TIPS

Volunteers have lives outside your chapter -- and sometimes they get in the way of volunteering.

Crazy lives do not necessarily mean less commitment to your chapter in a person's heart. However, it can create a ton of stress as leaders figure out how to balance life demands with volunteering.

To succeed over the long run, you need to be supportive of what's going on in members' lives, help them to save face, and still meet the objectives of your chapter.

How does your chapter support your members working through life's challenges and opportunities?

Inspiring Volunteer Strength

The chapter was hosting the regional annual meeting. It was a two-day event held at a hotel and included 10 chapters.  Roger and his team had put in long hours to pull off the event. They had solid programming, a good size trade show and great networking parties planned. Putting the conference together and promoting it had been a lot of work, but Roger was good at pacing the team. They hit very few moments of crisis crunch time during the weeks leading up the event.  However, today had been a totally different experience.  There was an exhaustive amount of work to do setting up the trade show, decorating for the party tonight, and working through all of the on-site details to make sure everything ran smoothly this weekend.  The hotel was doing some unexpected renovations that the team did not learn about until they arrived that morning.  It took some creative thinking, but the team could pull it off with the space they now had to use.  With less than an hour to go before the party would start, Roger sent all of his team members back to their rooms to change their clothes so they would be ready to greet their attendees.  As Frieda trudged to her room to change her clothes, she felt ready to sleep for the next two weeks straight. Today had been extremely grueling and trying on her patience. When Frieda walked in her hotel room, the light on her desk was on. She saw a pretty box of chocolates and note waiting for her.  The note read:

Dear Frieda,

I know today has been tiring and you've already put hundreds of hours into this conference.  I wanted to say thank you for all of your hard work. The new friendships people make with members across the State, as well as the excitement and knowledge that people take back to their jobs on Monday are all because you were willing to step up to the plate, to give so much, and to make a difference.

On behalf of the members from all 10 chapters, I thank you for your dedication and hard work.  I look forward to celebrating our success together at the welcome reception.

Roger

The note worked magic and Frieda was re-energized.  She scrambled into her change of clothes.  Frieda bolted down the hallway to join Roger and her team in celebrating their success -- and to work into the wee-hours of the morning as they prepared for the next day.  But it didn't matter...

How do you energize your volunteers when their batteries are running low?