Volunteer management, volunteer recruitment, volunteer recognition and more...
Staying Around for You!
5 Ideas on Volunteer Retention
Welcome everyone. In this newsletter we're going to be taking a look at retaining volunteers.
But first we interrupt this newsletter for a very special announcement... |
THE CUTTING EDGE
WORKSHOP SERIES 2008
We've got some great news. Yes! It's time to book your places for another action-packed, content-rich workshop tour on the your most requested issues.
There's not one, not two, but three workshops this year and you're in for more counter-clockwise thinking and unconventional cutting edge ideas. If you're not quite sure what that means let me explain with a question from each of the workshops...
Question 1: What is the most powerful skill a leader needs to have?
Answer: The most powerful leadership skill is...the ability to do NOTHING.
(In the previous newsletter we discussed the most important quality and that was honesty).
Question 2: Is it harder than ever before to recruit and retain volunteers?
Answer: Actually it has never been EASIER to recruit and retain volunteers.
Question 3: What is the most important human behaviour on which to build terrific teams?
Answer: No, it's not cooperation. It's CONFLICT and lots of it.
You can read more and check out all the workshop details for the 'The Cutting Edge Workshop Series'
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Now here's 5 'quick read' ideas to get you thinking about volunteer retention...
It's costs 5 times as much to get a new customer than to keep an existing one
In business, it takes five times as much time, effort and money to attract a new customer as it does to keep an existing customer.
It is the same with volunteers. Think about it! What does it really cost to lose experienced volunteers? What about the time, effort and money involved in recruiting, selecting, training and supervising new volunteers? What of the disruption to services, clients and other volunteers? How about the valuable knowledge and experience lost with the departing volunteer?
How do you measure retention success?
But wait – how do you actually know if you have a volunteer retention problem? How does your organization measure success in volunteer retention? Of course the answers will vary with each organization and even with the type of projects involved.
But very few organizations have goals and outcomes defining what they mean by retention success. Even fewer collect any data on their volunteer retention rates.
So how long is long enough?
How long must a volunteer stay to be considered ‘retained’ rather than a ‘dropout’? One month? Six months? One year? Ten years? Do you examine retention based on how long each individual person stays? Or do you look at their contribution rather than their time? Is retention about active membership or just being ‘on the books’?
For many organizations the successful retention of a volunteer is not one year, ten years or even twenty years - it is usually until they die. Not that's a hard retention expectation to maintain.
Time for some retention goals
Whatever your definition of retention, develop some practical retention goals. Holding on to a volunteer forever is far from a realistic goal. One goal could be to achieve an average number of hours of service from each volunteer per year. Another might be a total number of hours per year per group of volunteers – a team approach.
Still another goal might be a commitment of 2 years or 200 hours involvement from each volunteer. Or to increase by 20% the number of volunteers staying longer than 2 years. Get realistic and very specific about those retention goals now.
Time to say goodbye
But do keep retention in perspective. Eventually all volunteers will leave and for a myriad of different reasons. Changes in lifestyle and personal circumstances are not reasons you can control. Thank those volunteers warmly and let them go with your blessings.
Save your energy and focus on those factors that can be controlled within your organization to encourage rather than discourage your volunteers to stay.
Adapted from the book "Count On Me: 501 Ideas on Retaining, Recognizing and Rewarding Volunteers
Enjoy!
Judy
Dr Judy Esmond is a leading international expert on how to gain, sustain and retain volunteers and members. Join up and receive your FREE Silver Membership and a great FREE EBook and newsletter filled with 100s of ideas on volunteer recruitment, volunteer management, retention and volunteer recognition at www.morevolunteers.com
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