Finding new volunteers: Appeal vs Approach

Finding and developing teams of volunteers is the bread-and-butter of youth work. When the team works – it works really well, and when it doesn’t – everything has to work around it.

I’ve just arrived home after a month away to find that my team had been brilliant. They had run and grown all the projects in my absence like pros. This is the first time in 13 years of youth ministry that I felt comfortable enough to leave for an extended period, knowing the young people we’re in good hands. It’s fabulous when a team just works!

But when you don’t have the volunteers to run your projects or (sometimes worse) you have the wrong volunteers in a project things can get very heavy and very stressful very quickly.

The Appeal

For years I ran appeals for help. Letters in news sheets, notices from the front of church gatherings, and direct mail-outs to hundreds of people. Every time I did this I noticed three things:

1. Hardly anyone responded

The ratio – however I did it – came back at something like 1-2 in 100.

2. The wrong people responded

I often get sent offers to help from people with ulterior motives who would either be massively unhelpful – if not dangerous – to vulnerable young people, thus would need constant supervision.

3. I’d wasted ministry capital

I want my churches to read everything I give them, and listen up when I speak. This works less when I’m constantly begging for help from the front. No one is inspired by the sinking ship!

The Approach

I recently attended a training session led by the leaders are a large and thriving Children’s Church. Unfortunately I found them quite odd, and took very little of what they said on board. However, they did get one thing very right – which is to approach potential help directly.

I’d suggest this has five stages: Identify, Encourage, Clarify, Invite and Followup.

Identify

Sit down and make a list of people in your context that could work for your project. They don’t need to be perfect, but they do need a couple of skills to start with, and some space for you to develop others. It’s not your job to decide whether or not they have time at this point – just make up a wish list.

Encourage

Seek them out and tell them why you have identified them specifically. This conversation is all about them. Tell them what skills they have and why you think those fit and tell them why you would love your young people to be served by them. Leave this with them for a week.

Clarify

Followup with them and start to tell them the basics of what is required. One of the key reasons people don’t respond to appeals is that they are too vague. Tell them what is expected from a leader, and how they will be developed and supported to thrive.

Invite

Invite them to the project for a no pressure, observation only session. Let them see and have a look at what you do – right from the setup time to the debrief. This lets them picture what it is they would be doing.

Followup

Soon after (ideally within the week following) have a coffee with that person. Give them your application forms and initiate the formal process. Get them onto to rota in a supervised position until the process is complete.

This takes the same – if not actually much less – time as an appeal process. Although it doesn’t work every time, my experience has been that you have more responses, better fitting people, and a better beginning for your volunteers.

Have you had success with appeals or approaches? Do you have any other ideas? Send us a message or leave a comment – we’d love to hear from you! 🙂