How did you get here?

February 7th, 2012 by Lora Dow

Hardly any meeting with a nonprofit staff and volunteer team goes by without the people at the table lamenting the lack of involvement from other volunteers. Why hasn’t that person stepped up? Where are they when it’s time to ask for money? Don’t they know what it takes to run an organization like this?

Instead of wondering what’s wrong with them, maybe the better question is “What went right with me?”

Take a few minutes at a board meeting, retreat or one-on-one with active volunteers to revisit how they got to this point. Was there a tipping point where their interest took a deeper turn? How has their involvement changed over the years? What keeps them motivated?

Often as staff, we think we know the answers, but we might well be wrong. Long-time volunteers may have forgotten what it felt like to be a newbie.

How did you get here?

And how can you leave signposts for others to follow your leadership example?