If the vast majority of your church parishioners or congregants are not volunteering regularly, it communicates something about their mindset of your church. At least one of the following three things is probably true:
- You need to increase their understanding of the value of volunteering.
- You need to help them grow in their commitment to what your church is trying to accomplish.
- You need to make them more aware of how they can contribute.
If you want to mobilize your congregants for service, you have to do things to address each of these issues. First, there needs to be a way to increase understanding about volunteering. Many people misunderstand the church’s role in their lives, seeing church only as something that serves them and not realizing that it is also somewhere that they can benefit by serving others.
Second, there needs to be a way to strengthen commitment. Congregants may feel that giving their money is enough, so they do not need to give their lives to the church. Perhaps they are busy with other pursuits, and serving others through the church is not a priority. There may also be some who were involved at one point but faded for some reason.
Third, there needs to be a way to increase awareness. People might be more willing to volunteer if they knew about opportunities they would be good at and could get excited about. Maybe they just do not know how much they are needed and how quickly they could begin to have an impact.
Using RealmⓇ, you can achieve understanding, commitment, and awareness with your volunteers. Volunteer management gives your group leaders the ability to communicate in multiple ways with their volunteers, which will enhance commitment by ensuring they feel involved and stay connected even when they are not serving. With Volunteer management, your group leaders can use teams and roles to see who’s currently serving, who’s served in the past, and who hasn’t served. That gives your leaders the information needed when recruiting new volunteers, no matter what the role.
For more information on Volunteering, please download Raising Your Volunteer Numbers guide.
