Connecting Schools With Great Fundraising Ideas.

In the first part of this series on how to create a volunteer culture in your school, I touched on the topics of recruitment, avoiding cliques, making good use of your volunteers’ time, making sure your volunteers have an enjoyable experience, and communicating effectively.

Today, I’d like to finish this article by describing two more very important strategies to generally improve your ability to recruit and retain quality volunteers for your school.

Knowing When to Say No
I have discovered that an essential skill for a school leader is to know when to refuse help from a volunteer. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but on more than one occasion, I found myself relying heavily on people who were entirely over-extended in their personal and/or professional lives. These people had the best of intentions and great hearts. They wanted to help the school succeed so much. So, when no one else stepped forward to volunteer, they did. This is a precarious position if your overtaxed volunteer has a family emergency or gets sick or takes an unexpected vacation or has a husband who goes out of town for business. Suddenly, the school finds itself in a bind. Your volunteer has become incredibly stressed out and probably feels guilty about leaving the school in the lurch.

I know, from experience, that it is very easy to rely on those same people who have reliably helped you in the past. You are busy yourself, and recruiting and training new volunteers further saps your time and energy. I have found myself ignoring warning signs, just because I needed a job handled smoothly and without my close attention. More often than not, this hasn’t worked out so well for me…

Although it is difficult to do so, I urge you to sincerely look at your volunteers’ lives, as much as you are able, outside of the school setting. If you know that they are stretched very thin, don’t put them in a position in which they could snap. You will be saving your volunteers and the school from a potentially very hard situation.

And, after a while, your volunteers will pick up on your concern for them and appreciate it. This kind of a volunteer culture is more conducive to recruiting new help and keeping the folks already on board happy and rested.

Recognition Works
I can’t tell you how many times someone has pulled me aside and told me how offended they were because they did not receive a thank you note or any kind of recognition for their time, effort, and money spent in service of the cause. Sometimes these comments have been made about my organization, while other times the person was just venting about an entirely unrelated situation to me. In either case, the failure to properly thank volunteers is an awful, but incredibly common mistake.

I completely understand that in the rushed pace of our lives, it is easy to work very diligently at something, then it’s over, and we all move on to the next important event. We probably didn’t get thanked ourselves for all of the leadership responsibilities we took on, so it’s understandable that we forget to praise and thank the people who helped us get the job done.

Ok, there’s the understanding part. Now for reality: get over it. There is no excuse for not recognizing your volunteers in numerous ways. In fact, I think that this is so important, I believe you should find one of your most reliable volunteers and put him or her in charge of this duty, so that it does not slip through the cracks. Or, even better, try to make this a responsibility of someone who is paid by the school. This way, there is professional accountability that the “thank you’s” were given.

There is no better way to lose a volunteer and discourage new volunteers from joining your organization than to develop a reputation for not being a thankful and appreciative group.

At the very least, you should be sending out written thank-you letters shortly after each event to every single volunteer (and donor). I would also recommend holding a volunteer banquet once per year, where you honor all the volunteers, especially those who have given in extraordinary fashions. Plaques, trophies, gift cards, school t-shirts, and certificates all make great tokens of appreciation. Of course, you should remember to offer a verbal thank you of some sort anytime you see these folks hard at work for your school. Plan to splurge for a pizza or some frozen Cokes, when the timing is appropriate. These little items will win strong loyalty in the school’s favor.

When I was the principal of an elementary school, I bought a handsome plaque and created a volunteer of the year award and hung it in the front hallway. Each year, we put the recipient’s name on a gold nameplate with the year. So for decades to come, this person would be honored for their work at a specific moment in time.

Conclusion

Volunteers are the lifeblood of any school. In this time when school funding is growing ever more scarce, building principals are forced to rely on volunteers to accomplish what was once done by paid staff. In your position as a volunteer leader of the school, I urge you to honor this incredibly valuable commodity. By investing a little time and a little thought, you can go a long way toward creating a healthy and vibrant experience for all of your amazing volunteers.

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