One of the hardest things to improve upon is the volunteering rate in our group, whether it's PTA, scouts, our congregations or communities. As coordinators, we ask and ask, and there are always people who say yes, but are they the same people time and time again? And are we eventually scheduling ourselves toward burnout because the pool isn't growing the way we need it to? HOw can we get more people volunteering?
There are so many places our help is needed, and so many demands on our time that finding the balance we all seek in our lives is probably the greatest challenge to us all. And trying to fit any volunteering on top of a 40 hour work schedule, plus kid activities, maybe even seeing our spouse - yikes, I'm feeling contact overwhelmed just writing about it.
The other tough thing is that I'm having a hard time connecting as often as I need to with my friends. Shoe-horning in a planned dinner or coffee or a walk with a girlfriend can be more complicated than getting a dentist appointment. Especially when I'm trying to fit this in around work, spouse, kids, sports and more. That's why the idea of volunteering with friends is so appealing to me. And that's why I want to encourage more organizers to think about creating activities that let friends volunteer together.
One of the things that's unique about what we are doing at VolunteerSpot is we're creating a volunteering tool that's both very powerful and very simple. The ideal we aspire to is the Apple iPhone -- because clearly there were lots of phones before theirs came out -- but the genius behind the success of their product is that they made the user interface so easy to use that suddenly everyone was using it! With the VolunteerSpot tool, we've made lots of things, including volunteering with a friend, incredibly easy since we don't force a jump through hoops registration, we just try to power volunteering. Here's how it works:
Coordinator sets up a schedule in VolunteerSpot and sends an email to potential volunteers. The activity is billed as a Volunteer With A Friend!! request.
The email recipients read the organizer's message along the lines of "We need people for our park cleanup as part of our Keep Texas Beautiful campaign -- we'd love for you and a friend to help on one of our upcoming work days -- just click to volunteer and signup yourself -- and then click again to add a friend."
The volunteer then just clicks a link in the email and goes directly to the VolunteerSpot signup tool, click to signup herself and then clicks to signup the (unnamed) friend. The volunteer is letting the coordinator know she's bringing an extra person (or five, if she clicks five people) and the coordinator gets a higher rate of volunteering just by putting the idea out their of bringing a friend. The volunteer takes charge of getting the other person to show up and by putting this into the volunteer's hands, it solves a problem a lot of busy people have with finding time to see their friends AND it gives the organizer's activity a real boost of fun and more people power.
So if you're seeing the same, slightly burned out folks, time and time again, consider shaking things up and create your own "Volunteer with Friend!" opportunity.
I *love* the idea of Volunteering with a Friend! What a meaningful way to multitask! Thanks for making it so easy!!
Groups in Seattle and SF actually make volunteering part of date-night. I guess that's volunteering to *find* a friend!
Posted by: Karen | November 10, 2008 at 11:26 PM