So there I was, recently given the Volunteer Coordinator duties for the museum I work at until a new coordinator could be hired. I was so excited: I’ve led fellow volunteers at a number of organizations I’ve volunteered with, and at our museum I see our volunteers on a daily basis. I was pumped to take on the role of Interim Volunteer Coordinator.
But then our museum’s leadership decided it would be best to close our doors due to the spread of COVID-19 in the Seattle region. I was still trying to get my bearings of my new role – sorting out the volunteer onboarding process for our upcoming event season, understanding the previous coordinator’s tracking system, learning the minutiae of the training our docents are supposed to get – when suddenly, we were closed. No more volunteers for me to coordinate. 😞
Rather than being thankful that I could use our closure time to get caught up, I knew we had to keep our volunteers as one of our top priorities. We have 140 volunteers who contribute to the museum in a variety of ways, including event set-up and tear-down, collections and research, and nearly 40 docents who come in on a weekly basis. These people help us because they love what we do at the museum, and the majority of the 140 are dedicated volunteers who come back week after week, or for each major event throughout the year. I absolutely did not want them to feel forgotten just because we weren’t open.
With that in mind, I reframed the Volunteer Coordinator position to be responsible for three overarching objectives during the closure:
1) Keeping the volunteers updated. How do we show our volunteers that they’re important to our organizations? By keeping them informed, preferably giving them updates before the rest of the public. Prompt updates about the closure not only show that we understand their time is valuable – we want them to know as soon as possible how our schedule will affect them – but it’s that added benefit of being the first in the know as a thank you for their dedication to our organization. Plus, with how devoted so many of them are to our museum, it feels like family, and wouldn’t you want to know how your family is doing in troubled times?
2) Keeping them engaged and connected with the museum and each other. Even though our volunteers are adults who can find ways on their own to pass the time, it’s still fun to get ideas of things to do while we’re in “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” mode. For that, I created an impromptu “Reading & Viewing Recommendations” mailing the second week we were closed. Our volunteers often send me things they find online that are related to our museum or themes we cover, so once a week, I share the best 3-5 with the whole group. It’s a way for them to stay engaged with the mission of the museum, maybe gain a few tidbits they can incorporate into their tours or at events, and keeps them connected with each other. They’re loving giving and receiving recommendations, as well as reading reports about what other volunteers are doing (So-and-so is building a model airplane; so-and-so had a virtual dinner with friends, etc.). An added bonus for me is that it means I’m not always the voice of doom and gloom. At the beginning of the shutdown, they were getting so many e-mails from me saying we were going to stay closed, or this and that events had been cancelled, but once a week, they at least get one happy e-mail from me!
3) Reminding them we appreciate them and care about them as individual people. I feel like the most important thing I can do for our volunteers right now is remind them that we care about them as individuals. Now that thousands of people are getting sick from this rampant disease – and to be honest, the majority of our volunteers are in the high-risk group – I want them to know that we care about how they’re doing. Not just to know whether our group of 140 bodies will be ready when we reopen, but how each individual, as well as their family, is handling this situation. Whenever we talk about a possible reopening date, and even before we closed, I’ve reminded them that their wellbeing is far more important than whether or not we have enough docents for a shift. Each individual will be ready to come back – or not – on their own timeline, and their health, physical and mental, is most important.
What’s surprised me is that with every e-mail I send out, whether it’s an update on the closure or a list of interesting videos, I get replies thanking me for keeping them informed and staying in touch, and appreciating the well-wishes.
As we continue on through this challenging time, I’m advocating within our organization for more ways to keep our volunteers engaged with the museum and what we’re doing while the facility is closed (more on that in a later post). So far, though, I feel like I’m on the right track with keeping them connected to the museum and each other, and letting them know we value them as individual people with worries and concerns, and not just as bodies who fill positions at the museum.
This goal of appreciation and connection should go beyond the current shutdown, too. Any time our organizations are closed, whether unexpectedly or planned, we should keep our volunteers in mind and consider how we’re going to keep them engaged and feeling appreciated. If we don’t, we run the risk of alienating them and having no volunteers left when we reopen our doors.
If you’re a volunteer manager, how are you keeping your volunteers engaged while you’re currently shut down, and have you created plans for volunteers in case of future shutdowns? If you're a volunteer, how are you being kept in contact with the organization(s) you volunteer at? I’d love to hear what others are doing or planning.
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| Image from Washington State Coronavirus Response (COVID-19) website: https://coronavirus.wa.gov/ |
