Getting Enough Volunteers

There is a bit of an art to getting enough volunteers to do the necessary work to build a fleet or a club. The “wait until they volunteer” approach just doesn’t work, nor does the “post a notice and they will come.”

Think inertia, people at rest stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. If the mass of the person’s reluctance is large enough, then a small force won’t work. But, when it comes to volunteers, you want inertia to succumb to motion in your direction and for that motion to be sustained, the larger force can’t be negative or alienating.

The positive and inertia producing approach is “Opt-Out.” “Opt-In” means your potential volunteers have to choose to act against inertia (Opt) and choose how to participate (In). “Opt-out” means you sign them up and decide what they will do, and they then have to choose to change their assignment or date of service. Now their natural inertia is to go along.

No one wants to be told what to do, so, when you’re dealing with volunteers, the second part of the Opt-Out approach is to give those who want a specific date or assignment a chance to signup and give those who let you assign them a project the option to trade with someone else – if they arrange the trade.

Quannapowitt Yacht Club has a policy that all members have to serve on a Sunday race committee, on a major work party and at an event during the year. The rest of their volunteer hours are open to elective choice. We use the above approach for required work.

In the spring we send out an opportunity to volunteer for the specific date they prefer and then we assign. The volunteer committee advises anyone who needs to change dates how they might find someone willing to trade. As members find out how irritating this can be we expect more will choose their days rather than letting the club assign them.