Part of stewardship is the use of human resources. How many times have I worked with congregations that have an annual financial support drive every year, that includes contacting everyone, asking everyone to give, has a big celebration at the wrap up, and thank you messages to each giver? Yes that would be all. How many congregations have put as much effort into engaging and recognizing their volunteers with the same fervor? Right again, almost none.
Yet every congregation in large part runs its programs and governance entirely with volunteers. And all of my client congregations have had a hard time fulfilling the lay positions they need, at all levels. Why this mismatch? It could be that we value our time differently than our money, or at least understand it differently. One of my colleagues used to say,
Giving money is a decision between your checkbook and your heart; giving time is between your calendar and your values.
So here is the big message in this blog post: change your systems so that you are doing a better job of managing and particularly thanking your volunteers with public recognition. Here is a smattering of materials about congregational volunteers to help you do that.
- The UUA MidAmerica Region has a volunteer management page with a lot of good resources in it.
- A good presentation from General Assembly by Mark Bernstein of the UUA Central East Region, called Beyond Contentment: Motivating Members to Do More.
Here is a tip: if you do not have a Sunday in your calendar, every year, to recognize and thank your volunteers publicly and personally, do that first.
This is the season of giving and gratitude, so show some love to your volunteers – in an extraordinary way they will remember!
Mark Ewert is a stewardship consultant with the Stewardship For Us team. Mark can be reached at mewert@stewardshipforus.com, via the UUA’s Congregational Stewardship Network, (http://www.uua.org/finance/fundraising/index.shtml), or through your regional staff.
Mark Ewert is a stewardship consultant, a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® (CAP®), and a professional leadership and philanthropy coach (PCC) certified with the International Coaching Federation.
His experience includes founding a nonprofit, working as a fundraiser, and leading a national organization. Reach Mark at Team@StewardshipForUs.com
The religious education volunteers in our congregation get a huge amount of recognition, including lovely gifts, to thank them for teaching Sunday school once a month. The Stewardship Committee gets criticism for “only” raising 80% of the church’s annual budget. What kind of person would join Stewardship?
Thanks Abby, looks like you have a couple of challenges that are intersecting: your recognition of volunteers is isolated to only one part of the congregation (although it sounds great!) and the “culture of stewardship” in the congregation needs some work. By “culture of stewardship” I mean that if the stewardship committee is being criticized, it indicates that there is a lack of understanding about the collective agreement to support the congregation. Literally everyone is involved and participates, just in different roles, to ensure the financial vibrancy of the congregation. If the Stewardship Committee is seeing results that do not meet the needs of the budget, it helps to look at how and why that might be happening – usually there are dynamics (large and small) that are contributing to that. That is exactly the work we do here at Stewardship for Us, so if we can help let us know. Happy Holidays! Mark