10 Tips for Managing Volunteers and Staff

By Peggy Vinson

As you begin your next annual support campaign, consider these ten tips for effective goal-setting for staff and volunteers:

1. Staff volunteer recruitment goals should reflect each staff person’s tenure with your organization – assigning all staff the same goal sets your newer staff up for frustration and failure.
2. Set up year long goals and strategies for each staff to work with their “volunteer groups” all year.  Help them identify ways that volunteers can help with projects throughout the year. This allows staff to develop stronger relationships, prove to the volunteer they will stick by them through the projects and then the annual campaign becomes another “project” rather than something out of the blue!
3. Develop thank you plans for volunteers as groups, as well as ensuring each staff person has their own plans to continually thank and appreciate their volunteers. Your annual campaign victory party should reflect a “thank you party” atmosphere for your volunteers.  Staff should handle individual and small group thank you’s.
4. Re-visit your volunteer job descriptions. Are they so detailed that they scare volunteers?  How can you simplify these? 3-5 bullets should be sufficient in asking them to help with your annual campaign “project”.
   In addition, make sure your Campaign Chair Job Description doesn’t overwhelm your leadership prospects.  Can you minimize this as well?  Can you simplify it to: 3-4 meetings, emcee kick-off and victory, report at board meetings, challenge board members and volunteers throughout the campaign, solicit 3-5 major gifts, and of course, make their own major gift pledge!
5. Put yourself in their shoes. How do you prefer to be asked to help out? What makes you feel good about your volunteer experiences?  How did the folks you volunteered for thank you?  Are you anxious to help again? (why/why not)
6. Vary your volunteer training to include a group training and individual trainings.  How can you support your staff to enable them to train their own volunteers?  With the right support materials, staff could visit with volunteers and train them in 15 minutes!
7. Do staff understand how to ask for a gift? Do they know why you need more money?  (And, the correct answer to that question isn’t “Because the goal increased”) Do they know how additional dollars raised help to increase your service to the community? If staff understand this, they are equipped to train volunteers to understand the Y and even better they are equipped to train volunteers on how to ask!
8. Are there experienced staff who can mentor newer staff?  Consider buddying up staff to support each other. You may even add this new leadership opportunity to the experienced staffs’ performance plan.  Give them a chance to lead and reward them for it!
9. Be a role model to your staff. How many volunteers are you recruiting?  How are you ensuring  they are trained properly?  How are you motivating and thanking them?  Do you communicate with them on a weekly basis? Do you recognize them in front of other volunteers?  If not, now’s the time!
10. Celebrate staff successes in recruiting volunteers.  If they had none last year and 3-5 this year, make that a big deal!  Their confidence will increase and their ability to grow their volunteer team will flourish. Can you add this to their performance plans?  Instead of including only the branch goal, consider adding volunteer goals as well.

And finally, throw a thank you party for your staff at the end of the campaign.  You couldn’t do this without them!

How is your recruiting going? Let us know what has been working for you in the comments below.

Last 5 posts by Peggy Vinson

• Sharing in the USA - November 29th, 2011
• Balanced Life? Are You Kidding? - September 26th, 2011
• The Return of the Annual Campaign - September 7th, 2011
• Always Look Up! - August 8th, 2011
• Slamming the Message Home - July 6th, 2011

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