by Terry L. Besser
Assistant professor and extension sociologist
Iowa State University Extension to Communities
Volunteers teach children how to read, take hot meals to shut-ins and serve food at community picnics. Volunteers organize Little League games and fund raisers for school band uniforms. They do these and thousands of other small and large tasks that improve all of our lives. Yet, volunteers often are taken for granted.
Communities and organizations can no longer afford to treat volunteers as a non-exhaustible resource. Recruiting and keeping volunteers has become very challenging even in small towns that pride themselves on the civic mindedness and community involvement of their citizens. There are a number of possible reasons why volunteers seem harder to attract and retain these days.
In some small towns, decreasing population means that there are no new people to share volunteering tasks, and the dependable, reliable volunteers who have always been available in the past are aging or are burned out. At the same time, in most families both parents are in the labor market, and likely to be commuting to their jobs for an additional amount of time every day. Consequently, after they take care of parenting, other family needs and jobs, they are simply too exhausted to volunteer. Finally, some think that people today are just less civic minded than in the past and would rather spend their time in their houses watching television than helping to organize the school fund raiser, for example.
Whatever the explanation, the need for volunteers is as great as ever. As a result, organizations and communities must give more attention to their volunteers and be creative in finding ways to keep them. In a previous article I used the research of Roger Gould to develop a list of guidelines for attracting volunteers. In this article I will provide Gould's insights into retention of volunteers. Following is a list of suggestions to encourage volunteers to continue to donate their time and energy.
Every volunteer project matters.
People must know that the effort they put into volunteering matters. They learn this by hearing the message, over and over again, that the collective enterprise made a difference. Examples of projects that made a difference are building a new school, cleaning a park, forming a children's soccer league or developing a response mechanism to help people during medical emergencies. The community needs to find ways to brag about these accomplishments at every opportunity. Seek awards. Hold recognition dinners. Publicize it in newspapers. Make sure the radio stations learn about it. Circulate posters telling about the accomplishment.
Volunteers' time and effort are too valuable to be squandered through poor organization and inefficiency.
Volunteers must know that their personal contributions made a difference to the common effort. To ensure that volunteers actually do make a difference, the effort must be organized. It can be quite irritating to busy volunteers to have their time wasted in "make work" activities, when needed supplies are not available, when no one knows what's happening or who should do what.
Similarly, don't frustrate volunteers by involving them in impossible or ill-defined ventures. Large ambitious projects such as "improve the quality of life in Garnavillo" should be broken down into components that are more tangible and can be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time. In the case of Garnavillo's quality of life, components might be to upgrade the existing emergency response service or to organize summer youth programs.
Tailor volunteers' responsibilities as closely as possible to their commitment, ability and interests. This is best determined in a conversation with the volunteer in which the needs of the organization and the interests and skills of the volunteer are discussed.
Every volunteer matters.
Recognize the contribution of each and every volunteer. Do this after the project is completed, or at regular intervals if the task is ongoing such as delivering meals to shut-ins. It is okay to recognize one or two volunteers for outstanding contributions, but do this only in addition to recognizing every volunteer. Possibilities for recognition include individual letters, a small present such as a pin, plaque, certificate, or T-shirt. Plan a party, hay ride, or ice-cream social. Print posters with volunteer names on them or place an article in the newspaper. Be creative.
Make it easy to volunteer. Make it fun to volunteer. Above all, make it matter to volunteer.
Contacts:
Terry L. Besser, ISU
Extension Sociology, (515) 294-6508
Del Marks, ISU Extension
Communication Systems, (515) 294-9807
