How to manage volunteers

Every non-profit organization needs volunteers. In fact, they are essentials to the survival of the organization. Whether they are coaches, administrators, or helpers for a special event or tournament you need to be able to manage these persons. Even if they are volunteers, you still need them to do their job properly because they are the image of your organization. They have to offer the quality of service your members expect.

You should always keep in mind that if volunteers are here at their own will... they can also leave at their own will. They do not want to be bossed around. On the other hand, they do not want to waste their time. They want to feel useful. I will give some useful tips that will help you manage your team of volunteers.

Let's take for example that you are in charge of organizing an event and you need some volunteers for your organizing committee and a lot of them during the event itself.

1) If you are in charge, it means that you are one of those super-volunteers, those volunteeraholics [sic] that put a lot of energy in the organization. Do not expect that those who will team with you will work as much as you do. They won't. Take whatever anyone is willing to give you. Even the smallest contribution is welcome.

2) When building your committee, pick people that you already know, people that you are comfortable with and people that are also comfortable to work with you. Make things clear right at the beginning. How many meetings you plan to make? Schedule all of them in advance so everyone will be able to manage their agenda. What are the different departments you have? Put people in charge of departments they feel comfortable. For example, don't put someone who hates calling people and sell in charge of the sponsorship department.

3) When calling for volunteers, put a lot of details like what is needed, quantity needed, time frame, location. For the event itself, make a schedule for your volunteers with the arrival time, person to meet, place to meet, task to do, duration time. As I stated earlier, volunteers want to feel useful. After all, they sacrifice part of their free time to help you and your organization. Do not waste it.

4) If you want to keep your volunteers and build a trusty team that you can use years after years, do not hesitate to reward them. BUT, be careful with the rewards! First, you do not want to pay them because it is unfair for the organization and also because you do not want people to come for the money, you want dedicated people that come to help the organization without expecting anything else in return. Also, you do not want to alienate your customers to the event because of the rewards given to your volunteers. Let me tell you a little story to illustrate this taught. One year, I took charge of the annual show of a gymnastic club. It was a very spectacular show and always sold out. It was also a general admission event meaning no assigned seats. So people were lining up almost an hour before opening time to get the best seats. But, there was this tradition that volunteers were able to reserve places for themselves and for their families and friends. You see the picture? Can you imagine the reaction of the person that paid for its ticket, waited an hour in line to be the first one... and realise that the first 10 rows are already taken ;-( Unhappy customer? You bet. And the complaints were rising at the point that tickets were now hard to sell. But the volunteers were enrolling like crazy ;-)))So one of the first thing I did is prohibit this reservation scheme. And instead, as a reward, I offered an after-event party. Of course, I lost a lot of volunteers. But I had too many anyway and most of them were not doing anything except waiting for the gates to open. I kept the bests volunteers and not surprisingly, my team is growing every year with good, dedicated volunteers. And they do appreciate the after-event party because they worked hard and the show is always a success.

5) Create a happy 'ambiance', have fun. This is THE ingredient for success. Do not make your volunteer feel like they come to work. Make them feel like they are coming to a party, to spend time with friends while helping the organization. Make people proud of being a volunteer of your organization. Build a family. Organized special events like BBQs, parties or reunion only for volunteers. These people will be the ones that will spread the word and bring more volunteers to you.

6) Most of the times, big events are organized as a fundraising for the organization. Part of the reward for the volunteers is knowing that their efforts brought in good money. So make sure that what you are making good profits. You do not want to announce to your volunteers that you made a hundred bucks from all the efforts they put. They might as well be selling chocolate bars the next time.

If you follow these simple tips not only you will have success organizing your event but you will have fun doing it. After all, what would be volunteer work without fun? ;-)

Mario Campeau

 

Birthday party ideas for children

Looking for party ideas for your child’s birthday? Why not check with your local sports club? There is a new trend with clubs that are offering birthday parties in addition to their regular activities. For them it is a nice extra source of revenues and quite easy to organize since they already have the staff, the local, and the equipments. For parents, it is an easy way to throw a party with nothing to take care of except the invitations, the gifts… and the cake of course ;-))

In my opinion, here are some of the most exciting activities for the young children… and also for adults who still feel young ;-)

- trampoline
- gymnastic
- skating
- indoor climbing
- circus
- cart racing
- horse back riding

They usually offer between an hour or two of activity and another hour for the gifts and cakes. Some offer meals but usually they don’t.

What to check when shopping for a place?

First, security. As you noticed, the sports listed above contain some risks if not done properly. We are not talking about board games here, if you see what I mean. For most of the kids that attend these parties, it is there first time. So it is very tempting for them to try impress the crowd by trying a back flip on the trampoline or climbing the toughest wall without being secured. So you need to make sure that the activity is supervised by qualified personnel, that they know what to do in case of injury, and that the club has the appropriate insurance. Verify also the monitor versus children ratio. It varies with the age of the participants both it is usually around 1 for 8. Never go above 10 kids for 1 monitor.

Verify if they offer a private local for the after-activity party. This way, you don’t need to come back home with all the kids and all the transportation problems that go with that.

Make sure that all parents are well informed of the activity you are planning so they can decide whether or not they will send their children. You do not want any kids on the sideline while the others are having fun. And you don’t want to argue with the parents if a kid gets hurt and they didn’t know about the activity. As they say: better safe than sorry. So make sure that everyone is well informed. At the limit, mainly if you don’t personally know the parents of your child’s friends, you can ask them to sign a paper stating that they are informed about the activity and that they agree to let their child participate.

There are no such clubs in your area? Well, there’s a nice opportunity to start your own business. Believe me, there is a large market for birthday’s organizations.

As usual, do not hesitate to send me your comments and/or questions.

Best regards,

Mario Campeau