Leading Volunteers

- We must become the change we want to see - Mahatma Gandhi

I easily could have titled this article, "Managing Volunteers." I don't believe that you manage' volunteers, I believe you lead' volunteers. There are two kinds of resources for a non-profit, financial resources and human resources. Volunteers can be one of the greatest resources for a non-profit. A volunteer resource is probably the greatest resource because a volunteer can literally do everything that an employee can do, except for no pay and without any kind of a commitment and no strings attached. Non-profits are faced with a problem when they work hard to recruit volunteers, because once they find them they have to find a way to keep them. How they keep volunteers is by practicing excellent volunteer leadership. Below I will outline several ways to improve your volunteer leadership potential.

- Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their jobs done - Peter Drucker

Back in August of 2007 I volunteered a day of my precious and valuable time at the local Kaiser Permanente health fair day. This is where Kaiser gave free health care to anyone who had a valid U.S. ID card. I showed up at 6:45 AM ready for a great day of service and volunteering. By 9:30 AM I was ready to leave, not because I wasn't having fun, but because I had not done a single thing. I was sitting around because there was no job for me to do. Everyone else was busy, and I found myself to be helpless since there was nothing that I could assist with. I quickly realized that an important part of leading volunteers is to keep them busy. Make sure you give them some kind of responsibility that they can be in charge of. Then comes another effective volunteer leadership principle, never keep the same volunteer doing the same thing for more than about three hours. All tasks and jobs are fun at first. Even a job at McDonald's is fun for the first couple of weeks, then it gets boring and old because you're doing the same thing day after day. Be sure to keep their jobs fresh & interactive, never let them get bored.

- Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity - George Patton

When leading volunteers we need to be a good example for them to follow. Whatever job that you are going to put your volunteers in charge of, it's best to do it first, and show them what you want done. However there is an exception, you don't have to show them how' to do it, just show them what' to do. Volunteers will find a way to get it done, and letting them mess up a couple of times is what builds character and will make them more competent at what they do.

- People are more easily led than driven - David Harold Fink

Leading volunteers is a difficult task. You must approach them in a way that you can give them a job that they can do, and trust them to do it. It's best to place your volunteers by matching them to the skills and abilities that they have. You don't want to give a volunteer a job of building a new website, when it's a 65 year old lady who has been an accountant for 35 years. Give them a job that they will enjoy doing where they also have some skill and experience. If you focus on leading' volunteers instead of managing' them, you will have soon develop a successful base of volunteers that continue to come back to your non-profit to help make a difference.

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