You already know the importance of meeting one-on-one with your volunteers.  You get the vision, but when it comes time to actually get out of the weeds of your ministry to do it, you feel lost.  Maybe this isn’t you, and you put your volunteers at the top of your list. That’s who I was 15 years ago.  I understood the value of people and that volunteers were not just the means to an end.  On Sundays, I was all in and gave everything I had to them.  I wanted to get to know them better.  I wanted to follow up on what they told me 2 years ago when I first interviewed them.  But then a shift happened and I allowed all of the tasks to take priority and spent the majority of my time communicating to the masses instead of the individuals–unless there was an issue I had to deal with on an individual basis.  

Most of us are in the same boat. We love our volunteers and want to equip them and care for them. We just get caught up in all the other important things, and a whole month, semester, or ministry year goes by, and we realize we never had an in-depth conversation with over 50% of the people who served alongside us.

Here are a few tips to make sure that is not you at the end of this year.

Plan a Volunteer Day 

Plan a volunteer day at least twice a month, but preferably weekly.  Look at your schedule.  Most of us have one day that is overwhelmingly full of meetings–sometimes two.  We also have weekly tasks that we do on specific days.  If you haven’t taken time to lay out all of your tasks and what day you do them each week, start there.  When you create a word doc with bullet points under each day, you will start to see a pattern.

For example, it could look like this: Mondays are for follow-up from Sunday.  Tuesdays and Wednesdays are full of meetings with staff.  Thursdays are for writing your weekly email and curriculum prep for the coming Sunday.  Some days will look like they have less, but we know that one bullet point is equal to 5 on another day.  

Once you have laid out your schedule, see where you have blocks of time to meet with volunteers. You may not have the budget to take them out to lunch each week, so look for times to grab breakfast or coffee. Intentionally meet during times when your volunteer won’t expect a meal.  Maybe one week you block off Thursday mornings and the next it’s Thursday afternoon.

Start Small 

Plan to check in with just one volunteer each week.  Don’t start this month–plan ahead for next month before you schedule other things. I would even block off the time on my calendar so that when other staff try to schedule a meeting, they can see you are busy during that time.  

When deciding who to meet with, we often go to the people who have the most needs or are the loudest–the ones who always have a complaint or improvement they want to share. They may not be the ones you meet with first. I’m not saying to ignore them–you’ll have a whole other set of issues if you do that–but take time to look at your team.  Who do you not know well?  Who flies under the radar? These people will appreciate the offer to meet, but would never ask you for it because they know how busy you are. Meeting with these people will not only remind them how valuable they are, but they will also encourage you as well.

Invest Personally 

Don’t just meet with volunteers you want to challenge to the next level. Often, we schedule time with our few because we want to ask them to take on another role.  Don’t use this time consistently for that.  Like my kids, they will smell you coming, and if you only want to meet with them when you want something from them, they will start to avoid you and possibly the ministry you lead.  Meet with them just because.  

Just as Jesus had his 12 disciples and 3 disciples in His inner circle. You will have those people, too.  You will need to prioritize how to meet with them consistently.  If they are shepherding people, you want to make sure you are scheduling time with them to continue to pour into them.  

The way this looked for me was like this:

1st Thursday – Coaches/strategic leaders

2nd Thursday – A volunteer you see potential in

3rd Thursday – Coaches/strategic leaders

4th Thursday – A volunteer who you don’t know well or you don’t think will ever take on more than they currently are doing.

5th Thursday – Meet with a volunteer who encourages me

Schedule Ahead

I would schedule these out a month ahead of time. On Sunday mornings, I made it part of my morning to look for who I was going to connect with the following month.  One year, I kept a spreadsheet of all my volunteers and highlighted them when I met with them. Another year, I had their names on a magnetic board and put a star next to each as I met with them.  The point is that I wanted to be intentional.  If I saw that I was not going to be able to meet with everyone in my ministry that year, I would reach out to my strategic leaders to make sure they were connecting with the ones I was not.   

There will be leaders you don’t want to meet with. You know it will be a hard conversation.  My advice?  Sprinkle meetings with them in among the ones you are looking forward to. Don’t schedule them all together or you are going to want to quit your job. It’s a balance between investing in them, but also not burning out or only investing in the people who are the loudest. 

At the end of the year, you may not have checked in with everyone.  That’s okay–look at who you did meet with.  What did you learn–and not just to better your ministry, what did you learn that challenged or grew you personally? Even more importantly, how were you able to invest in them? Making time to meet with your teams as individuals is a big task, but it is important. Your volunteers aren’t just people helping you accomplish ministry to invest in the next generation, they are humans worth investing in. 

Need some help getting your conversations started?? Use these Volunteer Check-Ins to connect with those you lead and maximize your impact!