Respect Your Volunteers’ Time

How good are you at respecting your volunteers’ time? Are you considerate of the time they need for family, friends, work, and rest? Before you ask someone to volunteer every week, or show up for a team meeting, consider:

How long is their drive time to the church or meeting location? Do they commute to your church from another part of town? It takes me 30-45 minutes each way to get to my home church. Not everyone is the same, but I appreciate those that consider this constraint before scheduling meetings or volunteer times.

Is the volunteer self-employed? If so, are you asking them to attend during normal working hours? Asking a self-employed person to give their time during business days can cause a loss of income to their family.

How productive are your meetings? Does each team member leave knowing or understanding more than when they left? The emotional impact of a meeting that doesn’t accomplish anything can cause a volunteer to leave your team. Consider using Guy Kawasaki’s PowerPoint 10/20/30 rule to keep slides short and meetings productive.

If you respect the time of your volunteers, more will be willing to invest their time in your team in the future. They will also provide a testimony to others considering your team as a place to volunteer.

This is part 1 in a 7 part series on Honoring Your Volunteers