Need more volunteers? That's almost a silly question to ask because the answer is always "Yes, of course I need more volunteers."
No matter how many volunteers you have, you are always going to need more. Especially if you are growing and moving forward.
One of the best times of the year to enlist more volunteers is Easter.
Here are some specific steps you can take to get more volunteers at Easter.
1. Ask your pastor to encourage people who have never served to step up and serve one time at Easter. Remember to do this with vision rather than need. The pastor can word it something like this.
"Church, Easter is just a few weeks away. We're going to have a lot of people here. Many will come for the first time and will hear the message of the Gospel. What a great opportunity you have to make a difference at Easter by serving. Many of you may have never served before. Now is the time to step up and serve for Easter. We'll have lots of opportunities such as parking lot, greeters, set up, serving in children's ministry and more.
I'd like to encourage you to fill out the card in front of you and indicate you'd like to serve at Easter. You can then place the card in the offering as it is passed around."
2. Collect the cards and get people plugged into a serving role for Easter. Some areas such as children's ministry will have other steps people need to complete such as background check, interview, etc. Some ministries do allow people to serve on the Easter children's team without a background check. This is with the stipulation they cannot be alone with any children (just like everyone else) and cannot teach, lead, etc. They will need to be in a helper role. And this is just for Easter.
3. Place your Easter volunteers with your best volunteers. You know, your rock star volunteers who have a positive attitude, smile and speak words of encouragement. This is crucial if you want your Easter volunteers to have a good experience. You definitely don't want to put your Easter volunteers with Negative Nelly.
4. And here's where things get very strategic. Once Easter is over, contact the volunteers who served for the first time and invite them to serve with you on a regular basis. By doing this, I have seen as many as 85% of the Easter volunteers join our team and serve regularly. I've even seen some of them go on to become staff members.
So there you have it. A way to get new volunteers for Easter and then see them join your team on a regular basis.
You can get more great ideas for building a volunteer team in my book - The Formula for Building Great Volunteer Teams. Check it out at this link.