Volunteer Organizational Psychology 101
The secret to maintaining an effective and successful volunteer organization is to remember “volunteer” is the operative word.
Too many volunteer organization leaders act as if they are running a Fortune 500 company. They forget that the volunteers are there because they get value from volunteering. If the value goes away, so do the volunteers.
All organizations will ebb and flow with the leadership style. If the ebb lasts longer than the flow, the organization suffers.
How do you create a successful organization? You honor, treasure, acknowledge, appreciate, and protect the contribution of time, energy, money, and intellectual capital donated to you. This goes for every volunteer job from the simplest task to the executive level of the board.
Humans are driven by the need to connect. We need to contribute and share. The latest Scientific American Magazine devotes a fare amount of ink to this deep need of our species. Volunteer organizations, associations, community clubs – all are ways this need to be part of a community is fulfilled.
People will work for hours with no pay if they are receiving intrinsic value from the work. They will quit offering their time and talents if the intrinsic value evaporates. How do you figure out what ‘intrinsic value’ is to them? Pay attention. What makes them happy? What makes them unhappy? What are the expectations? What rewards do they seek? It’s not the same for everyone. Some do it for the attention, some for the feeling of doing good, some to make a difference, some for the awards and recognition, some to move their career forward – have good stuff ‘on the resume.’
When I ran a volunteer organization a few years back, we had the highest number of volunteers they’d seen in decades. Why? First because I believe in volunteers. I encouraged and engaged them. I asked every board member to have lots of people helping them to spread out the work. Every meeting started with acknowledgments. Every newsletter reported on accomplishments of this or that volunteer. We had to invent a few extra awards at the end of the year to make sure all the high contributors were properly honored for their service. We got a tremendous amount done by a lot of people doing a little bit of work each. Our organization benefited. The volunteers benefited. And I didn’t have to work all that hard.
Bottom line? We had a healthy year financially. We had high member retention. We had more enthusiasm and higher attendance at the meetings. And the morale was great on and off the board. In short, properly maintained and appreciated volunteers create and sustain a healthy organization.
Beth
~~~
Beth Terry, CSP, is a Professional Speaker, Author and Consultant
© 2008 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc. All US and International Rights Reserved
