YoungLives Handbook - Flipbook - Page 64
RETAINING VOLUNTEERS
Volunteering as a mentor to teen parents is rewarding and challenging and can be deeply emotional at
times. Therefore caring for, training, and appreciating your volunteers is as important as recruiting
them! Recruitment is just the beginning; ongoing support and engagement are key to retaining
dedicated and healthy volunteers.
The coordinator must continue to cast vision, provide monthly mentor trainings, and validate
volunteers by recognizing accomplishments and providing them with honest feedback. A sense of
belonging within the ministry is crucial for retention and can be cultivated by including them in
decision-making and entrusting them with ownership of tasks when possible.
The following lists show some of the reasons that volunteers will stay committed or lose interest in a
ministry.
Volunteers stay committed
when they:
Feel appreciated and valued.
See that their presence is making a
difference.
Have
opportunities
for
more
responsibility.
See opportunities for personal growth.
Receive recognition for their work,
privately and publicly.
Are able to complete the tasks.
Have a sense of belonging in the group.
Participate in problem solving, decision
making and goal setting.
Recognize the significance of the group’s
existence.
Have their personal needs met.
Volunteers lose interest
when they:
Experience
discrepancies
between
expectations of their relationship with
their teens and the reality of the
situation.
Feel like they are not making a difference.
Encounter a lack of variety.
Feel a lack of support from or feel tension
among mentors.
Are not thanked and underappreciated.
Stagnate in their personal relationship
with Christ.
Feel personally unfulfilled in what they are
doing.
Lack opportunities to demonstrate
initiative and creativity.
65
