Volunteer Engagement >65% is Optimal – More is Better!

submitted by: Roxanne Young, AOD & Secretary
Each year, Alabama’s Volunteers focus on Membership, Krissy Warren and Denise Campbell, AL Chapter Volunteers, shared their insight as to what members want, what they value, what keeps them engaged and what turns members into Volunteer, and keeps them wanting to serve their Chapter and fellow members. They have been having a great time, finding new members, cultivating relationships, listening to their members and turning them into motivated and excited Volunteers.
They shared that they do surveys to give members the opportunity to give feedback. What they want to know is what makes a member feel welcomed, what makes them feel useful, how they like to be appreciated, and this helps give them insight how to attract Volunteers to this organization.
Their focus is to build relationship, friendships, create desire for their members to get involved. What they learn from these Surveys is that members want to feel like friends to the Board Members and other members, not just colleagues. Some people want to be fully involved and others don’t mind helping but might not be able to dedicate the time and energy into a fully involved position in the Board. They also discovered that some members are just shy, not necessarily; not interested. They provided us with some vital suggestions on following up and encouraged us to be humble, and learn from our mistakes, then adapt to what needs to be approached differently.
How can we attract great Volunteers? Be great Volunteers! Simple! Work together, enjoy what you do, exhibit a well-oiled machine, have fun, be organized, be good planners, be team players, be flexible and open to ideas of others; all for the betterment of the organization and its members.
They also hold “Massage Mingles” that are open to new, potential members escorted by current members, BOD members separate and sit at separate tables, and name tags for all attendees which makes interacting a little easier.
We discussed what kinds of situations makes us uncomfortable, because chances are it might make some of you a little uncomfortable as well. Solutions and adaptations were shared to help members and Board members feel better about interacting with one another.
We all agreed that everyone likes to feel useful, different ways to organize tasks, jobs and responsibilities. Where everyone is able to participate, no matter how small of a contribution they want to make. Many hands makes for light work. I liked the suggestion they had to share the name of someone who did something nice for someone else. Recognizing even the smallest contributions. This allows members to edify members that have had an impact on their life.
The function of a Massage Mingle is to introduce other non-AMTA Therapist to the AMTA community, allow them to interact to see if they find some common life experiences or questions. Basically, create friends in a sea of therapists.
Lastly, they shared with us, how our members like to feel appreciated and shared on how we can ensure that our members always feel appreciated.
Some might ask, “Why would we want to attend a Chapter Leadership Event?” We attend every year in hopes of serving our members, YOU, to have a better membership experience and if we can do that, perhaps, you might be excited to join us.