Finding, motivating and keeping volunteers for your next event

"You know, it really was a great event," I told my buddy. But he was three pints in already and getting inconsolable. He's a great guy, really. He'd been volunteering for a great Bay Area nonprofit for years now and he cared about it a lot. Then he found himself chairing the planning committee for one of their bigger events.

At first it was all fun. But then the months had ticked by, that sweet, soft cushion of time slowly turned into the bare, cold concrete of a single date on a calendar.

Finally, D-Day. And his event goes off smoothly. Donors? Enjoying themselves. Sponsors? Impressed. Funds raised? Highest levels ever. Good memories? Too many to mention. I was there, I saw.

And yet, in the background, I also saw my friend chewing his nails. Terse conversations were going on sotto voce. After being introduced to other committee members as a friend of the chairman, their eyes went cold. The planning-or lack of it- had worn on his key planning team members. "Overpromising, undelivering, pointless meetings, confusing emails," he sighed. "It sounds like my job.

Order another round-and embroider that on a pillow. For any charity, finding, motivating and keeping volunteers is just like your workplace. And like your workplace, you may close your eyes in that endless meeting and have a perfect idea of how it should be, but not everyone will see it that way.

$18.04 an hour. Studies say that's what a volunteer is worth to you. And yet, so many charities "hire" volunteers with even fewer standards than an entry level retail job would require. How many places do you know wouldn't have some standards for employees making $18.04 an hour? Excitement and interest just isn't enough.

Tackling an event looks like a military campaign. It means building a metaphoric and a real "force for good." Finding officers to plan and soldiers to work, inspiring them through the long haul and keeping them working through a spectacular campaign - mercifully one with better food than real soldiers would eat -

And remember you'll need two different kinds of volunteers around your event: 1) planning or steering committee members - people with important skills and connections who'll be needed to help strategize and find resources; and 2) day-of volunteers, who'll help with the execution and do specific tasks.

For that, you'll need job descriptions. You'll need to know what tasks need to be done-and not just vague ones like "entertainment" or "auction." It needs to be more detailed. Who will report to whom, and who backs whom up? Who will be the point person? And if that point person is the executive director of the charity, how busy will he or she be between now and the event? Will the point person be able to handle the escalating timelines and inevitable stressful moments of the event with their other day-to-day tasks, without calling upon a higher power to create a few special 28-hour days?

"You need a buck-stops-here person," says Liza Schlang, Director of Operations and Events for the Craigslist Foundation. Her organization puts on nonprofit bootcamps for people interested in launching a nonprofit and for nonprofits looking to do their first fundraising venture. "One person, often one with the most outgoing personality, can keep things going."

Organizations who find volunteers for a living are pretty much unanimous on this: There are no ideal hires, just ideal motivations: the right fit for the right job.

"There are no 'perfect' volunteers," laughs Adam Straus, Events and Development Coordinator for The Volunteer Center Serving San Francisco and San Mateo Counties, and a 10-year nonprofit campaigner himself. But he's quick to add that there are a lot of dedicated people with great skills who want to donate their time and effort to something that engages their passion.

"I wish there were a perfect volunteer," muses Jim Pitofsky, Executive Director of Hands On Bay Area and a veteran of several nonprofits and foundations, "but we don't aspire to find perfect volunteers. It's about matching interests and needs." Organizations like Pitofsky's and Straus' are like standing armies. Hands On Bay Area has placed more than 10,000 volunteers and handles more than 100 service projects, not counting its customized work for certain larger organizations. The Volunteer Center Serving San Francisco and San Mateo Counties does more than 20,000 placements a year, and at any one time may have 1,000 nonprofits seeking volunteers for projects such as event staffing.

But even with places to go to get more troops, you still need to know what they'll be doing. Throwing more people at an event won't smooth out planning issues. "It's really about addressing a need, not a make-work project," Pitofsky says.

"The biggest thing is managing expectations," says Rocky Beach, volunteer manager of the United Way of the Bay Area, no stranger himself to mobilizing volunteers. "You need to create a realistic plan of what your volunteers can do."

The United Way of the Bay Area focuses on corporate volunteerism, leveraging the motivation of corporate leaders and the structure of their own workplaces to give their groups a philanthropic goal. It just wrapped up its Week of Caring, an annual event that this year saw 5,000 volunteers from over 50 companies pitch in
on over 400 charity projects in the Bay Area.

And if you want to talk about hiring and motivation, Beach says the companies know their charitable work is important to their employees. "It's great for employee retention and attraction," he says. "Most grads now are savvy and everyone wants to make a difference."

And he adds that it goes both ways. Wells Fargo had a couple of hundred volunteers one year. With greater executive buy-in, he says, the next year they had several thousand. "It was a 300 percent increase because executives gave it a push," he says.

In the early months of planning, it'll be the planning committee members doing the work. At this point, the executive director has to have a plan and a timeline for the event and hopefully the right planning committee members to make it happen.

How long your timeline should be-from finding your planning committee members to the first meeting, and finally the event- all depends on what type of event you have in mind. Nikki Beneke, Owner and Producer of Dallas-based Nikki J. Beneke Event Productions and a decorated hero of many boards and events herself, says you should be looking at least a year out. "I would suggest that the organization start the strategic planning a year in advance, make a timeline and revisit it," she says. She has some steps of her own that she uses, but adds that good leadership, which leads to being realistic with a start date for your event's planning, is your first real step.

The key person, the General overseeing everything, should be in "constant contact with the committee chairs and committees, and troubleshoots when necessary," Beneke says. She adds that an event planner/consultant who is also a fund development consultant can be helpful to the process.

Craigslist's Schlang says they usually have 3-6 months advance planning for their bootcamps, but therein lies the secret-they have a template they've used successfully in the past. She said their old planning committee had 75 people on it; a lot of voices to be heard-and herded. They've since whittled it down to 20 or so, but it's a more effective force now.

To accomplish their event goals, Schlang said they had monthly meetings, and sent out emails frequently to keep people apprised of what's going on, what resources or contacts may be needed, and reminding everyone of what needed to be done before the next meeting.

Pitofsky also sees some great examples from his own time spent on planning committees. Be respectful of people's time, have an agenda of what needs to be discussed, and try to send out updates via email beforehand, so people can read it and get caught up without spending valuable planning time at group meetings getting updates versus actually planning.

And like Napoleon said, an army moves on its stomach. Chances are your planning committee members have day jobs and families and other demands of their time. If you expect them to come out in the evening around all of this, feed them.

So, the battle's been fought and won. Now, you need to create your own nonprofit "legion." Once things are done, Beneke says, it's easy for hard-working executive directors to move on with all the other work they had on their plates that probably got dropped for the event. "The success of the event includes its sustainability -and the volunteers are a huge part of the sustainability," she says, if it's something you're doing for the first time and would like to repeat in the future. "You need to personally contact them following the event and thank them and ask them to come back. Let them know how much was raised by the event and again remind them. If they feel connected to the organization, they will be more inclined to come back."

Good leadership also means coming to terms with the reality that not everything will have gone as planned, even in the best case scenario. Instead of letting it get to you, laugh it off and vow not to do it again. "Don't focus on what went wrong, focus on what went right-and who did it," says Beneke.

And build on it. "When the event wraps, you should have a party or luncheon to critique the event and make suggestions for next year," she says. Did the team have enough time to get everything done? What did you learn from sponsors about their own timelines? Did we try to do too much, or too little? "If there is a problem, it has been addressed and the volunteers will feel like their input is valued," she says.

Remember that you want these people to feel like they're part of the team. Pitofsky says they reward team leaders with gifts they don't expect, tickets to baseball games, anything to let them know their effort wasn't just appreciated for the event itself, but that you want them to be part of the organization in an on-going way.

"It's an acknowledgement of appreciation," he says. "If you love someone, you keep telling them. If you like your volunteers, keep telling them."