Volunteer management is the process of recruiting, engaging, activating, and retaining volunteers who step up and take on a prescribed role to help run programming at various organizational levels.

Here at All Souls, volunteers fill leadership positions, operate lay groups, ministries, committees, events, and other activities, and fill needs for skillsets or other support needs within the church. 

The following is an excerpt from the UUA Magazine article Where Did Our Volunteers Go? by Erica Baron:

More Doing, Less Discussing
We know both from research and experience that people are more likely to commit to projects or tasks than to committees, and that people are more likely to give their time if the work feels personally meaningful. People with a call to serve crave more of a direct ministry experience, and less of a prolonged process of decision making and permission granting. Can we accommodate more flexibility in our structures? What might emerge for us with fewer monthly meetings on the calendar?

Yours, Mine, And Ours
Making a shift away from standing committees and toward more direct opportunities to serve may mean only a few key staff or volunteers help track the ministry works taken on by members and ensure there is good communication between governance and programs. What would it look like to have a smaller group of us focus on and equipping our people for direct ministry? How do we ensure clear communication and faithful decision making?

Centering In Gifts
We know that people come alive when their volunteering taps their unique gifts. Centering in Gifts is a practice of Spiritual Leadership. “Gifts” are those things we do naturally; that bring us joy; the things we can’t not do. What if we stop asking “Where are the volunteers for the X Committee?” and asked instead, “What gifts do our people long to bring to the world and how can we equip each other to deliver them?”

Our pre-covid volunteer structures are ending but that makes way for our creation of new, emergent, faithful, embodied ways of being Beloved Community, if we are willing to risk faithfully and learn with each other.