Asking for Volunteers

Amy Simpson over at BuildingChurchLeaders.com opened a discussion on how to encourage volunteers. This is a favorite topic of mine (the original topic for the first book was on recruiting volunteers, before I got redirected into helping strugging churches.) She asked "Should You Stop Asking for Volunteers?"

Her contention was that church leaders should take better care of their congregants, and not continue to push them to volunteer when the volunteering does not serve the church's mission purpose, or when the volunteer if frankly doing too much.

In my reply, I started with a rhetorical/satiric question:

"If you mean "stop broadcasting a generic appeal for 'someone' to help out in an undefined future ministry opportunity" or even "come volunteer to do a job none of the staff wants to do", then yes, we need to stop that kind of activity. "

I am convinced that the church should treat volunteer opportunties as regular jobs, with specific duties and measurable goals, and then "hire" people into the positions.

The IRS treats non-profit labor as having a specific value (with benefits, the IRS's national estimated average is $18.77 per hour); we should treat each volunteer job as if we were paying a salary. We should give them honor and encouragement and thanks for the gift of labor.

And we should allow them to vacation - or even resign from their responsibilites if the work is not appropriate - without making them feel guilty that the kingdom of God will fail unless they continue.

There is a great (free) training resource on handing volunteers over at the FEMA website. But most important, if you make people feel valued, they are more likely to ask to volunteer, than you have to cajole their efforts.