Avoiding Volunteer Burnout

I find myself often having conversations with both professionals and lay leaders/volunteers on the challenges of a) recruiting volunteers and b) tapping out the same volunteers repeatedly. While I can provide hours of consulting in helping organizations develop a highly efficient volunteer program, I wanted to share some pithy advice here.

First, treat your volunteer structure as you do your entire organization structure – with organization charts, job descriptions and clearly defined expectations/guidelines.

Second, invest time and money in volunteer training. Providing volunteers with the confidence to fulfill a volunteer role is half the battle. Many times they don’t feel they have adequate skill or knowledge to take leadership positions within your organization. Third, break down tasks into tiny, tiny pieces (did I mention “tiny?”) – spreading the responsibility (and therefore the ownership) and decreasing the overload factor.