162 – The #1 Secret to Deep Volunteer Participation

May 15, 2025

Episode #162: The #1 Secret to Deep Volunteer Participation 

In this episode of Volunteer Nation, Tobi Johnson dives into one of the most powerful, yet often overlooked, tools for volunteer engagement: human connection. Tobi reminds us that it’s not tech tools or training manuals that drive true engagement, it’s trust, belonging, and meaningful relationships.

Tobi unpacks why emotional closeness matters in volunteerism and shares six practical ways to cultivate connection, from hosting informal social gatherings to designing team-based roles, co-creating shared identity, and even rethinking your forms and onboarding processes.

You’ll also hear personal reflections and actionable tips to help you upgrade your volunteer program and create a more connected, motivated, and mission-aligned community!

Volunteer Participation – Episode Highlights

• [01:32] – The Secret to Deep Volunteer Participation
• [05:00] – Why Connection Matters
• [07:00] – A Message for High-Achievers
• [09:00] – What Does Connection Really Mean?
• [15:00] – Connection Beyond Face-to-Face
• [17:00] – Host Regular Social Gatherings
• [19:45] – Team-Based Assignments
• [21:45] – Facilitate Storytelling
• [26:00] – Create a Shared Identity
• [28:00] – Facilitate Debrief Sessions
• [32:00] – Refine Paperwork & Processes (The surprising one!)

Helpful Links

• Volunteer Management Progress Report  
• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #138 – Building Community in an Uncertain (and Sometimes Scary) World  

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #162 Transcript: The #1 Secret to Deep Volunteer Participation 

Tobi: Hey, everybody, I am in the best mood today. I am sitting here. In my house in western Washington near the Hood Canal, looking out at a giant boulder in our front yard. It’s half covered, but it’s granite. It’s beautiful. I’m looking around at the green trees. I’m looking at the blue sky. Yes, we have blue sky for multiple days in western Washington. 

It’s amazing. I’m just so happy to be back in my home state for the summer. Just enjoying our five acres and lots of work to do around here for sure, but just really enjoying it. So, I hope your summer plans are kicking off to do something really fun, to take some time to rest, recuperate, and maybe meet with some friends and go to some conferences. 

So, I’ve got lots going this summer, but I just am just having a great day. Just having a great day. So, I just thought I’d share that today. I want to talk about the number one secret to deep volunteer participation, we might think it has to do with better training, might be recruiting the right job, volunteers for the job, it might be. 

Are we using the right technology? All that management stuff. And I’m going to argue that that is not the number one secret to deep volunteer participation. There’s another reason people get involved, stay involved, volunteer more, want to help out more. And enjoy their volunteering more, honestly. So today we’re diving into something that’s at the heart of any impactful effort, volunteer participation, and without this deep collective effort to the task, we will often get lackluster support. 

When people are not participating, we are generally not realizing the impact we want, so it’s important, but what is the catalyst for deep participation? Is it technology? Is it. Having the right training. Is it having the right people for the right roles? Yes, all those things are important, but today I’m going to argue that there is something else that is the secret sauce. 

There’s something that sparks participation and collective effort more than anything else. I’m wondering if you know what I’m going to say. Think about it for a minute. What is it? What is she talking about? Well. It’s connection, human connection, both between volunteers and between volunteers and staff. I’ve seen it a million times and I’ve also experienced it in my own life. 

Think about a time where you didn’t know someone very well. And after you spent time with them, you began to trust them more. Maybe it’s somebody you’ve worked with, maybe somebody you’ve collaborated with. Maybe it’s somebody you’ve never even met in person. And the more you talk with them and the more you get to know them, the more you want to work with them, and the more your collaboration feels easier. 

Now, it’s not always the case. Sometimes people are not on their best behavior, but with volunteers. For the most part, they want to collaborate with other people, and when we can foster connection between employees, connection between volunteers, connection between employees and volunteers, when there’s a culture of connection, when we know each other, when we become friends, more impact is made. 

Connection is the X factor in volunteer impact. I know as leaders of volunteers, we’re often thinking about all the other human resources processes we need to work about, think about, and work on. But I’m telling you right now, it’s connection. Think about it. When are you more willing to work hard? Not when you feel resentful of other people, not when you feel like you’re not in it to win it as much as they are or they’re not in it to win it as much as you are. 

It’s not when we feel like people are looking down on us or think about us differently or don’t get us when there’s no connection. We’re not really into it that much. If you think about it. This is something. That we’re hardwired to do as human beings. It is something we must be, must have in our lives, connection with other human beings. 

If we didn’t, we would not have survived. On this planet. If you think about all of the, the mental health issues that happen when people were in lockdown during COVID, so much mental health challenges and part of it was because people couldn’t socialize with other people. It is super important now. 

Some of you may be like me, type A all the way, really focused on achievement, really focused on tasks, really focused on getting things done. I remember how I was as an early leader, I. And I remember my boss telling me, look, Tobi, you’ve got to understand it’s all about relationships. And I would just look at her and go, I have no idea what you’re talking about. 

I must get this work done. I have a to-do list. And if you’re a person like me that’s driven to achieve. It’s something I’m working on. I’m trying to be in recovery on this, but you know, hey, I like to achieve. I like to celebrate wins. I like to achieve wins, but we can’t do that at the expense of connecting with other people. 

So, if you’re that kind of person, this episode is especially for you. Especially for you. Now, you may be that person who loves to interact with other people and build connections. So maybe what I’m going to share today might be something you already know. I. And this, this may be something you’re like, what is she sharing? 

She’s sharing things that are so obvious. But I’m going to tell you, I have a list of six ways to build connection, to increase volunteer participation. And I know one absolutely will surprise everyone. And it’s the last one I’m going to share. It will surprise you. You’ll be saying to yourself, what? So, hold on to that one. 

I’m not going to tell you what it is right now, but it will surprise you because it’s never thought of as something that builds connection. I’m going to hold that one. But, you know, connection, it’s where impact is made. When there is connection, more impact is made when there is less. Connection, less impact is made. 

How do we get into flow with other people? Well, we have teamwork. We do that through teamwork. We know we have good teamwork when we’re in flow with other people. But why does teamwork happen? Why do we get together and work in flow with one another? Because we feel connected. We feel connected, and I want to really tease this apart a little bit about what does it mean to feel connected. 

I have felt connected to a wide range of people, even people that didn’t even speak the same language as me. I’ve traveled around the world quite a bit often on my own and. I used to travel a lot in Latin America, and I speak Spanish, so that wasn’t so rough, and I felt connected to people. But I’ve been in other countries where you’re just gesturing to try to figure out if you can connect with somebody, but you can feel a sense of strong connection. 

You can build strong connection with people who are far flung from you Remote. I remember my husband and I when we first met, we met online. We formed a very strong bond on the phone. Old school, old school, month, month or two of talking on the phone before we ever met in person. And so strong bonds can be formed between people who are very different from one another, and people who are not even in the same room. 

So, I think we can expand our ideas of connection and what’s possible with our volunteers in terms of connection. But you know, feeling connected to another human means, experiencing a sense of emotional closeness. So this is about emotion. That’s what I’m saying. When you’re type A all the way emotion gets put on the back burner. 

Because you’ve got things to do. Right? Well, it’s, as my old boss told me, it’s all about relationships. We feel connected. To another human being. When we feel there’s mutual understanding, you get me, and I get you. Now, it doesn’t mean we agree on everything, but it means I understand who you are and a sense of belonging that we belong to something together. 

Now volunteers – we want them to feel like they belong to our volunteer teams, that they belong to one another, that, not that they belong to our organization. That’s not what I’m saying, but that people feel like they are welcomed. If people feel connected, they feel seen and accepted for who they are seen and accepted for who they are. 

What a gift. In today’s world, unconditional love. Or at least like I remember my grandmother gave me unconditional love my whole life, and it has made me who I am today. I could not be here today without my grandmother’s unconditional love. It did not matter what I did. I could come home with hot pink hair and visit my grandmother, and she wouldn’t say a thing. 

I remember she saw me and accepted me exactly how I was, and it gave me so much confidence as a young woman. The other thing we, when we feel connected, we feel that our presence matters to someone else. And in the case of volunteers, that their presence matters to the people they’re serving, and to their fellow volunteers, to staff, and to the organization. 

Now, I know in some organizations, staff do not make volunteers feel welcome. In fact, sometimes they’re resistant to volunteers. So, if volunteers don’t feel like their presence matters, they don’t feel connected, and then they don’t stay another way that human beings feel connected, it means that there’s mutual trust and care between you. 

Again, we’re not necessarily agreeing on everything, but we care about what happens to one another. If someone doesn’t show for up for a shift and unexpectedly, people ask what happened? Are they okay? Right. I. Finally, feeling connected to another human being means that you are not alone in your thoughts, feelings, or experiences. 

There are universal human experiences because there’s only so many emotions. Think about the wonder that we see when we look at nature. That is a universal human experience. Think about feeling shame. That is a universal human experience, anger or resentful, universal human experience. There are so many things that bring us together. 

As human beings, we are more alike than different, and so when we feel connected to people, we feel like that we have something shared, something shared between us, and that something shared could be. Something wild and crazy, like if you’ve ever done that team building exercise where you go around the room and tell people something that’s, people wouldn’t know about you by looking at you. 

I did this, I was speaking at a, a state Bar Association conference a few weeks ago, and I was at the dinner the night before and we were at a table and none of us knew. Well, some of the volunteers knew each other, but I didn’t know anybody, and we did this, and it was amazing. People, you know, what connection would I have with attorneys? 

I’m a social service, I’m a volunteer person, but of course they’re volunteer leaders. So, there’s lots of connection there. But also, I said, well, I used to be a second-degree brown belt in judo. People were blown away. Like, wait a minute, I do martial arts as well. You know, I said, I don’t do it. Now I’m a woman of a certain age. 

I’m not, some women do, though. My sensei used to do it, do judo into her eighties and nineties. Of course, she wasn’t throwing people then, but anyway. So, connections can be made. We are not alone. We have the shared experience of our own mortality. We have the shared experience of family, of some kind, whether it’s the chosen family of our friends or the family we’re born with. 

So, there’s all kinds of experience. The, the shared human experience of love, these are all shared. So again, we’re more alike than different. I. At its core, human connection is really about shared humanity, so it doesn’t require constant interaction or deep intimacy either. Sometimes it can, connection can happen in a single meaningful conversation or a shared. 

Joke that we both get, or a moment of empathy, someone helping you, someone reaching out. That’s shared connection. Also shows up in physical cues like eye contact or touch. If you ever meet me, I generally, I’m a hugger. I. I like to hug people. That’s how I connect with people. But I’m pretty wary becauseI know some people don’t like to hug, but that’s how I connect. 

It can be emotional resonance, like feeling understood or comforted. Many of us, it’s a shared human condition to have lost someone we love or have loved. That’s a shared human condition, and it’s something we can all understand in one another, and actions also, connection can show up in actions like showing up for someone or being listened to without judgment, active listening, that that can bring about connection. 

Connection not only impacts volunteer productivity, but it also improves community culture, volunteer motivation, and of course ultimately volunteer retention. People want to be around because they feel like they belong. So, I want to explore in this podcast six ways to foster deeper connection, and then by doing that deepening volunteer participation, again, both between volunteers, between staff, between volunteers and staff. 

This is human connection, doesn’t matter your role in the organization, and this isn’t some woo woo nice to have strategy. As I said, I had to learn this one the hard way. As a leader. I had people revolting because I just thought I was too cold. Believe it or not, people are like, you’re not a cold person. 

Well, you don’t know when I’m Type A all the way I can be right. But. I’ve learned my lessons, right? Take time to get to know people so it’s not some building. Connection is not some woo woo, nice to have. It’s a management function. It’s essential to building an exceptional volunteer experience, and you who are listening are the architect of this experience. 

It’s your responsibility. We think volunteers are here to help. Create the culture. No. We are here to create the culture because it’s our organization and our mission that we are trying to fuel through volunteer talent. So, it’s our responsibility. 

Let’s talk about these six different ways. A first way to deepen volunteer participation through connection is to host regular social gatherings. So simple social rituals can make people feel part of something bigger than just the task at hand. So just breaking bread together, doing potlucks, et cetera. It’s also a chance to uncover how we are more alike than different. The more time, the more trust. So, if people are being kind to one another, when we spend time together, we start to uncover things that we didn’t realize. 

We start these chitchat conversations. It’s a big thing. When I moved to the south, I had to learn how to chitchat. It wasn’t in my DNA. I’m from the Pacific Northwest. We’re reserved up here in the south. No, when you’re mowing your lawn and your neighbor’s mowing your lawn, you. Shut your lawn mower off and you walk over to the side of your yard, and you have a chitchat. 

That’s just how it works. That conversation and those connections are important to that culture. So, you could host a monthly volunteer cafe with coffee and pastries before shift starts or. We do with our volunteer opportunity or our volunteer experiences with master Gardeners when we have our monthly meetings, folks have 30 minutes ahead of time where people bring potluck and people have a chance to just commiserate People, bring seed packets, people bring plant starts, all kinds of things. 

Books, people are sharing and trading right before the actual business meeting or training. So again, it’s a chance for us to have time to talk where we can uncover hidden commonalities, such as shared experiences or backgrounds. Now, if you’re managing remote volunteers, you may be thinking to yourself, there’s no way we can’t do that. 

Well, you can foster online community spaces casual connection in digital spaces that sustains bonds. If you have in-person meet meetups. Doing virtual and in-person is. Even more creates even more connection. But you could create a closed Facebook group or Slack channel and a facilitate fun stuff like sharing memes, questions win, et cetera. 

So, connection can happen through social. We are social people. We are social animals. That’s because we need con connection, and that connection happens in social gatherings. All right, let’s look at number two to deepen volunteer participation through connection team-based assignments. When people work alone, they feel alone. 

Now some of us, like a little bit of introvert verdict time. I love working out of my home office and spending time. It helps me stay focused. I can stay calm and not be interrupted. I like it, but. I also love training and being in a ballroom with a bunch of people and talking to people at break and feeling the energy of the audience as I’m walking on stage and sharing my tips and strategies. 

So, I like both. But if you have team-based assignments, you can have shared tasks that naturally lead to conversation, coordination, and often friendship. I’ve been a master gardener now for almost 10 years, and I have friends in master gardeners that I’ve known since day one, practically. So, a decade of friendship just based on volunteering. 

You can assign volunteers and pairs or small teams for small things like events set up. Front desk shifts, cleanup crews, or just make it a habit to have buddy systems when new volunteers join. Just give people the opportunity to see somebody more than once so that, so they can start to form bonds. All right, number three. 

The third way to deepen volunteer participation through connection is to facilitate storytelling. When someone shares their story, it really invites empathy and reveals common, not only common values and at in any organization, there may be disparate values, but there’s always some core value because think about your missions. 

They’re driven by core values of you in Master Gardener. It’s the core values of evidence-based gardening, the core values of that if we all garden, the world is a better place, that gardening is healthy and good for us. That the planet needs a little TLC, that we want to make sure that we’re good to the land. 

So, the land can be good to us. There are values there and it could be that many of us volunteering may not vote the same way, but there are shared values. There are always in every organization. So, it gives people an opportunity when you’re storytelling to talk about why. They’re volunteering, so you can invite volunteers to share their why in a team meeting or a kickoff to an orientation training or feature them in a blog or a podcast episode and share your why as well. 

It’s important for people to share why they support the organization. Why is it that a particular organization is important. Why do we work there? I remember working many in, in a, in a few different youth organizations and we used to always joke about we were working through our family of origin issues when we were attracted to working with teens and young adults. 

I think that’s probably true. Let’s talk about some other ways to build connection, but I’m going to do that right after the break. So, let’s pause for a quick break and when I return, I’ll share more tips on how to deepen volunteer participation by building connections. And I’m going to share as number six, the one you will never believe that there’s any connection between the one that I think is one we overlook time and time again. 

I’m not going to tell you what it is though. You’ll have to join me after the break.  

Volunteer Pro Impact Lab 

Hey, are you looking to upgrade and modernize your volunteer program? Or maybe you’re building one from scratch and you’re just not sure where to start. If so, we’ve got the perfect resource for you. The Volunteer Pro Impact Lab, having built several direct service programs from the ground up. 

I know that it doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a clear process that takes careful attention with a focus on impact. In the end, you need a system in place that’s clear, standardized, efficient, and that gets results. In addition, and maybe this is the most important, you need a volunteer program design that directly contributes to your organization’s most critical goals. 

That’s where the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab comes in. When it comes to effective volunteer engagement, our bespoke volunteer strategy Success path model, which is the heart of our resources and strategic advising, will help you transform your volunteer strategy from fundamental. To a fully mature what’s working now approach and all in less time with our online assessment, you’ll quickly gain clarity on precisely where to focus your efforts, and we’ll provide recommendations for the exact steps needed. 

For sustainable growth, regardless of how large or small your organization is or what your cause impact area or focus is. Our program development and implementation support model will help you build a strong foundation, so volunteerism can thrive at your good cause. If you’re interested in learning more, go to volpro.net/joinand we’ll share how to get started and what’s involved. 

Okay, we’re back with more tips on how to boost volunteer participation by building connections. Remember, it is the number one secret to deep volunteer participation. It is human connection. Human connection building a shared experience together, and there are universal human experiences. 

They abound. They abound. There are so many things that we share. We are more alike than different in the world. Now, some people experience some things more than others, some positive, some negative. Our experiences are not exactly equal or even equitable all the time, but there are things that we share, human experiences that we share, that we can connect around with anyone. 

Anyone, well, almost anyone. I think a sociopath might be hard to connect with just saying. Anyway, let’s get into this. Okay. Number four, way to deepen volunteer participation through connection. Create a shared identity. This is such a way to c, create a, build a sense of family among volunteers by defining how the group operates and supports each other in solidarity. 

So how do we do our, do so people like us do things like this. You can build teams by asking the group to name itself. Like let’s say the Saturday Swifties, if you’re a Taylor Swift fan, you probably identify as a swifty and you’re part of a community around the world, right? So, you could make t-shirts for your team if they decide they have a specific name. 

But it gives everybody a shared identity to be part of. And as a leader, if you’re the team leader, if you’re a volunteer or a paid staff person, you need to model what it’s like to be that contributing member of that shared identity. So, people like us do things like this. So, you can’t create shared identity with a team and not be part of that shared identity. 

Standing outside of it won’t work. You’ve got to be in it to win it, creating a shared identity because the identity becomes more important than the individual differences between us. So, it’s fun to create teams, team names, t-shirts or name tags or headbands or whatever we wear. If you think about some of these reality shows where you go out on the island and you’re, you’re with your group and, and it’s a competition. 

Last, last person standing. And they have bandanas, they wear. Yeah, that’s a shared identity. Like anybody with this bandana, this color bandana, you’re part of our team. You’re part of our identity until you’re not, until you get sent home off the island. All right, let’s look at number five to deepen volunteer participation through connection. 

Facilitate debrief sessions. Now this is about becoming vulnerable, so after shifts you can create. Conduct debriefs sessions to thank volunteers, have them thank each other, have them give shout outs to each other about what they appreciate about other folks, and share what that experience meant to them. 

So, this could be a one-time connection. What did you like most about your volunteering? What. You know, even if you’re doing an individual day of service, this is a way for volunteers to connect with one another. You can also host team huddles at the ends of shifts. This is particularly helpful to build bonds of mutual support for volunteers who work in very intense situations. 

For example, I used to. Run an employment and training program within an organization that worked with youth who were unhoused in San Francisco, and there were plenty of times where it got intense because kids on the street stuff happens. It’s not happy stuff; it’s not comfortable stuff. It’s sometimes very disturbing. 

People are getting taken advantage of people are getting hurt. Lots of things happen. It’s not, and you know, I would work with young people and be doing intake sessions and, and I remember this young lady said to me, this is not a nice place. And I said, no, San Francisco is not a nice place if you’re living on the streets. 

It’s not. It’s a pretty predatory town, and if you’ve vacationed and visited San Francisco as a tourist, you’re thinking, what can’t be that way? This is in the early nineties where I was saying this, not now. Even when we think about debriefs, volunteers are not. Really equipped, unless they’ve done social work in the past or they’ve been trained well on professional boundary setting, they often feel the feels of the folks that they’re supporting in direct service context. 

And so, these debrief sessions, whether volunteers are working on a crisis line or they’re working in direct service, they’re so often seeing people suffering and they take it home with them and we’ve got to make sure that they don’t. As much as possible. Now human beings connect with one another. Sometimes we connect with people irrationally just because. 

We have no idea why we make connections with certain people, but it sometime le leads to us coloring outside the lines or breaking boundaries, and so we’ve got to help our volunteers debrief what’s going on for them emotionally. Sometimes it can be guilt, sometimes it can be grief. Sometimes it can be a triggered emotion from their past life. 

There are all kinds of emotions that get triggered. Human beings have mirror neurons in our brains, and we can feel what other people are feeling when they’re in front of us. That’s why we can go to the movie and watch on one dimensional silver screen and cry and feel emotion because we have these mirror neurons. 

If we can help people debrief a particularly emotional. And also, I think debriefing can also help us address and educate anyone who has sort of a savior complex. Like, I’m here to save people. We also know that’s not, that’s not healthy either. Not for the volunteer and certainly not for the people that they’re supporting or helping. 

We’re not here people. We are here to provide resources. People come. Our clients come and make their own decisions about what they’re going to do with their lives and whether they’re going to take us up on any resources We have debriefing. Because we’re sharing vulnerabilities and feelings, they need to be facilitated. 

Well, they need to have a safe space for people to talk. But it is also super healthy to do this with volunteers, and it creates very close connections. Because people don’t know what other people are feeling. And then when they start talking, they realize, oh, I’m not the only one. I’m not alone. Okay. Last one I’m going to share with you, and this is the one that’s going to surprise you. 

Number sixth way to deepen volunteer participation through connection is to facilitate connection, wait for it through paperwork and processes. Everybody’s like, what? What is she saying? It’s either paperwork or people you must make a choice. I’m like you don’t. You don’t have to make a choice between paperwork and people. 

I wanted to call this out because there are ways to make or break relationships through forms and processes. Okay. I want us to think critically about this. I’m going to give you four examples of ways that processes or paperwork or the, the, the processes volunteers go through at our organizations. You see how I said that? 

Go through like it’s an onerous task. Yeah. It can feel like an onerous task. I mean, I’ll give you one example of paperwork that drives me crazy. When you go to the doctor’s office and they have five forms. And three of those forms ask for your name and address and phone number and, and maybe even insurance, and you’re like, you know what? 

How come I must fill this out five times or three times? That’s just a lack of respect for my time. Yeah, so paperwork and processes can make or break relationship. They can form connections with the person you’re asking to complete the former process. These can be online, in person, doesn’t matter. 

They can form a connection, or they can make people feel like they’re not close to you at all, and they don’t trust you. So, let’s talk about this. So, first, concise user-friendly forms. When we really work hard to streamline our processes to only collect the information that we absolutely need, and we take care to design, we’re not giving people paper forms that look like circa 1995. 

They are streamlined. Maybe we’re using technology, quick clicks, whatever they work. It lets volunteers and employees know that you respect their time. Yeah, because it’s like this is a smooth process. Thank you for this smooth process. Standardized processes as well. They avoid confusion. Everybody has to go through the same process. 

Right. It’s equitable. It’s fair. Well, it should be equitable now. I will. I’ll take a pause on a minute on equity. If we want to be truly equity with our form, equitable with our forms and processes, we’ll try to make them. To the best extent we can, accessible to everybody. And so I’m going to have a guest on in, in a next few weeks to talk about making volunteering accessible for people with disabilities. 

So, we’re going to put a pin in this conversation, but we’re going to get to it in a couple weeks. So, standardized processes, avoiding confusion, reducing the chance of miscommunication. What happens when miscommunication happens? Usually, it degrades trust because conflict and assumptions come up about the other person, what they’re thinking. 

Why did they do that? So, we must. Standardized processes. Help us a little bit in that. The other thing we can do with our forms and processes is to gather some personal preferences. So, to predict needs or even to send personalized videos like, hey, I saw in your application that you’re interested. Did in kitties and puppies. 

Well, you know what? So am I, I just adopted a little kitty. Now, you may not even be an organization that does puppies and kitties, but you can ask people about their interests. Or even when you ask people about their food sensitivities, that’s something that’s a personal preference that tells people that you’re listening and you want to know who they are. 

The fourth way to. Really have your forms and processes, make relationships is to celebrate and thank folks with every user in every form. Go through your forms and just check your tone. I. Is it demanding? Is it cold? Is it unfeeling? There are ways to rewrite some of these forms. There are ways to include a note of thanks and appreciation in every single form we ask a volunteer to fill out. 

Imagine how that can make or break. Think about when the favorite places you shop online. Are there things that they do? Kind of quirky things, fun things, the way they communicate with you that you love. Those are good examples to look at. Anytime anybody delights you in a customer service setting, pause for a minute and go. 

Is there any way we could use this to make any forms or processes with our volunteers? More relationship friendly? Right. So yes, paperwork and processes can build connections. They can also not build connections. So we’ve got to take care, right? I just wanted to also at the end, offer you one other podcast episode that might, if you’re interested in building connection, you wanna build community. 

I did an episode 138 called Building Community in an Uncertain and Sometimes Scary World.I did that episode at least six months ago, maybe a year ago, and it’s still as relevant as ever. I share a recording from our volunteer Pro Impact Lab, a monthly coaching call. We do a monthly huddle where we discuss establishing norms and rituals, offering spaces for emotional debriefing, celebrating positive team culture, acknowledging strides and inclusivity, and staying mission focused and. 

Not only do I give tips, but also some of our volunteer pro members do as well. So, it’s a great compliment to this episode. When people work in community, it can be a powerful force of change, but people don’t always feel safe, especially when we’re living in a highly divisive society and in a world, honestly, that’s filled with aggressive messaging that degrades trust. 

So, to counteract that, we really need to actively and purposefully build community ethically through our unique positions as experts in community building and community is built on a foundation of trust, and trust is built on a foundation of connection. Connection is the bedrock of everything we do. 

And when I first started as a, as a leader in nonprofits, I can tell you I didn’t understand that. It took me many years, and many lessons learned to make that happen in my life, but I understand it now. Connection is the bedrock of everything we do. And so, I hope this episode has helped you think about, it’s really about human connection and you cannot have your paperwork and processes in in order. 

You can have things be a little bit disorganized, but if people feel connected to one another, they feel like they have each other’s back. They will be more resilient and more open to weathering the storm with you while you’re figuring out how to get things more organized. So, I hope this has been helpful. 

If you liked it, I hope you share it with a friend and we love ratings and reviews, so I would love a five star rating. Just scroll down, pop that five-star rating in there. I would love that because that’s how I reach out and find new listeners. Thanks everybody. I will be here. Next week, same time, same place on the Volunteer nation. Take care, everybody.