Today’s Mission

Day 25

Volunteers with a Twist

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

You’ve now had enough face-to-face meetings with potential volunteers that you’ve learned that some of your best volunteers will want to say “yes,” but with a twist.

Maybe your potential recruit is a doctor who is on call every third weekend and can’t guarantee she’ll be there every week. Maybe you’re talking to someone with an aging parent whose unplanned emergencies may pull this leader away at the last minute. Maybe you’ve got a college student who will be gone during the summers and holidays.

Most of your volunteers will bring their own unique twist to what they are able to do. Here are a few principles to guide you as you put your “twisted” team together:

You are building a team (not recruiting a single superstar), so the fact that your team members all have different needs is just a part of the fabric, not a reason for panic. Just because someone has a special situation does not mean that they can’t play a partner role.

In this part of the process, you are building a team of partners. Remember, partners are folks who will take initiative and take care of their responsibilities without you reminding them. This means, for example, that they adjust their teaching rotation among themselves, or they communicate to their youth directly without expecting every announcement to come through you.

Be careful that you never slot a helper (someone waiting for you—or someone else—to take the initiative) into a partner role. If you do, you’ll be a miserable manager, always complaining about your volunteers’ lack of commitment. When someone says, “I can’t commit to every week, but just call me when you have a need and I might be able to step in,” that person is a helper, not to be included as a partner on the team.

As you build your team, you will quickly learn that some of your very best partners are those with whom you’ll need to do the twist. So be firm in your need for partners, not just helpers, but be flexible enough to be creative when a potential A-player volunteer needs it.

Today’s Mission

Complete the items you’ve assigned yourself to accomplish on this day. If you haven’t scheduled specific items on this day, return to day twenty-three and complete step one.

Continue your recruiting and follow-up work:

With your master recruiting documents (your needs list and your ranked pool list) in front of you, check your email to see if anyone has responded to your invitation and reply to those emails immediately.
For those who have said yes, make sure their names are written in black ink on your master list.
For those who have said maybe, send an email suggesting a meeting time and place for you to talk further about what you’re looking for.
Hold any scheduled meetings with potential volunteers.
For those who have said no,
1. Move their names to the bottom of the pool list, under the section called “No.”
2. Beside each name, write what role each person has said no to.
3. Remove their names from the needs list.
4. Place new names in the blanks left by those who have said no.
Send your standard invitation email to the people you have added to your master recruiting list.
Send a follow-up message to any potential volunteer who hasn’t responded to your last message in three days or more.

Take one more step for each of the five leader documents, either working on the document yourself or providing support to the person responsible to complete the document in the next three days:

youth leader directory
major event calendar
youth directory
child protection and screening forms and policies
job descriptions

Take a look at the structure document you developed on day nineteen. Using the ranked list of your current volunteers, determine if anyone is in the “wrong seat on the bus.” Make one step today toward moving someone on your current team into a role that will be more life-giving for the volunteer and more impactful for your ministry.

Send an email to all your potential helpers with the survey you edited yesterday. You can use the “sample email to potential helpers” on the next page as a starting point.

Send an email or a text to confirm your upcoming meeting with your prayer partners.

Sample email to potential helpers

Dear [NAME],

As we launch into our fall program, we are thrilled to let you know that we have a marvelous team of leaders serving in our youth ministry this year. Over [NUMBER] members of our church family will be playing significant roles with our students, some working weekly with them and others working behind the scenes (I’ve attached a list of this great group who will be serving this year).

Though all our major volunteer responsibilities are covered, there are a few areas where those who have agreed to serve will need a little help. That’s where you come in.

We are hoping that all of our parents will be able to do something in our youth ministry in the coming year—maybe driving for an event, helping with setup or cleanup, bringing cookies or helping out with decorations. We hope that at least once during the year you’d be willing to be one of our youth ministry helpers.

I’m attaching a survey of helper opportunities. You should be able to complete it in less than three minutes, and you can then email or mail it back to us. We’ll be in touch with you when an opportunity comes up that matches your interest. It’s as simple as that.

Thanks for your willingness to partner with us in this work that we get to do with all of our kids.

Blessings,

[NAME]

[TITLE]

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