Episode #085 – BIG Volunteer Goals for 2024 – Four Examples
Tobi: Welcome to the Volunteer Nation podcast, bringing you practical tips and big ideas on how to build, grow, and scale volunteer talent. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and if you rely on volunteers to fuel your charity, cause, membership, or movement, I made this podcast just for you.
Hey everybody, Tobi Johnson here, your host of Volunteer Nation, and I am very excited to be here to talk about setting big volunteer goals for 2024. And I’m going to give you a couple of examples, actually four examples.
This is sort of a sequel to VisionWeek. Last week we wrapped up our five-day strategic planning workshop. Every day we were doing live sessions except Wednesday, which was a catch-up day.
And our VisionWeek Bootcampers were working through their strategic plans. And one of the places that folks were getting stuck was establishing their big volunteer goals. And so, I want to talk a little bit about that and give you some more examples.
So, if you happen to be one of those VisionWeek Bootcampers and you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m not sure my goals are on point.” This will give you a lot more specific information, a few more examples. I didn’t give a ton of examples, although we did do some real world working through folks, plans, sharing our screens in our two Q&A sessions.
So, if you registered and attended VisionWeek or weren’t able to attend VisionWeek and didn’t take advantage of those Q&A sessions, those replays are posted inside the pop-up community, and you’ll see some advising about strategic plans of some of your fellow Bootcampers.
But be that as it may, I thought it would also be a great idea to just talk about goal setting in general. And whether or not you enrolled in VisionWeek and participated, you can still get value because it’s that time of year where we’re setting our goals for the coming year. And it is an area that we need to build competency and confidence around.
One of my big takeaways from VisionWeek this year was really that planning is so essential for what we do as leaders of volunteers and volunteer-involving organizations, but it’s not something that we get a lot of training on. It’s not something we’re necessarily encouraged to do, and we’re definitely often not even supported or provided the right information, AKA. what are the larger organizational goals we need to know about because we are resourcing. human beings to help meet those goals at an organizational level. So, it’s really vital that we are included in discussions about our overall agency priorities. You know, we supply the human resources to reach some of them.
So, at the very sort of essential baseline level, this was something I learned from VisionWeek, both this year and last year, that some leaders of volunteers were get having a hard time getting their hands on the strategic plans from their organizations.
So, if you’re a leader of an organization, just make sure that your volunteer coordinator, volunteer manager understands or is given that strategic plan so that they can do their own planning so that their goals can roll up to your goals. So, it’s just really important.
Now, folks might also wonder, well, do I really need to plan? You know, it’s planning for me. Now, our VisionWeek Bootcampers know that planning is important, otherwise they wouldn’t have enrolled in VisionWeek. But for those of you who are listening who didn’t attend VisionWeek, let me give you some symptoms that I see in volunteer involving organizations when there’s a lack of planning.
Here’s one, as a staff member, you feel like life is happening to you, not for you. We talked a lot about this in VisionWeek. Is life happening to you or for you? If you feel like you are at the beck and call of everybody else, then there is probably a lack of planning around volunteer engagement. If there’s confusion about priorities of what a volunteer manager or volunteer coordinator should be working on and what has top billing and where their precious time should be deployed first.
If there’s a misunderstanding about that, then there’s probably not a solid enough plan in place. If it’s unclear to the organization what impact actually looks like, what does impact look like? And if folks are at a loss as to what types of impact volunteers are making, then there is probably a lack of a strategic plan in place for volunteer involvement.
If you feel like everything is on your plate as a volunteer coordinator and you are unable to delegate out to others, then there is probably a lack of planning in place. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, there’s probably a lack of planning in place. If you spend more time working in your program, putting out fires, Versus working on your program to develop and improve it, then there’s probably a lack of planning. And if you’ve lost your mojo and enthusiasm for the job, there is probably a lack of planning going on.
So, I hear a lot of these issues and challenges for leaders of volunteers when I’m coaching and training and out in world doing public speaking, talking to people. Whenever I hear these things, I think, yeah, they probably don’t have an annual strategic plan for volunteer engagement because that can do a lot to prevent some of these things happening.
Now does it, is it a magic wand? Can it prevent everything? No, but we have a better handle, a better grip on our year and can say no to some things and yes to other things, with full justification, if we have a plan in place.
One of my biggest takeaways during VisionWeek was that we need more practice planning as a sector, as a volunteer sector. There’s not enough skillset. We have got to get confident about this. This is so important. It’s so essential to what we do that we need more practice.
And we heard from some of our VisionWeek Bootcampers who had been last year and this was their second year of vision week. We’ve offered it for two years in a row. We’ll probably offer it again next winter as well or late fall. And the folks who had been around the second time, many of them expressed how they felt even more confident this time around that they had really started to build their skillset and it was starting to click and it was starting to gel, and it was getting easier.
So, we know that this takes practice. It’s not a one and done. So, for those of you who participated in VisionWeek last week, just take heart in that, that it will get easier as time goes on. You will grow. You know, as I said during Vision Week, growth doesn’t happen without a little pain. It’s just the way it is. We have to stretch a little to grow.
So, let’s talk about some of those big volunteer goals for 2024. And I want to give you a framework for what I mean by BIG goal. I also want to give you some examples of BIG goals. Now, again, whether you participated in VisionWeek or not, this information is still valuable. You can still set goals.
It’s not too late to set goals for 2024. And you want to make sure your volunteer goals are focused. And as I mentioned during VisionWeek, you don’t want to have more than three to five. If you have any more than that, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. It’s very hard to do more than five big goals.
And I’m going to share what these are. I’m going to share four examples so you can see what they are. But if you want to know about my basic strategic planning process, the goal setting piece is part of the set stage, but this is a three-step process. of Ready, Set, Go. If you check out Volunteer Nation episode 34, you can learn more about strategic planning.
So, your nonprofit strategic planning for volunteers, what to include. A couple of weeks ago, I also did a strategic planning session; think it was episode 83, but don’t quote me on that. I think it was episode 83 where I talk again about strategic planning, but just scroll in your podcast player and you can find that one. It was recent.
So, you can look, check out both of those episodes and really, and I’ll post it in the show notes as well as the other episode. So, you can listen to both of those and get a little bit more background on my strategic planning process, but it really is three simple steps. Ready, which is envisioning a bold future. Set, which is planning your strategy, which is where we do our goal setting. And Go, when you’re implementing your strategy.
So today we’re going to really focus on goal setting, which is part of that set. That’s step two. And when I say BIG goals, it’s an acronym of capital B, capital I, capital G, your BIG goals.
And what I mean by BIG goals is Brave. So Brave, you’re taking calculated risks that can open up possibilities versus keeping it safe and doing what you’ve always done. Also taking a stand for what is right and fair. So, people really want to get behind someone who shows bravery. So, when our goals aren’t just our sort of normal, everyday, boring goals, when they’re brave, people are more likely to help you achieve them.
The I in big is for Insightful. It’s based on a true analysis of your current situation and best practices to solve the challenges you face versus based on pet projects and personal opinions. This goal, this Insightful characterization of a BIG goal also offers a new and better way of thinking. And so, your goals are set sort of based on your analysis of where you’re at right now.
So, in the first phase of our strategic planning process in ready, we do a little bit of that analysis, and we did that on day one of VisionWeek last week. So, in, you know, our goals need to be for them to be BIG. They need to be Brave. They need to be Insightful and based on data. And then they need to be Galvanizing so that they inspire others in a way that provokes action or effort.
When you speak of the goal, people’s eyes light up and they immediately want to help. So, when you’re talking about your goals, you can start to test them out and see what people’s responses to, when you start saying, we’re thinking about having this goal, what do you think? And if you see people’s body language change. Their eyes light up, you know it’s an inspirational goal.
So, as you’re building your strategic plan and your volunteer goals for 2024, just make sure that if they’re not big yet, Brave, Insightful, and Galvanizing, revisit and rework that goal until it is. Because remember, your strategic plan and your volunteer goals are also a communications tool to enlist support, whether it’s from your coworkers, leadership, or volunteers.
After the break, we’re going to talk a little bit more about some examples of what BIG goals look like. So, we’ll take a pause for a quick break from my tips for setting big volunteer goals. And after the break, we’ll be back, and I’ll give you four examples along with some copywriting. So, you can actually go to the transcript of this podcast and actually see how they’re written out.
So don’t worry about scribbling down everything. You can go to the transcript page and look at how these are written out. All right. I’ll be right back when we’ll, and we’ll talk about setting big volunteer goals for 2024. So don’t go anywhere.
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Okay. We’re back with our discussion on my top tips for setting BIG volunteer goals for 2024. You’ll remember that before the break, I talked about what BIG stands for. Big, capital B, capital I, capital G stands for Brave, Insightful, and Galvanizing.
So, let’s look at four examples of BIG goals. So, one BIG goal might be to boost volunteer capacity. Now, that in and of itself is not BIG. It doesn’t feel Brave, Insightful, or Galvanizing.
But once I share with you the whole goal, you’ll start to see why it is. So, if it’s around boosting volunteer capacity, our goal might be stated this way. Increase the number of active volunteers by 20 percent over the next year through targeted recruitment efforts, such as outreach events, online campaigns, and partnerships with local community organizations, so that every department has sufficient support to deliver exceptional service to clients.
So, the galvanizing piece is really we can add a so that, so we talk about what impact that goal will have of certainly we’ll have more volunteers, but what’s the bigger impact? Why do we want to have more volunteers, right?
And in this case, we want to make sure each department is fully staffed so that they can deliver the best service possible. So that gives us sort of that galvanizing when we add “so that” we also have a number with this goal, increasing active volunteers by 20 percent. So, we know this is an insightful goal because, Hey, you know what? Last year we had X number of volunteers.
So, we know what we need to, what the gap is and what we need to build to get to where we have full capacity. And it’s Insightful, or I’m sorry, Brave because we’re trying new things out. We’re trying outreach events, online campaigns, and partnerships. So, that’s what makes boosting volunteer capacity and more specifically the goal I just read a BIG goal.
Also, if you’re interested in more on recruitment strategies and gaining some maybe insights into strategies you haven’t tried yet, you might check out Volunteer Nation episode 59 where I talk about six must have strategies to recruit volunteers using your website and I’ll link to that.
All right let’s look at our second example of a big volunteer goal. So, when we’re figuring out volunteer goals, often we want to improve the volunteer experience, right? So, to improve the volunteer experience, here’s a goal you might consider. Increase annual retention rates by 15 percent and decrease monthly churn rates by 3 percent. So that’s how many of your total volunteers leave, what percentage leave and stop their active service each month through an improved onboarding process and touch points and assessing satisfaction of volunteers at 30-, 60- and 90-day marks so that more time is spent on supporting existing volunteers and less on recruiting and preparing new volunteers.
So, we’re spending time, we’re freeing up time, so that we spend more time improving that volunteer experience, and the more satisfied volunteers are, the more likely they’re going to stay, and the less new volunteers we need to recruit, and spend time doing that recruitment. So, that makes it a BIG goal, right? We have a number, so it’s Insightful. It’s Galvanizing because we have a reason why we’re doing this, and it is also Brave because we are really going after improving that experience and gathering data to know how well we’re doing. So, we’re being honest with ourselves. We’re using data to tell us whether or not our volunteers are happy and where we can make improvements. So that’s what makes that Brave.
You can also check out Volunteer Nation episode 62. Where I talk about 10 ways to create an exceptional volunteer experience. So, if you’re wondering, you know, I do want to improve the volunteer experience, but I’m not sure which strategies I want to use.
Now as I’m giving you these examples of volunteer goals, you’ll see some strategies embedded in the larger goal. So, if you’re a VisionWeek Bootcamper, remember in our strategic plan, we have our goals, our objectives, and our activities. So, when I say we’re going to improve the onboarding process and touch points, that could be an objective or two objectives, right?
Assessing satisfaction could be another objective under this big goal. Okay? So, you see how I’m kind of hinting at. What I will include as a set of objectives under that larger goal. Awesome. Let’s talk about another way to look at volunteer goals.
This example is about technology. Integrating new technology to free up time for high impact work. So, the goal more specifically stated, Would be reduced staff time spent on weekly repeated admin tasks by 25 percent by implementing technology solutions to streamline volunteer management processes, such as an online scheduling system, a centralized communication platform and a volunteer database so that we have a clear real time picture of volunteer outcomes and activities.
So, you can see that so that is giving us that Galvanizing, wouldn’t it be great if we had real time picture? Wouldn’t it be great if we could say, yes, right now we have X number of active volunteers. Now it’s Insightful because we know that we want to reduce staff admin time. 25 percent is a lot. That’s going to free up over eight hours of your work. It’s going to free up 10 hours of a 40-hour work week. That time could be deployed for more effective work relationship building with volunteers or, for example, building partnerships in the community. Imagine what you could do with that extra 10 hours.
So, it’s Insightful because of that. It’s also. Brave because we’re not only using tech for one thing, like to process volunteer applications, but we’re using it for all kinds of things, streamlining, scheduling, communication. So that makes it Brave. We’re looking at a broad use of technology.
Now, for many of you, when you’re thinking about your volunteer goals for 2024, you may be thinking about bringing on new tech and using new technology tools. You may be onboarding a new volunteer management system. But what makes this goal BIG?
Is that you’re specific about the why, it’s that you’re not bringing on technology to have new technology, you’re bringing on technology to be more effective to have more actionable data and to save time if your technology is not doing one of those two things or both of those things hopefully. Then, you have to question whether or not the investment makes sense.
Usually if it’s good tech, the investment will make sense because nowadays technology, our tools are pretty reasonably priced. And so, it makes sense to be able to redeploy those hours that are spent, for example, hand typing in volunteer names and contact information into an Excel spreadsheet. That is not a smart use of tech, is it? So, we want to free up that time. So that’s my goal.
My BIG volunteer goal number four, I’ve got one more example for you. I hope this is helping you think through your volunteer goals for 2024 in a very specific way. So, it’s a little more punchy, so that people can get behind it.
You know, I don’t like any kind of goal. I like BIG goals, right? Brave, Insightful, and Galvanizing. All right, let’s look at this final example, upgrade recognition and appreciation strategy. So that’s the area that the goal we’re looking at.
So, the example would be to establish a robust 360-degree volunteer recognition program that includes both formal recognition programs to acknowledge the impact of volunteers and informal personal expressions of gratitude to foster a culture of appreciation so that every volunteer feels like a million bucks when they walk through our doors.
Now, I didn’t make that up, one of my volunteer recruitment accelerator clients, one of the Executive Director for the program I was working with, she said that when we first had our first discovery call, she said, I want every volunteer that walks through our doors to feel like a million bucks.
And I said, you’re talking to the right lady. I am totally in for that. Isn’t that a Brave goal? Right? So, remember, we’re looking at Brave, Insightful, and Galvanizing. This is Brave because we are establishing a 360-degree volunteer recognition program that includes not only the volunteer coordinator, but all staff involved in that. It’s Insightful because we know that both formal and informal recognition is important, and it is Galvanizing because we know what our ultimate goal is.
Our ultimate goal is to make sure volunteers feel like a million bucks. So, we can also say that you could also add in, if you want it to be even more Insightful, we generate a net promoter score of 70 across our volunteer team every year. That might be something to go for. 70 is a really good net promoter score.
If you don’t know what net promoter score is, just Google it. I’ll link to it also in the show notes, a description of what it is, you can see what that is. Okay? So those are my four BIG goals. I hope they’ve been helpful.
I hope they helped you think through, especially if you’re a VisionWeek participant. If you’re feeling stuck on those big goals or you’re wondering if they’re big enough, check out some of these ideas and compare yours.
You know, VisionWeek was a pretty amazing event. I think this year, It just was a lot of fun. We had a lot of great comments from folks who really felt like it changed the game for them. And you know, if you’re listening to this and you’re feeling a little bit of fear of missing out or FOMO. You can still build your strategic plan for volunteers and your volunteer goals for 2024. It’s not too late.
You can do that on your own. But if you become a VolunteerPro member, we’re actually archiving last week’s VisionWeek presentations, the handouts, the workbook, the strategic planning template, and all those goodies and my daily mindset moments. It’s all kinds of stuff in there that could help you, that you could do it on your own.
And if you become a member, the third week in December, we’re going to be doing a Q&A, a catalyst coaching call where all our members, anybody who wants direct input into their strategic plan, the draft of their strategic plan, we’re going to be putting things up and screen sharing, and I’m going to be giving them direct coaching on that.
So, if you want to become part of that, you can still join VolunteerPro with our exclusive member seminars and time saving resources, including our VisionWeek archive. You’ll be able to put those strong systems in place and future proof your volunteer program and build out those really big volunteer goals for 2024. If you’re interested, you can visit volpro.net/join to learn more. We’d love to see you on the inside.
So that’s it for today’s episode. Thanks for joining us at the Volunteer Nation. If you really liked it, please share it with a friend or colleague and please rate and review. It helps us reach more people and we absolutely love those five-star reviews. So just scroll down a little bit and hit that fifth star. All right, I’ll talk to you later. I’ll be here next week. Same time, same place.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review so we can reach people like you who want to improve the impact of their good cause. For more tips and notes from the show, check us out at Tobijohnson.com. We’ll see you next week for another installment of Volunteer Nation.