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20 Tips on Recruiting Volunteers

By Pedro Leave a Comment

20 tips on recruiting volunteers

Have you ever been “recruited” for something? What was that thing? Was it a ministry? A job? The military?

In ministry, we use the term “recruiting” when referring to volunteers all the time. Honestly, I don’t like it very much. I think the word carries negative connotations for many people. I think recruiting can turn people away unless those people are already highly interested.

I’ll give you an example. I knew a church who used to hold recruiting meetings for missions trips. No one ever attended those. They switched it to info meetings and attendance skyrocketed. You see, most people don’t want to be recruited but a lot of people do want to know more information about what’s going on. That one simple change of a word had a dramatic change on their ministry.

Looking back on my own life, as I was thinking about attending graduate school, I attended a TON of info sessions for different universities before I settled on the University of Miami.

What exactly is recruiting?

As a Children’s Ministry Pastor, my primary responsibility was to serve my volunteers as they serve kids. Recruiting was a big part of that. At first, I viewed volunteers as a means to an end. Meaning that I needed volunteers to accomplish my mission. That was a HUGE mistake. That led me to tend to use volunteers without really caring for them.

Things changed, though. I began to view volunteers as individuals with unique gifts and skills who were called by God to serve in a specific way. My responsibility was to recruit and select those individuals who were called to serve in Children’s Ministry. It was at this time that I really began to see fruit in the ministry I was leading. Not only did we begin to develop leaders but those leaders began to develop leaders.

Recruiting Volunteers is never about begging

Begging for volunteers is never acceptable. Begging or guilting people into serving puts the individual in an awkward position and ultimately sets up your ministry for failure. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem convincing someone to serve, but I will never beg someone to serve and I’ll never beg someone to stay. Honestly, I’m more likely to overestimate the work required for the job. I don’t ever want to put someone in a spot where they felt misled about what they’ve accepted.

Succeed in Recruiting Volunteers with these 20 tips 

1. It’s all about vision

A big, compelling vision that’s well defined and engaging. I believe that’s what makes so many volunteers join us at Operation Christmas Child, a clear vision.

2. It’s not all about the need

Vision trumps need every single time. You may not think it’s fair, but that’s the way it is.

3. Make the ask

Have you made the ask? It’s not enough to talk about what your vision or needs are. If you haven’t actually asked someone to serve, then you’re likely missing out on a lot of people who think that you’re already good to go.

4. Fully define your structure

What would happen if you received an influx of applicants? Would you know where you need them or will you have to makeup spots? Know what your structure is and where the holes are. Just like a business can clearly identify what the vacancies are, your ministry should be the same. Where are the holes?

5. Don’t be a one man (or woman) show

Here’s an oxymoron. Some leaders are so high capacity that it seems like they have it all together. They’ll have to be a lot more intentional about recruiting other leaders. On the flip side, people view someone who’s doing great things but is obviously dropping the ball sometimes and want to support that person.

6. Stop typecasting people

Don’t be afraid to take a chance on someone and don’t typecast people. Regardless of how that individual has served in the past, God can certainly work in people and equip individuals for new roles.

7. Empower others

The fastest way to lose leaders is not empower them to make decisions. I’m not talking about decisions where you have the final say, that’s not really empowering. I’m talking about decisions where your volunteer has the authority to say yes or no to something. When volunteers realize that you hand out authority coupled with responsibility, you’ll hardly ever lose a leader and it’ll be easier to recruit leaders.

8. Create efficient systems

How do you take someone from interested in volunteering with you to fully onboarded and trained? That’s what systems are for and the larger you are (or want to be) the more efficient system you need.

9. Be clear about volunteer opportunities

When I was a Children’s Ministry Pastor I was notorious for closing down a classroom if we didn’t have a teacher for it. This was an obvious decision for me but it confounded parents and others. I also realized it was something that very few Pastors do.

Why did I do it? If there’s not teacher available, then there’s no trained individual to teach and take care of the kids, so it’s better for kids to stay with their parents. It also lets all those parents know that we have staffing shortages. Very often, parents themselves would want to become volunteers when they realized there are opportunities to serve.

It was also common for us to announce openings in services, within other ministries, and on social media.

10. Equip others to recruit other volunteers

Recruiting is not only your responsibility! It’s also the responsibility of all of your volunteers. Equip them to recruit!

11. Personally recruit

On the other hand, recruiting is not only the responsibility of others, it’s also yours. You need to personally recruit!

12. Don’t rely on mass invitations or social media only

It’s so easy nowadays to rely on social media campaigns, email campaigns, or announcements. Don’t rely on these. At the end of the day, the most effective recruiting is face to face. Nothing will ever replace that.

13. Start showing appreciation to your current volunteers

Stop saying “Thank you” and start showing appreciation to your volunteers. It’s far easier to keep the volunteers you have than to constantly replace them with new ones.

14. Train your volunteers better than ever

A trained volunteer is a happy volunteer. Not only will they do better in their roles, but they’ll tell others about how they’re valued and trained.

15. Learn to be flexible with people

Ministry is about people, once you start prioritizing processes over people, you’ll start to experience problems. If one of your leaders needs a month off, do it. People appreciate it and flexibility breeds goodwill and increases volunteer capital.

16. Don’t focus on your problems

It’s great to communicate vision and it’s good to communicate need, but that doesn’t mean that you should communicate all of your problems. I promise you, communicating your problems to potential volunteers won’t get them to start serving.

17. Start sharing stories

It’s not only about sharing vision, but it’s also about sharing how God is moving in your ministry. Share stories not only in person but all over your social media.

18. Stop going beyond your capacity

If you’re constantly redlining it then honestly, you don’t have the capacity to bring on someone else. You just won’t have the time to properly onboard and train them. Therefore, in this self fulfilling prophecy, you’ll keep redlining it.

Break the cycle by slowing down. That will give you the capacity to properly invest in others.

19. Stop making excuses

I’ve heard all kinds of excuses. People in the city don’t serve. People in this country don’t serve. Millennials don’t serve. We ask too much. I’ve heard it all and I’ve seen ministries that have countered every excuse possible. I’ve seen young professionals serve in New York city, Latinos serve in Latin America, and Millennials serve all across the country. There’s really no excuse to not have a dynamic volunteer ministry. If you’re not attracting and retaining volunteers the problem is you or your ministry.

20. Start praying

Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, and to pray that the Lord sends more workers. So do that, start praying for more volunteers.

October 22, 2017Filed Under: Children's Ministry, Church Lessons, Leadership, Volunteer Management

YouTube or Vimeo and what’s Ooyala: Which is better for your Ministry?

By Pedro Leave a Comment

YouTube or Vimeo and what's Ooyala: Which is better for your Ministry?

If you’ve been in ministry in the Western world for any length of time, you’ve already asked yourself this questions. Which is better for my ministry, YouTube or Vimeo? Or, is there a third option?

The debate has raged on since Vimeo came on the scene. It seemed to provide an alternative to YouTube. The YouTube versus Vimeo debate is kind of like the debate between Mac and PC. Who wins? Macs may seem “cooler” but by sheer volume, PCs outpace Macs in every single way. As far as volume, PCs are the winner. Is that the only category, though?

When it comes to technology, volume doesn’t usually matter. I declare Macs the winner because of their reliability, durability, and resiliency. Not to mention their simplicity, which is important for ministry. Right now, I’m writing this on a 7 year old Macbook Pro. That kind of longevity is impossible on a PC.

Does volume matter when it comes to YouTube versus Vimeo?

Yes. And no.

YouTube’s volume is incredible. It reaches 1 Billion unique viewers per month, and growing. Vimeo gets 60 million.

Many ministry leaders like to use Vimeo because it’s cleaner and sleeker. However, YouTube’s reach and impact far exceeds Vimeo’s, and that gap is increasing in YouTube’s every month.

Ministry leaders are called to reach and impact people with the Gospel, so why use a platform that is much more limited? YouTube is where the people are so shouldn’t that be we ministries are at? Yes.

Staying away from YouTube is like deciding to remove your ministry website from Google because you like the Bing experience better. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?

So does that mean that you should stay away from Vimeo and stay exclusive to YouTube? Not necessarily.

Let me explain.

Vimeo provides a much better and cleaner viewer experience. Vimeo’s strength comes when it’s videos are imbedded in your website or when you drive someone there for the sole purpose of viewing a video. I know ministries that do their entire Volunteer training exclusively through Vimeo.

On the other hand, YouTube is great for people searching and finding your videos.

So what should my ministry use?

Both and.

1. YouTube beats Vimeo when it comes to volume

YouTube is the hands down winner over Vimeo when it comes to volume.

Right now Vimeo gets 60 million unique visitors per month. YouTube gets over 1 billion unique visitors. That’s 1,566% more visitors per month. YouTube is where the people are.

2. YouTube’s search capabilities beat Vimeo’s

Having a powerful search feature is what made Google the undisputed King of search engines. It’s no coincidence then, that Google owns YouTube. It also means that your website is likely to receive more visitors through Google if you have a YouTube channel pointing to it.

It also means that your videos are more likely to show up on page 1 of Google if you have a lot of videos on YouTube that point to your website and vice versa. Google likes cross contamination. I can’t think of any other way to say it. Use all Google platforms and you’re more likely to receive visitors through Google.

3. Sharing is caring – YouTube beats Vimeo again

Sharing videos you enjoy is a strength of YouTube’s. It’s also a platform that everyone knows and everyone trusts. You can send anyone a YouTube link to your favorite cat video and people will watch it. Vimeo isn’t nearly as known and therefore, not as trusted, especially outside of the United States. Because of this and its search feature, it’s possible to receive views on a video for years to come. Social sharing is also optimized on YouTube, making it easy to share across all major social media platforms.

4. Easy to use – YouTube wins again

They both have great features and both have pros and cons. However, YouTube is SO EASY to use that anyone can do it, and everyone does do it. It has a subscription feature that allows viewers to see subscribe to your channel, it allows you to promote on other people’s channels, it makes uploading and editing videos a cinch, and if you get a ton of traffic, you can even bring in some serious money from YouTube!

5. User Experience – Vimeo wins!

I admit, it depends what you mean by user experience. Assuming that since you’re leading a ministry, you don’t want your viewers to be redirected to Adult content or questionable content. Because of that, Vimeo wins.

You can embed a Vimeo video on your website and it can be a great user experience. YouTube won’t give you the same benefit.

Both YouTube and Vimeo are social networks. Both have integrated commenting systems, as well as legitimate communities. However, YouTube is much larger and a much more social, social network than Vimeo.

6. How much is YouTube and/or Vimeo? – YouTube wins

You can upload unlimited HD videos of any length or stream HD content on YouTube for free. Vimeo has a monthly or yearly membership fee that increase if you add more content than you are allowed. Therefore, many ministries choose YouTube as their main video channel.

7. Censorship? – Vimeo will NOT censor your videos (maybe)

Censorship of Christianity and/or Conservative thought is becoming more and more common. Unfortunately, both Vimeo and YouTube have been found guilty of this type of censorship.

YouTube has been known to censor videos that embrace Libertarian and Conservative points of view. YouTube has even censored videos that talk about how the US Constitution is relevant to Americans today! YouTube is currently censoring 34 PragerU videos!

Vimeo has censored videos that speak of homosexuality as being a sin, although, in Vimeo’s defense, they cited it was because of a copyright infringement.

Is there a third option? Kind of.

 

Vimeo may be great to embed on your site – and I recommend that you do that. YouTube may be great if you wish to reach people outside of your circle – and I recommend that you do that. Both of these platforms should be your go to budget solution for delivering video content.

However, for ministries who have a healthy budget and a couple tech savvy individuals on staff, start displaying your own videos using Ooyala. Ooyala was started by a couple YouTube employees. They wanted to provide a better experience for companies seeking to display videos.

Still, YouTube is a great way to reach outside of your circle and possibly grow your church or ministry. However, because of YouTube’s history of censorship, don’t upload any videos that you don’t have copies of somewhere else!

What’s your experience been with YouTube and Vimeo?

September 16, 2017Filed Under: Children's Ministry, Church Lessons, Missions and Outreach, Volunteer Management

7 Ministry Principles Your Volunteers Need to Know

By Pedro Leave a Comment

7 Ministry Principles Your Volunteers Need to Know

If you’re in church ministry, then you are absolutely dependent on your volunteers. You won’t survive a Sunday without them! This isn’t just true for Children’s Ministry, but for any ministry in your church. Leading volunteers isn’t what they can do for you or for your ministry, it’s about partnership. At Operation Christmas Child (A Project of Samaritan’s Purse), we have thousands of volunteers who serve with us every day, every week, and every month.

As I think through the types of things volunteers should know, there are hundreds, if not thousands of them. However, here I’ve boiled it down to 7 high level principles that your volunteers need to know in order to be successful. This isn’t an exhaustive list, I could’ve gone on forever, but knowing these 10 principles will move your volunteers toward success.

[Read more…] about 7 Ministry Principles Your Volunteers Need to Know

June 25, 2017Filed Under: Children's Ministry, Church Lessons, Volunteer Management

Reasons Kids Wild Out in Children’s Ministry

By Pedro Leave a Comment

Reasons Kids Wild Out in Children's Ministry

If you’ve been in Children’s Ministry for just one month, maybe even just one day, you’ve had some trouble on your hands. You’ve had kids that were straight up wild’n out. Don’t know what wild’n out is? It’s similar to the word, “crunk”. I was going to post a link to the Urban Dictionary meaning of it but the examples and related terms really took a nosedive, so I decided against it.

So here we are, it’s Sunday Morning and you are ready for a great day of ministry to the kids in your church. Your awesome volunteers are all there and everything is ready to go. However, the train starts to derail and things quickly spiral out of control. Little boys wouldn’t stop running around, little girls wouldn’t stop talking to each other, all this before your teacher even starts.

Are you mentally reliving this? When this happens, you have a choice to make. You can get angry, you can get frustrated, you can quit, cry, or just keep going like nothing is happening.

Let’s briefly talk about why this may be happening.

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May 10, 2017Filed Under: Children's Ministry, Church Lessons

Predictions for the 2020 Church

By Pedro Leave a Comment

Way back in 2012, I wrote a series of blog posts titled “Predictions for the 2020 Church.” The purpose of this series was to explore the ways working at churches will have changed over the following 8 years. In this post, I’m going to go through all 11 predictions and let you judge how close I am to accurate predictions.

Here’s a list of the 11 blog posts and links to the original posts.

  1. Reputation Capital
  2. Mobile Devices
  3. Talent Shortage
  4. Social Network Recruiting
  5. Reinvention of Offices
  6. Hiring Entire Teams
  7. Blogging for Ministry Leaders
  8. Video Games, Simulations, and Alternative Reality
  9. A Global Network
  10. Lifelong Learning
  11. Work-Life Flexibility

They’re short blog posts, probably averaging about 200 words each. So in this post I’m going to put them on here in their entirety and quickly recap what the results are.

Predictions are in H2 (large font) in order to make them easy to scroll to.

Results are in H3 (slightly smaller than H2) for the same reason.

Let’s get started.

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April 16, 2017Filed Under: Children's Ministry, Church Lessons, Volunteer Management

3 Things to Consider in a Children’s Ministry Curriculum

By Pedro Leave a Comment

improving your children's ministry - pedrocarrion.com

As a Children’s Ministry leader, your job isn’t easy! It’s your passion to help children become life long followers of Jesus. Part of that is getting kids excited about the Word of God. Over the years as I’ve been involved in Children’s Ministry, I’ve developed a passion for equipping those who equip others. I’ve also seen how critical curriculum is when it comes to Children’s Ministry, and along the way, I’ve researched and chosen my fair share of curriculum. I’d like to share with you 3 things to consider when choosing a Children’s Ministry curriculum.
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March 26, 2017Filed Under: Children's Ministry, Church Lessons

Simple Ministry versus Easy Ministry

By Pedro 1 Comment

simple ministry - pedrocarrion.com

 

I once heard a pastor friend of mine describe the difference between Apple and PC as this. Using an Apple product is like driving an automatic car, it’s what most of the population needs. Using a PC is like driving a stick shift, it does much more but is more complicated that what the majority of people need.

When speaking of volunteer management, what you really need is simple ministry, not easy ministry. Don’t mistake simple ministry for being easy and don’t mistake easy ministry for being simple. There’s a stark difference.

I’d like to share with you the difference between simple ministry and easy ministry. The difference is stark but still easy to miss.

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March 20, 2017Filed Under: Children's Ministry, Church Lessons, Volunteer Management

Top 10 Most Read Posts of 2016

By Pedro Leave a Comment

2016

When you think of 2016, you may think of Harambe, Trump, exploding phones, stock market breakthroughs, or ISIS. You may laugh or cry, probably cry. But one thing is for sure, thousands of you have visited this site for one reason or another, and I thank you.

These are the Top 10 most read posts of 2016. This list takes into account all pageviews from January 1, 2016 until today, December 30, 2016. Most of these posts focus on organizational development of volunteer organizations. Some are random. Still, here they are. Number 1 is the most read post of the year, three years running, and it surprises me to see this every time.

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December 30, 2016Filed Under: Children's Ministry, Church Lessons, International Affairs, Leadership, Life's Lessons, Missions and Outreach, Productivity, Samaritan's Purse, Security, Wifeless Survival

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