3 Best Practices of a Volunteer-Driven Ministry

The value a good volunteer brings to a non-profit can be hard to measure. But a recent study by the Independent Sector tried. They concluded the value of a volunteer’s time would equate to $28.54 an hour. Wow! Based on that figure, the time, talent, and effort given over the course of one year by volunteers across all non-profit efforts in the United States becomes an equivalent monetary contribution that reaches into the billions. That’s a value that doesn’t show up in a ministry’s profit and loss reports, but it should convey just how important a strong volunteer program can be for a non-profit’s bottom line.

So, how strong is your volunteer program? 

As the advancement director not only for True Charity but for Watered Gardens Ministries as a whole, I oversee ours. I work with a team that values the contributions of our volunteers, and we have one guiding principle that informs three key areas of recruitment, training and retention:

Our Guiding Principle: We Serve the Volunteers. They Don’t Serve Us (They Serve the Clients). 

Watered Gardens is in year twenty two of ministry and, for the first ten years, it was completely volunteer-driven. Even as paid staff members have come on board, the bulk of the shifts filled are from volunteer seats. This is not by accident. In fact, the mission and vision statements of our organization explicitly state that we serve those who volunteer. The mission: Watered Gardens exists to serve the local church in its mission to help the poor. The vision: We want to see the local church boldly engaged with the poor relationally, responsibly, and compassionately.

It can throw people for a loop to hear that a ministry offering services to the poor like a thrift store, a grocery store, beds for overnight shelter, and long-term programs for men, women, and moms with children does not exist to serve the poor. But the DNA of Watered Gardens is intentionally structured this way. Everything we offer is part of an overall program designed to help volunteers from the local church serve the most vulnerable among us in a way that builds new relationships and resolves issues of poverty. Without volunteers serving, our mission can’t be fulfilled and our vision will never be realized. Assuming there is no mission drift, here are three implications for a volunteer program that result from having the guiding principle stated above:

Key Area #1: For Volunteer Recruitment, Is Your Ministry Structured to be Reliant on Them?

When your guiding principle is to serve the volunteers, your success should be measured in part by how many you have. Examine all of the services you offer and see how many are led and filled by volunteers. If you say volunteers are essential but your program can go on with or without them, that’s a problem. And the volunteers will know it. So if there’s a vacancy in one of the volunteer seats but there’s no change in services provided, are you really reliant on that volunteer? For example, if you can’t secure a volunteer to serve as the overnight resident assistant, are you willing to not offer shelter that night? If you can’t secure a volunteer meal crew to serve dinner that evening, are you willing to close the kitchen for that meal?

Tying your outputs and outcomes to the strength of your volunteer program will ensure that volunteer recruitment remains a top priority. In addition to volunteer-oriented mission and vision statements, this prioritization should be reflected in the prominence and ease by which people can explore volunteering on your website. At Watered Gardens, the “volunteer” button is as prominent as the “give” button on the home page. This priority should also be reflected anytime your ministry is given a platform from which to present. At Watered Gardens, we ask for volunteers from any church stage, at any table in the lobby, before any social organizations that invite us, and from every social media platform we utilize.

Key Area #2: For Volunteer Training, Does Your Ministry Empower Them to Own and Excel at their Jobs?

When your guiding principle is to serve the volunteers, your success should be measured in part by how reliable they are. Examine your on-boarding process for volunteers and see if you are setting the right expectations and equipping them with the tools essential for success. Is there a volunteer orientation that helps new volunteers get acclimated to your ministry’s mission, vision, and processes as well as afford them opportunities to meet key staff members? Is there an up-to-date volunteer handbook they can reference as they get started and run into unanticipated hiccups in the day-to-day outworking of ministry? When a volunteer can’t make it in, do they know whom to contact? If they don’t make contact and simply don’t show up for their scheduled time, do you have a process in place to follow up with them?

Viewing volunteers as empowered co-laborers of the ministry and essential, albeit unpaid, workers will require a comprehensive volunteer training program. In addition to an initial orientation and a volunteer handbook, this empowerment could also be achieved with clear job descriptions for every volunteer seat, clear expectations for timeliness and conduct, as well as a way for the volunteers to confidently offer feedback. At Watered Gardens, we encourage new volunteers to shadow those with more experience, to ask questions and offer ideas for improvement, and we provide intentional means for securing such feedback through regular surveys of current volunteers.

Key Area #3: For Volunteer Retention, Do You Show Appreciation for Them?

When your guiding principle is to serve the volunteers, your success should be measured in part by how long they stay. Though not mentioned in the previous section, an effective training program is vital to retention. A deliberate on-boarding process communicates the value your organization places on its volunteers. Conversely, the easier it is for them to hop on board, the easier it will be for them to hop back off. And when those volunteers do show up, faithfully and repeatedly, are you letting them know how thankful you are? And are you able to thank them by name?

Showing appreciation to your volunteers can be as simple as knowing their names. At Watered Gardens, we gather pictures of our volunteers and send an email to staff every morning with names, faces and the work areas for that day’s volunteers, so staff can build friendships along the way. Watered Gardens also puts a spotlight on a key volunteer every year, featuring them on our social media and in our letters to donors. In addition, we hold quarterly volunteer appreciation events which are designed to provide food, fun and fellowship away from the ministry campus, purely as a way to say “Thank You” for all the work our volunteers do. Finally, we also conduct exit interviews with those we haven’t retained, asking the kinds of questions that will help us do a better job in the future.

Your non-profit organization may not always know the motivation that brings a volunteer to your doors. But the more clearly you convey the essential nature of their involvement, the more thoroughly you equip them to succeed, and the more demonstratively you appreciate their efforts, the more likely you are to have a strong, thriving volunteer team that takes ownership of the mission and their role in it, becoming the backbone for an increasingly effective and cost-efficient ministry.