If you’re a community organizer, non-profit, or simply need to get some work done with the help of very kind people, you’ll need to use the services of volunteers. However, volunteers may not be motivated to do what is asked of them for a variety of reasons for your situation. We’ll show you how to motivate volunteers for successful results.
Always Make a Game Plan
Foresee and Strategize
I’ll tell you an anecdote. I volunteered for a local group to remove an invasive species from a protected nature reserve. The invasive species was Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense) was relatively easy to remove, involving hand saws to hack through woody trunks or large gardening clippers to cut down smaller trees. We’d then spray the stumps with a safe herbicide.
Sounds simple enough to cut down the trees, but the trees had to be stacked in a particular way to not only save space — you can’t have trees littering a nature reserve people regularly visit — but allow local species to nest in. The whole process should have been straightforward, but it would have been easy to act incorrectly and slow down the volunteer effort.
However, it didn’t seem like the people who set up the volunteer effort anticipated this. They simply gave the volunteers their tools, asked them to cut through the trees, spray the stumps, then put the trees in a pile.
Now, most of these volunteers weren’t ecology experts. They were mostly college kids interested in preserving nature. Most of them hadn’t volunteered with invasive species removal before, so they didn’t know what to do with minimal direction. As you would expect, things got rocky.
As more trees were cut down, volunteers confused the tree we were supposed to cut down — invasive Chinese privet — with other similar looking native trees. Volunteers also started acting independently in the name of efficiency, such as starting up a second and third brush pile from the original one needed.
One volunteer even got too confident with the strength of his clipper and tried to use it to cut down a tree too large for the clipper. He ended up breaking the clipper. Though the tool was cheap, it had to come out of the leaders’ pockets.
The leaders were still monitoring the volunteers and correcting wrong behaviors, such as cutting down native species or combining the brush piles. But it took mistakes to right the course of the volunteer effort — mistakes that could have been avoided had the volunteer leaders gave more direction and information at the beginning of the event.
The Take-Home Message from Lack of Planning
Always envision what could go wrong with your volunteer effort and be sure to plan. It’s better to give people more information and be redundant rather than assume everything will work out for the best when they rarely do. You’ll save yourself time and money, and prevent volunteers from getting frustrated with the lack of direction they receive.
Before any volunteer effort, you should envision the process and figure out how to make things go more smoothly. For example, you could split up the work people had to do and create an assembly line. Whereas people ended up cutting, spraying and dragging trees to the pile, one volunteer could have done one task rather than one person doing many.
As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Forestalling inconveniences or even disaster will always be easier than dealing with it when it comes.
Keep an Efficiency Mindset
So you’ve planned out your volunteering event to the best of your abilities but, it’s still not going as efficiently as you wanted. That is to be expected if you’re creating a volunteer effort that is the first of its kind. It was most likely the first time those specific leaders in the above example had that sort of volunteer event.
However, always be cognizant of how you can improve your volunteer effort as it’s happening. Work out kinks as they come up. Be sure you understand where hang-ups occur and will make an effort to tell volunteers what they could do differently.
People will understand preliminary confusion or awkwardness at the beginning of a volunteer event, but don’t let it stay like that. With an efficiency mindset and careful observation of how the volunteer event is going, you can intervene and make the process go a lot smoother.
Volunteers will respect those who are actively trying to improve their event rather than accepting the shortcomings or inefficiencies as they come. That’s why an efficiency mindset is crucial to motivating volunteers.
How Ineffectiveness Will Demotivate Volunteers
Not having an efficiency mindset could be one of the biggest reasons your volunteers become unmotivated when they come to your volunteer event.
People hate feeling like they’re wasting their time. It’s one of the most frustrating things in the world to talk to someone who can monologue on and on without saying anything of substance, especially when you have something better to do.
That’s the thing with volunteers — they most likely don’t have the be there. They’re donating their time and energy to you out of personal enjoyment for the volunteer effort. Even if the volunteers had to go there for an external reason, such as school or work, they don’t want to feel as if they were forced to do something that they got nothing out of.
When volunteers feel like they’re wasting their time, they’ll pull back on the effort they put into your volunteer effort. One volunteer’s lack of motivation could spread to others, causing general apathy among your volunteer group that could ultimately lead to an unsuccessful volunteer event.
Instead, if you show that you did your homework and that you’re committed to making the most efficient event possible, volunteers will think they’re doing something beneficial. They’ll think the time and energy they’re donating to you is worth it. Thus, they’ll feel more motivated to help you succeed, and this motivation could also spread among the volunteers for a generally energetic group.
We’ve all been a part of a group that feels like a well-oiled machine, where everyone has their drive to help each other out and to do their designated task the best they can. Such synergy should be your goal for the volunteer event — in addition to accomplishing what the event was supposed to do, such as remove an invasive species, educate children, clean up a park, etc.
When you get to that motivated place, you not only accomplish the goal of the volunteer effort faster but could potentially bring back the same group of volunteers for future events. The current volunteers could also spread the word about how much fun they had at your event. No matter what, keep the event efficient for maximum positive outcomes and to motivate people.
You Should Understand the Science of Motivation
To Reward or Not Reward?
If you’re concerned about the motivation levels of your volunteers, you should first and foremost understand how motivation works.
This video from ASAPScience describes motivation thoroughly in a short timeframe. Essentially, people who experience little reward for their efforts are more likely to feel motivated to perform the task well. Granted, volunteer efforts aren’t likely to pay people large sums of money for their time, as that defeats the purpose of volunteering.
However, you could be promising other rewards for the volunteers time in place of money. Perhaps you’ll give them social clout by posting a picture of all volunteers on social media. Maybe you’ll say that your community will be proud of the volunteers who spent time at your event. Thus, social and emotional recognition is the volunteers’ reward.
As the video states, research from MIT shows that such pressures, in addition to economic ones, can actually make people perform worse in their task. The reason behind this is because people are worried about the word (“Am I going to look good in the photo? Am I doing enough for my community?”) just persistently enough that it detracts from their work.
While you might not use economic rewards to motivate your volunteers to perform better, mind what other rewards you offer as well. People who are there out of the joy the volunteer effort brings to them will be the ones to perform the best, as this person has a natural motivation and won’t be distracted from external pressures.
Use the Power of Play
Play is one of the best motivators in childhood, but that trend continues into adulthood. Find ways to make work between you and your volunteers more playful for better results.
Some volunteer organizations are inherently more playful than others. For example, volunteer coaches or youth mentors may find ways to engage with the kids they guide. Other volunteer organizations, such as working at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, might be a little more hard-pressed to find ways to engage a playful side in their work.
Get creative. If you can’t maintain physical play, devise playful banter between you and your volunteers or between volunteers themselves.
Let’s say you’re cutting vegetables for a meal to deliver to elderly citizens in the community. You could make it a light-hearted competition to see who can mash the most potatoes or peel the most garlic (anything that couldn’t be potentially dangerous). You add an element of camaraderie and banter that are the prerequisites to having a good time somewhere.
Maintain a Friendly, Fun Atmosphere
Even if you can’t find a way to introduce play into your volunteer work, what you can do is make sure that everyone who volunteers with you is welcomed, accepted, and has a good time.
The need to belong is one of the strongest motivators human experience. This is also why cultures throughout history have practiced ostracization and exclusion as a way to moderate behavior. We’ve all experienced the pain of being ignored or feeling like we don’t belong, which can be just as strong as physical pain.
People should not feel ignored or excluded when they come to volunteer for your organization, as that will surely reduce the number of people who return to volunteer. Do an inventory of the friendliness of the people who regularly volunteer with you. Are current volunteers supportive and kind to new people? Or do they in some way exclude those who don’t fit in?
Be sure to nip any sort of exclusion in the bud. If you can help it, promote a culture of positivity and inclusion in your volunteer organization to not only keep people who want to volunteer for you but attract those who want to feel like they belong.
Provide Food
Ask any college student. They’ll do anything for a free slice of pizza after the fourth consecutive day of a ramen diet. If you’re starting with your volunteer organization and can’t incorporate play or have the time to create a positive culture in your group, aim for your volunteers’ hearts through their stomach.
Feeding your volunteers activates both an internal and external motivation system. If you tell your volunteers that there is pizza waiting for them at the end of the workday, they’ll feel a pull from the desire to eat the pizza. Food is a desirable item and can be pleasurable to eat.
If your volunteer work also takes a while or is physically intensive, your volunteers will feel the internal desire to satiate their hunger. Though hunger can cause distractibility, fatigue, and increased thirst, most volunteers should be able to work through their hunger to get a delicious reward.
Attract volunteers with a promise of food. Motivate them to work harder if the food is desirable, tasty, or high-quality. If you or someone in your organization is capable of it, you could also promise to bring home-made food and share it with those who did a good job for the volunteer day.
What Are the Best Tips to Motivate Volunteers?
As a volunteer leader, you know that hard work often comes with little monetary reward. But you keep doing it for the passion you have for your organization. There are ways to give this passion to your volunteers and spread the love of volunteering.
Understand Why They Are Volunteering
Everyone has their reasons. At the beginning of a volunteer event, take the temperature of the room and ask people why they felt compelled to be there today. Is it to make a bigger difference? Is it to spend time doing something productive? Is it to get involved in the community?
Keep asking people why they’re volunteering with your organization. Once you’ve averaged the reasons why people are there, you can use those reasons as the motivation for better performance.
For example, if a majority of your volunteers are young people hoping to spend their summer breaks doing something well-worth their time, you can use that angle to your advantage. You can not only say that your young volunteers are building skills they probably couldn’t learn in school, but that they’re using their day more efficiently than scrolling endlessly on social media.
When you find people’s motivations, you find people’s desires. And when you find people’s desires, you can position your volunteer organization as a way to fulfill that volunteer’s desire. The volunteer will feel like they’re using their time efficiently, and you’ll have a team of dedicated volunteers to help your volunteer events run smoothly.
Show Your Volunteers You Appreciate Them
As with wasting time, many people hate feeling like they’re not appreciated. While most people can work a job in which they don’t feel appreciated to get money, volunteers giving you their time will want to feel at least the people in your organization are thankful the volunteers are there. Volunteering is voluntary, but some leaders think they’re entitled to people’s time.
Never be like that. Always show volunteers that first and foremost, you are incredibly grateful they decided to show up to your organization or volunteer event. Stress the selflessness of that action. When people feel appreciated and wanted, they feel like they belong — an intense psychological motivator.
At the beginning of a volunteer event, express genuine thanks for your volunteers. Don’t just say, “Hey, thanks for coming,” in a monotone voice before giving out orders. You must authentically appreciate your volunteers’ time to get the message across. Then be sure to sprinkle in words of thanks throughout the volunteer event.
By creating a culture of appreciation, people feel like they’re not wasting their time and that they’re apart of a group. You’ll most likely get regular volunteers from people who know their time and energy made a difference in someone’s day.
Keep Open Communication
This is important for not only your volunteers but the people in your organization. When people don’t feel like they’re communicating what is expected of them to or from other people, it can cause pent-up frustration in the group. When people are frustrated, it damages the friendly, positive atmosphere essential for motivating volunteers to do their best.
Make sure open communication starts on the administrative level. Be sure other volunteer leaders communicate their opinions and that everyone knows their purpose in the organization. Should issues arise, the leaders must make them known immediately rather than hiding them.
If volunteers see that there are communication issues in the organization, they will be less likely to communicate themselves. If a volunteer has a problem, they should feel comfortable speaking up and telling someone.
Communication is essential to making sure your volunteer organization runs smoothly. Without effective communication skills, problems are likely to pile up and halt how effective your organization is at accomplishing its goals. Always be sure you’re open to communication and promote effective interpersonal skills among the people around you.
Show Your Volunteers They Made a Difference
This vein touches on appreciation and feeling like one’s time wasn’t wasted. Volunteers like seeing how the fruits of their labor have benefited their local community. They like knowing that what they’ve done was wanted or needed and knowing that their time was worth it.
There are multiple ways to show your volunteers they made a difference. You could collect data and show your current volunteers the impact previous volunteers have made. You could also document the journey your current volunteers make and compile that into one final presentation, where you show your volunteers the impact they have done.
Some data compiling may be easy, others hard. For example, it’s hard to calculate the exact ecological benefits removing an invasive species has on an environment. But when you’ve spent months with a child teaching them how to read and watch the child read a book fluently without your help, that would be the best feeling in the world.
When you show your volunteers the effect they’ve had on their world, they’ll feel accomplished and fulfilled. They’ll be motivated to come back and work with your organization in the future to feel similar emotions again.
Give Your Volunteers Social Recognition
While some people may be distracted from the idea of having their volunteer work shown to others, most volunteers will love it. It feels great to have local, national, or even global recognition for the work you’ve done. Such social recognition won’t likely motivate someone to partake in your organization; it can be a great thanks for the work your volunteers have done.
If your volunteer organization doesn’t have social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, set up a few. It’s free to do and will allow you to show the world how amazing and hard working your volunteers have been. Social media can attract other potential volunteers to your organization but make those who have volunteered feel good for their effort.
Examples of Volunteer Organizations Doing Everything Right
Let’s put a spotlight on Habitat for Humanity.
Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization that helps build homes in all 50 states in America and more than 70 countries worldwide. Their mission is to work “toward our vision by building strength, stability, and self-reliance in partnership with families in need of decent and affordable housing.”
Habitat for Humanity empowers people to build their own homes with volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage on their home. Families in need apply for homeownership through the organization. These families could get a new home, receive repairs on their existing home, or have their community repaired after a natural disaster.
The basis for motivation is clear — they will help people live in better conditions. This is reason enough for volunteers to come to Habitat for Humanity already motivated.
The organization is also incredibly organized and efficient. It has to be to have so many volunteer efforts nationwide and across the globe. So when volunteers show up to help build homes, they know what their purpose is and why they’re there. They can hit the ground running and not feel like they’re clueless in their volunteer endeavor.
Habitat for Humanity also has a page on its website dedicated to the impact their organization had on families and communities. Potential volunteers can see what they have the possibility to do should they work with Habitat for Humanity. Other specific volunteers, such as the Stoesz family, can see their story online for the world to see, gaining recognition for their hard work.
As many people have shared on the Habitat for Humanity website, volunteers feel a sense of community not only with the volunteers they meet through the organization but with the local people they are helping. The volunteers feel needed and like they belong, and that the work they do matters.
Habitat for Humanity is a large, global organization for a reason — volunteers are motivated to give their time and energy to it. Volunteers remain motivated throughout the house-building process because of the community they get from the experience. For many people, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity is addicting, and it can be the same case with your organization too.
Motivating Volunteers Starts with You
If you have any control over your volunteer organization, persuade leaders in it to follow Habitat for Humanity has set. Take heed of the advice in this article to make motivating volunteers effortless.
Even if you’re not a volunteer organization leader but a regular volunteer, you can still motivate the people around you to perform better. You can be the spark of openness and friendliness people need to feel like they’re not volunteering at all but having a great time with other friendly, fun people. Helping a local community is a great side-effect too.
You need to tap into the basic psychological foundations of motivation to encourage volunteers. By making them feel like they belong and that their time isn’t being wasted, by maintaining an efficient and communicative organization, you’ll find that people are more motivated to work than they had been before. It starts with you and volunteering to motivate volunteers.