Keeping Your Committee Motivated ALL SUMMER LONG!

 

I wanted to write this post because I truly feel that setting up a solid committee makes your experience as a Shinerama coordinator easier and much more enjoyable. As a Shinerama leader, delegation will become your most important responsibility! Section 3 of your resource manual will give you all sorts of hints on how to recruit volunteers and how to organize your committee. But how do you make them stick around and continue to help out? Check out my four tips to a shinier, more motivated committee! 

STEP 1: It’s about ‘WE’, not ‘ME’

          The best way to make your volunteers continue to help is to make them feel like important, responsible members of the team (because they are!). You can set up your committee in whatever way works best at your school (Section 3 of your resource manual), but as long as the members of your committee feel like they are an important part of the team, they will keep coming back to help you out.

          Share as much information as you can with them! Start a Facebook group or page, a twitter account, a blog or all of the above to get the news out and keep them involved! Let them know how much money you make at each secondary fundraiser as soon as it is counted. Value their opinions and let them help you out when things aren’t going exactly as planned. And by all means, ask for their help when you need it!

STEP 2: Diversify your committee

          By letting your committee members choose what tasks they are most interested in working on, you will have a happier committee overall. Some people may love planning pub nights whereas others may be more interested in less social tasks like poster and website design. Make sure they know that however much time they want to donate to the cause, you appreciate it!

          Some people may not be interested in coming to weekly meetings and organizing secondary fundraisers, but will be happy to volunteer once in a while if the task interests them, for example driving around volunteers, stacking wood or BBQing. If someone mentions to you off-hand that they would be interested in helping out every once in a while, take note of this, add them to your e-mail list and don’t be afraid to ask them specifically when a task comes up that may interest them! The worst that they can say is ‘no’!

STEP 3: Stay positive and be prepared

          Working with volunteers can sometimes be a struggle: since they aren’t getting paid, they can really leave at any time. As the coordinator, all you can do is make Shinerama a happy and fun environment for planning events so that they want to keep coming back.

          And as the girl guides say, BE PREPARED! Show up to your meetings well organized. If you show that you care and have put a lot of effort, your volunteers won’t ever want to let you down. If you need a bit of ‘UMPH!’ in your meeting, remind everyone about cystic fibrosis and why you’re raising money and awareness for Cystic Fibrosis Canada. Here are some videos that I really like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baD42fdi_LU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tP_M70d7a0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DDfYmacfOw

STEP 4: Celebrate every milestone

          Let your committee know how much you appreciate their help! When I ran my Shinerama campaign, I made sure to make a big deal out of every thousand dollars that we made: they were stepping stones to the next goal! 

          I planned a surprise party mid-summer for all of the volunteers after one of the weekly meetings. I wrote a card for every volunteer to let them know why I appreciated their help specifically. It gave everyone the push they needed mid-summer and helped us raise more money than we thought was possible that summer!

My lovely committee at our thank you party!

Don’t forget that you can always ask your CA or RD if you need advice!

What ideas do you have on how to make your committee stay motivated? We want to hear them! Post them in the comments!

Beth Whitfield

Campaign Advisor - Atlantic Region

@bethwhit1

www.facebook.com/bethwhit1