By now, we hope you already know why every church needs a strong volunteer team.
Well, in simple terms, volunteers are the fuel that runs your church. How’s that for a summary? It couldn’t be more explicit!
Without your members volunteering, your church would not be able to function as it should. Beyond having people to delegate tasks to and get the work done, volunteering is one of the ways your members can play their role in helping to advance the gospel.
As a Church leader, getting and managing volunteers can be an overwhelming task most times — only that it doesn’t have to be. Of course, it’s not supposed to be a piece of cake since you are dealing with people here. But it really can be a lot easier than you probably think. In this article, we discuss five ways you can increase the number of volunteers in your church. Ensure you follow through to the end as each of them would come in handy — sooner or later.
1. Make Volunteer Opportunities Clear and Accessible
If members are ever going to volunteer in your church, it’s your responsibility, as a church leader, to make sure that they find the needed pointers. Everyone is online now, and they are busy while at it too. For instance, if people don’t see what they are looking for on a particular website, trust them to be on another website in seconds.
How about you start by creating a page or section on your website for vacant volunteer roles, and giving each volunteer opportunity a role title as well as a concise description of key responsibilities? Prospective volunteers shouldn’t have to stress locating this portion of your church website, so you should ensure it is placed in some place obvious enough.
It’s recommended that you have all church volunteer opportunities in one place on your website. You could also include a visible “Volunteer” heading in your website’s navigation menu. If you need people to volunteer specifically for events, list all your upcoming events. You can also spotlight particularly exciting events on your homepage.
2. Provide Simple Sign-Up
In addition to the easy discoverability, prospective volunteers should be able to register for your church volunteer program seamlessly when they find opportunities they’re interested in.
If your church’s volunteer application process isn’t simple and straightforward enough, you may unknowingly discourage future volunteers. When members express interest in volunteering programs, be sure to respond promptly. A thank you message with details on clear, actionable next steps would suffice — so the volunteers know what to do to participate.
Even though the sign-up should be simple, you should not skip necessary steps like vetting and background checks. However, all of these processes must be executed promptly. We recommend a church management software like ChurchPad. This tool offers simple volunteer sign-up and automated responses when people sign up to be a part of your volunteer team.
3. Conduct a Volunteer Interest Survey
Dedicated and committed volunteers like to know how fruitful their work is for the church. As a Pastor or leader, you want to make sure you have plenty of opportunities to suit their interests, passions, and skills.
To gather important insight into the kinds of causes that matter to your volunteers, conducting an interest survey works. In doing this, your volunteers will feel like you care about what they want and that their voices are heard, and will be more likely to find an opportunity that they’ll commit to.
Besides asking them about their skills, strengths, and weaknesses, questions like how long they intend to be a part of the team, how many hours they can volunteer weekly, what they hope to get from the experience, to mention a few should also be included in the survey. Getting the right information about your volunteers will help you profile them better and hence, match them with the most appropriate roles.
4. Recognize Volunteers
Never forget to recognize volunteers in your church. Acknowledging and appreciating the time and sacrifice people make goes a long way will not only encourage them to do more but will inspire people contemplating volunteering in your church. Always let your volunteers know how valuable they are to the church.
Whichever way you recognize your volunteers isn’t as important as the act of simply acknowledging them, as long as they feel important and appreciated.
5. Go Social
One of the ways to increase the number of volunteers is to encourage your current volunteers to invite their friends and family to be a part of volunteering for your church. You’d not only be recruiting new volunteers; you’d also be ensuring that volunteers have fun and feel good about the work they’re doing.
A management software like ChurchPad makes it easy for groups to sign up for your opportunities together.
