Helping Hands
Volunteers are often crucial to the success of an event. Here’s how to find them, use them and reward them.
Planning and executing an event is difficult; planning and executing an event while short-staffed is almost impossible. Associations and organizations are constantly watching every dollar that comes in and every dollar that goes out. Few have the funds to employ enough full-time staff members to execute large-scale meetings and events. As a result, they rely on volunteers to pick up where labor drops off, but using
volunteers isn’t always easy.
The good news is that the number of volunteers in the country is growing. Last year, the number jumped by 1.6 million, the largest increase since 2003, according to a report by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The total number of people who volunteered their time with a formal organization rang in at 63.4 million, amounting to an estimated $169 billion worth of labor.
“Americans have responded to tough economic times by volunteering in big numbers,” says Patrick Corvington, CEO of CNCS, which conducted the survey in partnership with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Religious organizations attract the highest percentage of the nation’s volunteers at 34 percent, followed closely by educational and youth events.
Many associations and organizations rely on volunteers throughout the year, but they become especially important during meetings and conferences. Event planners and organizers who call on volunteers have to do three things to make it a successful venture: find volunteers, learn how to use them properly and reward them for their efforts.
FINDING VOLUNTEERS
For some planners, finding volunteers — reliable ones — can be the hardest part. The first place to look for volunteers is within an organization. Will Engle joined the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) as the director of external operations three years ago, taking on the responsibility of planning the association’s annual convention. Part of his job includes assembling a team of 12 volunteers who travel to the conference destination to help for the four-day event. What he found is that some people within the AVCA are happy to help out at a conference, which they would have attended anyway. “Some wouldn’t be able to afford coming if we didn’t pay for them to come,” says Engle. “They get to see friends [and] go to educational sessions. If they’re not on duty, we let them be a part of it.”
The AVCA event is now in its 30th year, and Engle knows that though he’s best suited to handle site selection, contracts and hotel arrangements, some of the volunteers who tag along provide useful feedback. “When I came on, I looked to them for advice,” he says. “This is their community, these are their people. They’re going to understand the community better than I am.”
Not all planners have a crop of volunteers ready to pack up and hit the road for an event, so the next best place to turn is to members of the community in which the event will take place. “If you’re using volunteers for the first time, try to find people within your market segment,” says Engle. “For us it’s volleyball coaches, but just find people who know your organization.
“Once you have those types of folks, don’t be afraid to ask for their help and their opinions. They’re on the pulse of what these folks are doing on a daily basis.”
Another resource to use for volunteers is the destination itself. The Virginia Beach CVB, for example, has a volunteer program in place that helps recruit volunteers for planners and gives Virginia Beach residents the opportunity to reach out to the CVB if they want to help. When the American Bus Association came to Virginia Beach in 2008, the CVB assembled a team of 800 volunteers. “We’re very hands on. We want to go out and put the message out in the community,” says Al Hutchinson, vice president of convention sales and marketing at the CVB.
For the ABA convention, the CVB staff put the word out to local businesses and printed calls for help in the city publication. “All that was coordinated by our convention services team and staff at the CVB. We have a good system, a model in place,” says Hutchinson. The local airport has also jumped on the volunteer bandwagon and has a staff to offer refreshments and transportation to groups when they arrive.
A simple yet effective way to find volunteers is to ask around. Ask other planners. Ask friends. Ask previous volunteers. “We use current volunteers to recruit volunteers,” says Denise McGinn, CAE, president of Association Guidance. McGinn organizes about 10 events each year that utilize volunteers, including a spring conference with more than 160 volunteers. “We find peer to peer works best. When someone sees that someone else in their industry is willing to donate their time to the event, it makes it easy for them to do it as well.”
Jo Angela Maniaci agrees. “Once you recruit one volunteer, they will recruit at least one other person to join them,” says Maniaci, CMP. “This guarantees they will know at least one other person for the day, since we all have some trepidation about showing up for a new task at a new location and not being sure you know anyone.” Maniaci is the owner of Special Events Planning based in St. Paul, Minn. She organizes mostly nonprofit and government events, so she’s always recruiting volunteers based on limited event budgets. The ask-around strategy is an important one for her. “Another source is tapping the board members of an organization for ideas [and] leads,” she says. For example, she planned the Step Up for Down Syndrome Walk and recruited a Boy Scout troop, corporate community involvement employee groups, a high school Key Club and church groups to help out. “One of the best parts of working in the nonprofit world is that there is rarely a shortage of a volunteer base from which to draw,” she says.
Pat Ahaesy, CMP, CSEP, of P&V Enterprises, believes in volunteer retention. “There are people who have volunteered for me before and if there are ones I like, I’ll ask them again,” she says. Still, that’s not enough to fill the roster for many of the events she plans, so she taps into the local college market in New York City, recruiting students who study event planning, marketing and communications, or students from fraternities and sororities who need to boost their volunteer hours. “They’re usually very eager,” she says.
USING VOLUNTEERS
After recruiting volunteers, the next step is knowing how to best use them. Responsibilities often include manning the registration table, introducing speakers, collecting evaluation data, selling merchandise and shuffling crowds from session to session.
“I will use volunteers for almost all parts of an event and try to meld the tasks needed with volunteer self-interest,” says Maniaci. She says it’s important to give a volunteer a task that they’re interested in if that option exists, but there are a few tasks that volunteers are usually always asked to help with. “Volunteers are particularly effective at the registration area,” she says, especially when they are members of the event’s organization. “From the attendee’s point of view, a warm hello called out by someone who knows your name sets the best tone possible to start the day’s activities.”
Depending on how much help is needed and the skill level of the volunteer, Denise McGinn has used volunteers for website updates, sponsorship sales, meal planning, proofing marketing materials and site selection. “The list goes on and on,” she says. But the relationship between the planner and the volunteer only works when there’s effective communication, she says.
“A detailed job description and timeline must be supplied to the volunteer, with a complete background of why the job needs to be done, how it is to be done, and what the expected outcome is,” says McGinn. My staff sometimes teases me that I write the instructions so that a monkey could do it. I find that even the most knowledgeable volunteer appreciates it, as they don’t feel like they have to make assumptions or second guess themselves.”
Volunteers are often asked to put in a lot of work, and Will Engle says he makes sure his helpers know this before they ever sign up to help. “This event is a 24-hour show; it’s not an 8-to-5 workday,” he says of the AVCA annual conference. “A lot of it is going to be unglamorous.” The first job his event volunteers take on is laying down full-size volleyball courts, snapping pieces of wood floor together for three hours. “They’ll sweat and we’ll wear them out … at the very beginning,” he says, “and it gets worse from there.” At the end of the day, says Engle, he needs volunteers who are willing to do those jobs, work together on a team, and realize that they’re working toward a bigger goal: putting on a successful conference.
While no particular person fits the perfect volunteer mold, planners still know what they want. “I’m looking for people who are outgoing [and] who speak well because they’re going to be speaking with VIP clients,” says Ahaesy. “I expect them to be responsible for what they do. On their part, they have to treat it like it’s a paying gig. On my part, I try to treat them with respect and show them how important they are. Having volunteers enables me to do my job better. They make everything happen.”
Of course, there are some things that will put volunteers on a planner’s do-not-use-ever-again list. “If somebody doesn’t show up, they’re scratched off my list forever,” says Ahaesy.
Maniaci says she trusts volunteers, but “I also fall back on my left-brain control tendency by supplying a list of dos and don’ts for acceptable activities at the registration area,” she says. The “don’ts” include no reading trashy novels, no knitting, no doing your nails, no putting on makeup — all things that made the list after real-life experiences.
REWARDING VOLUNTEERS
Most planners agree that the positive experiences with volunteers far outnumber the no-show or bad-behavior episodes of a few events. And event volunteers deserve to be rewarded, even if they don’t expect it.
Pat Ahaesy often hands out gift cards to coffee shops or restaurants, and she always sends thank-you notes. More importantly, though, she makes it a goal to have conversations with the volunteers, explaining to them how their help contributed to the success of the larger event. “I tell them what they did and how important it was so they can use it for their résumés,” she says.
The résumé-boosting aspect of volunteering may be the most important reward for students volunteering their time. Will Engle understands this. In addition to bringing on a few people from the AVCA to work the annual conference, Engle also has a relationship with Jeff Meyer, a volleyball coach and leader of the sports management program at Wayne State College in Nebraska. “I contact Jeff every year and he brings a graduate assistant and a chaperone, and they bring four or five students to volunteer.” To get a spot on the volunteer list for the conference, the students submit résumés and cover letters to Engle and the AVCA staff who then select the best candidates. “It’s a great résumé builder,” says Engle. “In the last couple years, I’ve had three or four students then ask me to be a reference for them.” He gladly says yes.
Last year, AVCA volunteers received an all-expenses-paid trip to Tampa, Fla. This year, they’re headed to Kansas City, Mo. That’s quite a perk for cash-strapped college students — or anyone else, for that matter.
The cheapest and sometimes most meaningful reward is simply recognition for services. Maniaci includes acknowledgement of volunteers in event programs as well as from the stage, and she asks volunteers to stand and be recognized. McGinn agrees that sometimes a very simple gesture like that can mean a lot more than a gift card. I find people like the recognition they get if you put their name on the website, or in a newsletter, or even announce it at the event itself, she says. Be sure they are given credit. They will keep coming back if you do.
