17. Easy off ramps … don’t lock your team into perpetual service!
18. Send out a press release to your community paper celebrating your team when they do something “above and beyond.”
19. Make sure your volunteers are “first to know” about exciting things happening in the future of your church.
20. Give them a team t-shirt.
21. Make sure everyone has a name tag on.
22. Use quotes from your team members in your “annual report” … or other donor targeted communications.
23. Calculate how many hours your volunteers have served in that last year and celebrate that!
24. Reinforce regularly with paid staff that our #1 role is to support our volunteers.
25. Take pictures of your volunteers serving and post them on various social media channels.
26. Make sure your volunteers have the best equipment you can afford for them to work with.
27. Create easy channels for your volunteers to communicate with the church leadership.
28. Insist that the church reimburse them for out-of-pocket expenses.
29. Send ‘em a hand signed Christmas card.
30. Have good coffee and a few snacks available when they arrive.
31. Allow some volunteers to gain more influence and take on more responsibility.
32. Take at least one volunteer out every week to thank them and get to know them better.
33. Buy 10 books that have impacted you and give them to 10 volunteers who have gone “above and beyond” recently.
