Success strategies for finding volunteers

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Photo by Mike Connors

By Judith Ann Kollar

What skills do you need to get volunteers? First, you need patience. Whatever you try will take time. It's a shame that we often expect immediate results whenever we try something. We have been conditioned to expect that our headaches will go away instantly—like those we see in TV commercials. Real life always takes a little longer.

When we are patient, it shows in our voice, and the invitations we offer are heard as sincere and respectful. A desperate, loud, threaten­ing invitation doesn't bring forth more or better volunteers, even if it does fill all the spaces.

In church work, fortitude is sometimes one of the least-used gifts of the Spirit. When we fail to get what we want right away, we some­times just give up.

But what are we here for? If the job is getting volunteers, we have to work until we have who we need. It may require some creative approaches, or we may have to do more work than we intended, but we must practice what we preach. When people come to us for ad­vice, we often tell them to stay with the task. We give them advice about coping with difficulties. We need to take our own advice, be creative, and stay with the task of getting volunteers.

What Kind of Questions?
Before we ask people to share their gifts, we must clarify what we are asking for.

  • What is the task?
  • When can it be done?
  • Where is it to be done?
  • How much time will it take?
  • Is teaching required to accomplish the task?
  • How much "training" will there be?
  • Where will the training take place?
  • Will the training be done more than once? (Sometimes parish staff people get an attitude that they're completely unaware of. This attitude says: If you can't make the set training, you can't volun­teer.)

Asking the right person to volunteer can be an art, but practice could make it like science. And discerning staff people will solve their volunteer problems by asking the right questions and being persistent.

Judith Ann Kollar

Judith Ann Kollar is the author of A User Friendly Parish (Twenty-Third Publications).