
- Meaning. Give your volunteers a clear, compelling purpose. Your vision makes their investment important.
- Involvement. The deeper your volunteers are involved in your ministry; the more passionate they will be about it. Don’t simply involve them in your plans, but get their input and feedback.
- Celebration & Tradition. It is important to continually reinforce your ministry’s core values and to regularly give your volunteers encouragement, meaningful moments, and opportunities to build relationships with other volunteers. Celebrations and traditions are great ways to achieve this.
- Positives. Neutralize the negatives, and you will strengthen the meaning.
- Efficiency. Be prepared and have direction so that your ministry can use your volunteers’ time wisely.
- More Efficiency. Prune the unnecessary things that waste your ministry’s resources so that your volunteers can have the resources that they need to effectively minister.
- Opportunity. Give your proven volunteers the opportunity to do something bigger than menial tasks. It will help them grow and give you more time to do what only you can do.
