What’s in this Episode?

One of the best indicators of a strong healthy ministry is the longevity of your volunteers. Like it or not, most people who volunteer in ministry will do so for a while, but then eventually, they’ll take a break. But when you know how to keep them serving for a longer period of time, that means your ministry stays healthier. So in this podcast, we’re going to look at nine tips to increase volunteer retention in your church. Here are the 9 Tips to Increase Volunteer Retention.

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Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:29
So this Sunday comes along and a new family visits our church. We are loving it and this guy and his wife are sharp. I think they’ve got three boys at like elementary and junior high. And so like the good staff guy that I was, I pick up the phone on Monday and say, “hey, let’s let’s go get lunch. You available.” I took him out the mustards. There was a restaurant in Des Moines called mustards. So we’re out at mustards. And here’s the way the conversation goes: “Hey, what do you do? Hey, you’ve been married 15 years about?” “Yeah, yeah.” So I said to him, “well, what do you like to do in the church?” “I’ll do anything.” Famous last words. When a new person in the church says, “I’ll do anything.” In other words, he’s trying to communicate to me, “hey, whatever you need, I’ll try to help you with.” So, you know, dumb-dumb that I am… He said, “I’ll do anything.” So, boom! A week later, I needed a big metal sign. And I’m gonna say this thing was probably, I don’t know, probably the length of this wall here, Jonathan. And it was huge and probably that wide. And it said, I think prayer chapel or something. So I call this guy up. “Hey, could you hang this?” Hesitancy on the phone… Should have been my first clue. Now remember this guy said I’ll do anything. So long and short is he comes in on Saturday and he hangs this big metal sign on a block wall. And we come in on Sunday morning and it’s almost done right. We had to fix it. It was just not good. And he did not have a good experience. The guy who told me he would do everything. I believed him. I had him do something I needed to get done. But I asked him to do something outside of his gifting. I didn’t take the time to determine really what he was good at. And so, because of that, the guy ultimately left the church. I mean, I’m thinking, I shouldn’t say that just because of that, but the first experience I helped him have was a negative experience. I mean, it was a bonehead move. Don’t do that.

Jonathan Hardy 2:50
Yeah, you messed that one up a little bit.

Tip #1: Research Gifts and Talents

Dick Hardy 2:51
Yeah. Thank you very much. Great reinforcement. So anyway, we want to help you today with things that you could do, and we got a boatload over here, so we’re gonna fly through them. Nine things that you can do to really help retain volunteers at the level you want. I’m gonna get started here. Why do I put this down? Research gifts and talents. Don’t ask somebody who’s not gifted with their hands to do something that they need to have their hands. Research them, know what they’d like to do, and then play to that. Yes, I understand I had this wall thing I had to get done, but I would have been way better off if I had not contacted this guy. I could have contacted him for something else and had somebody else who was good with their hands put that thing up. So research gifts and talents. Know what they do.

Tip #2: Have Clear Expectations

Dick Hardy 3:47
Have clear expectations. My expectations were probably clear to this guy, but his ability to do it wasn’t good. So I mean, I will say, you’ve had that happen. We’ve had it happen, where someone asks you to do something, but then they switch what they really want done. The old bait and switch routine. Don’t do that to people. You know, if you want to retain volunteers, you ask them with clear expectations of what you want to have done. And then they’ll be happy, you’ll be happy, and they’ll stay with you way longer. That’s right.

Tip #3: Do Note Guilt The Volunteer

Jonathan Hardy 4:22
Third tip is: do not guilt the volunteer. You don’t want to guilt people and make them feel guilty into serving. You want them to serve, because they want to serve. And so, it’s a little counterintuitive, because I know sometimes we’re like, “oh man, well, I just need to help.” But if we don’t guilt them, they’re probably actually going to stay longer, because then they’ll actually want to be a part of it and they won’t feel guilty every time that they can’t. So you have to make sure not to guilt someone.

Tip #4: Affirm The Volunteer Regularly

Jonathan Hardy 4:49
A fourth tip is to affirm the volunteer regularly. And we often talk about this in terms of training and celebrating volunteers and all that, but you also have to do that individually and it’s easy to do it kind of in a big group setting, but to go individually, make sure you have these touch points with these volunteers and you’re affirming them as a person and their service and their sacrifice and their time. All of that is going to be very, very helpful for you, because then they will feel appreciated. You want people individually one on one to feel appreciated, because when they feel appreciated, then they want to keep doing that, because they know that oh, you appreciate what they’ve been doing. You appreciate the time they’re giving, appreciate the gifts they’re using and all that stuff.

Dick Hardy 5:31
And just to take a brief 30 seconds in the lobby, and stop somebody and say, “Hey, Jonathan, I saw you did this with those fifth grade boys. I just want to thank you for what you did.” Now, you may think that’s just a real quick throwaway, but to the volunteer, that’s huge. That means the world to them.

Tip #5: Give Human Resource Support

Dick Hardy 5:51
Number five, give human resource support. By that, I mean, don’t stick somebody off and isolate them. I understand that there probably are some things that need to be done that it’s kind of a one person job, but do everything you can to have other people with them to help them be part of the team, because when they’re part of the team, they can celebrate victories together, and if they hit bumpy spots, they do those together. If you had a bumpy spot and you’re off, isolating, that is really tough. So give human resource support.

Tip #6: Provide Initial And Ongoing Training

Dick Hardy 6:25
Number six, provide initial and ongoing training. In a couple episodes from now, we’re going to talk about a specific nuance of training volunteers, but you cannot assume that people know what you want. And you know, I’ve been there a lot of times. Hey, you know, I needed a greeter on the front door. I mean, what does it take to be a greeter? Well, you know what it takes? You need to give them instruction What do you want to have happen? Do you want the door held open? Do you want them standing inside? Outside?Do you want greeter on door four outside and greeter on door one inside, probably not, you know, so you need to get your expectation set out and train them. And we go through this in Episode 17, where we’re talking about the specifics of roleplaying and get people to understand, and you’re providing training to them, not only right when they volunteer, but then ongoing training, you know, once or twice a year.

Tip #7: Talk To The Volunteer

Jonathan Hardy 7:24
Yeah. All right. Seventh tip is talk to the volunteer. You want to make sure that you actually have that conversation with them ongoing, not just when you first recruit them. You know, when you’re recruiting them, and we talked about this in episodes 12 and 13, the eight step process for recruiting volunteers in the church, you know, you’re going to be having those initial conversations with them, but then you have to continue that and be building this relationship with them, because when they feel like they’re, kind of what you’re saying, a part of the team and they feel like that you appreciate them, I mentioned that earlier, that you care that there’s relationship there. That’s going to help keep them there for the long haul. And that’s the goal. And that’s why you want to make sure you continually talk to the volunteer and build that relationship with them.

Dick Hardy 8:07
Well, and you want to make sure in that sense that they know you want them for who they are, not for what they do for you. If there’s a sense that he only wants me because I work here, I volunteer, and I’m just a cog in the wheel, but you care for them as a person.

Tip #8: Share Stories

Jonathan Hardy 8:27
Yeah. That’s good. The eighth thing is to share stories. You know, this is one of those things that’s just so helpful for people is to hear stories about how the volunteers matter and the impact that they’re having. And if you can share stories in the group settings of you know, so and so did this and this is the feedback we got you know, anytime you actually have someone write in, maybe if they email in, or if they you know, tell you “hey, this person over here just gave such a great experience for me as a visitor of the church.” You want to shout that from the rooftops, you want to share that story, help people to see what is happening and how that is directly impacting people that are visiting the church. Just using that as an example, but the point is, you have to share stories. You want people to feel like they’re connected to the whole. And so even if the story is about somebody else, you want to still get everyone included in and so that way they’re seeing, hey, what we are doing collectively together is making an impact.

Tip #9: Connect Their Service To The Mission Of The Church

Dick Hardy 9:29
Absolutely. The ninth and final point we want to make here is that you want to connect their service to the mission of the church. Now your mission is probably in one way or another something related to reaching spiritually lost people with the gospel. And so, you know, if you have an occasion where maybe you have a baptism, and you know, four people were baptized, well, all the next week, you want to be talking to your volunteers in the nursery in the kids area, the youth area, the worship team. Did you see that? Did you see those four people get baptized, you were a part of that happening. You were part of the life change happening that we referenced to and it ties to our overall mission. People want to be part of something bigger than themselves. If they feel like they’re just doing a job. They’re just as you referenced, the cog in the wheel, it’s going to be very short lived that they’re going to stay with you. See, this whole discussion is about how do we get people to stay with us longer. And you’ll do that if you’ll do this ninth point. So Jonathan, give us a snapshot of these nine.

Recap:

Jonathan Hardy 10:37
So, the nine tips to increase volunteer retention just real quick research gifts and talents, have clear expectations, don’t guilt the volunteer, affirm the volunteer regularly, give human resource support, provide initial and ongoing training, talk to the volunteer, share stories, and then finally connect their service to the mission of the church. If you do these things, these different tips are going to help you increase the volunteer retention. And just what I’d encourage you to do is pick one. Start with one be intentional about one, maybe it’s about talking to the volunteer. And so you’re going to make a point you’re going to go person by person over the next few weeks and make sure you have these touch points with them. Maybe you’re picking up the phone for a call, whatever it might be, you need to pick one of these and have these touch points. These things are going to help you keep people serving for the long haul. There’s nothing worse than to recruit a volunteer and then to lose a volunteer and we want to help you recruit new volunteers and keep the ones who have and these tips are going to help you to do so. I would finally also encourage you if you have not yet done so make sure to take the Five Day Leadership Challenge for pastors. This is a five day, 15 minute per day, free opportunity for you to develop your personal leadership. Just go to Leaders.Church/challenge. Again, that’s Leaders.Church/challenge. And then also be sure to subscribe. Whether you’re watching on YouTube, whether you’re listening on one of the podcast platforms, hit that subscribe button. We want to make sure to keep you posted on future Church Tips episodes. And anything else?

Dick Hardy 12:02
Nope. I think we’re good to go.

Jonathan Hardy 12:03
All right!

Dick Hardy 12:04
Retain more volunteers!

Jonathan Hardy 12:06
Okay, talk soon!

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