171 - Practical Community Building Tips for Your Volunteer Team

July 17, 2025

Episode #171: Practical Community Building Tips for Your Volunteer Team 

In this episode of Volunteer Nation, Tobi Johnson dives into the heart of what makes a volunteer team truly thrive: community. Drawing from both personal experience and well-established sociological principles, Tobi explores five essential pillars that foster a sense of belonging and connection among volunteers and between volunteers and staff. 

This episode is a must-listen for volunteer leaders who want to create a more collaborative, motivated, and mission-driven team. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to reinvigorate your program, you’ll walk away with simple, actionable steps to strengthen your community and boost engagement. 

Community Building – Episode Highlights

  • [04:36] – The Importance of Community in Volunteer Organizations 
  • [05:31] – Five Pillars of Community Building 
  • [07:23] – Pillar 1: Membership 
  • [10:01] – Pillar 2: Influence 
  • [12:35] – Pillar 3: Integration and Fulfillment of Needs 
  • [14:37] – Break and Resource Promotion 
  • [17:46] – Pillar 4: Shared Emotional Connection 
  • [22:13] – Pillar 5: Shared Responsibility and Commitment 

Community Building – Quotes from the Episode 

“It’s amazing to me that organizations will design programs and never ask the volunteers who are on the front lines if they have ideas. Often, they are working more closely with your clients than you are. Especially if they’re delivering services. And so they are, if they’ve been around for a while, they have expertise to share.” 

“When people have a say, they have a deeper sense of responsibility to help enact that vision.” 

Helpful Links

About the Show

Nonprofit leadership author, trainer, consultant, and volunteer management expert Tobi Johnson shares weekly tips to help charities build, grow, and scale exceptional volunteer teams. Discover how your nonprofit can effectively coordinate volunteers who are reliable, equipped, and ready to help you bring about BIG change for the better.

If you’re ready to ditch the stress and harness the power of people to fuel your good work, you’re in exactly the right place!

Contact Us

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

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Episode #171 Transcript: Practical Community Building Tips for Your Volunteer Team

Tobi: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson. And today I want to talk about practical community building tips for your volunteer team. And I’m also going to include some tips on building community and a sense of community between volunteers and paid staff because that is so important in today’s world. We need our entire teams working together and we all know what being in community when it is a strong sense of community, we know what that feels like. 

I remember in the early 2000s, I went on a trip to Peru and I decided to go by myself and I flew through Lima and then spent the night in the airport and then flew on to Cusco and. Signed up for a trip hiking trip of the Inca Trail, and at the beginning of that trip, I had no idea who my fellow travelers were going to be, who the guide was going to be. 

Back then you could actually fly into Cusco, walk down this street, and there were different stalls with people selling their group trips. And nowadays you can’t do that. You’ve got to book online way ahead of time and all that. But back in the day, it wasn’t. The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu and traveling to that part of the world was still very popular, but not perhaps as popular as it is today. 

But it was a fantastic trip. I can remember one day hiking on the trip where I felt about as happy as I had ever felt in my entire life. I don’t know what it was, the energy, the beauty. The community. I don’t know what it was, but I felt so happy, and I remember that day. I actually remember saying it to myself, this is the happiest I’ve ever felt. 

And part of the contribution to that was that I was in community and felt a strong sense of community with the people I was hiking with. Now that’s sort of fascinating because we, you only hike for about five days and you’re not spending a ton of time with people. But every day we would share meals together. 

We would get to know one another. We were an international crew of people from around the world. It was only about 10 of us. And by the end of the trip, I decided to meet up with a couple of people from the trip at Lake Titty Kaka. And so, I took a bus there and we met and had fun meeting up. We went to an alpaca farm, had lots of fun. 

So, I was continuing my friendship with folks after the actual hiking part of my trip. And at the end of it all, when I was moving on to the next lake of my trip, I had to say goodbye to everybody. The people that I had met at Lake Titty, Kaka, who I had previously met through the Inca Trail, and I remember sitting in my room of my hotel and crying. 

Because I felt such a sense of loss for this community that had been built and was so strong over that period. Now, that may seem overblown, but it was a real emotion. I remember my knee, one of my knees had started hurting during that hike when we were hiking the Inca Trail and one of the people on the trail. 

Gave me some acupuncture. They were, they did acupuncture for the National Hockey team of Canada, so they knew what they were doing, but they did some acupuncture on my knee, improved my knee tremendously. We shared stories. It was just, there was just so much sharing and support during that trip with such a great group of people. 

I don’t think it was overblown that I would feel sad and a sense of loss that I wouldn’t be in that community any longer, even though it was a very short period of time. And maybe you’ve been on trips where you’ve come and built community, or you’ve been in a situation where you’ve built community in a very small space of time and then felt this deep sense of loss. So, we know that when we are in community, it’s a certain feeling we get. But have you ever taken the time to try to understand what goes into building a sense of community and how you might purposefully lean into building. Particularly when it comes to volunteers and between volunteers and paid staff. 

As I said before, a few episodes ago, I called for greater support of volunteers from all parts of volunteer fueled organizations. It was my note to executive directors. You may remember that one. If you want to check it out, it’s Volunteer Nation, episode 168. Note to nonprofit execs supporting volunteers is everyone’s job. 

Since I made that call, I want to talk about practical ways to foster collaboration. I’ve made the case that volunteering and volunteer support, well, volunteer support is everyone’s job, but I also want to talk about how we go about that and building that sense of community. So, I’m going to talk about five pillars that make up the sense of community and I’m going to give you some examples for volunteers and for volunteer staff. Community building. The concept of a sense of community is not new. People might think that’s a new concept, but it’s not. It’s foundational. In sociology and community psychology, one of the most cited frameworks is by McMillan and Chavis in 1986. 

So, this is not new. They identified at the time four key elements that make up a sense of community, but. People have expanded on this to include five pillars for today’s context, and I’m going to share five today. So, I want to share with you some community building ideas, examples and definitions to give you a sense of where you might make an impact as you build community. 

Because we talk about community building a lot. Sometimes we don’t really know what that means. We know what it feels like. We know when we feel like we’re in community, but what goes into it and at you as architects of experience, the volunteer experience, the staff experience, creating a culture within an organization takes purpose if we are not purposeful about it. 

It takes on its own shape and form, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. But if you want to deepen a sense of community, you’ve got to take that architect of experience framework and really like perspective and think, what can I do to create this sense of community? And it turns out it’s not that hard. 

So, let’s talk about how to do that. How do we create strong teamwork and morale across our organizations by building a strong sense of community? Well, the first pillar of community is membership. That means that we have a feeling of belonging and identification with the group. Now, if you think about my trip to the Inca Trail, I didn’t know anyone ahead of time. 

We didn’t all speak, although we did speak English, some of us better than others, but we came from different countries. We spoke enough English to be able to have conversation with one another because we were a very international group, so we, you don’t have to be the same as other people to feel identified with. 

Other people. So that membership feeling of belonging is not being the same as other people in the group is not a prerequisite, but what is understanding who is in or out of that group. And so, for our group was the people. The people were who were in. Our specific tour group. People in other tour groups that were hiking at the same time of us as us, were not part of our group. 

They were out of our group. Emotional safety is also important, trust and protection within the group. So not only emotional, but physical safety. If you think about, I had a friend in the group who was helping me fix my needs so I could keep hiking, personal investment. You give something of yourself to be a member of that group. 

So, we were sharing our stories and being vulnerable and having fun. Now in the context of community building examples within volunteer organizations, here are some ideas creating mixed staff and volunteer teams for projects and committees. So really putting people on equal footing within your team using inclusive language. 

So, if we call volunteers, team members or partners rather than volunteers, that’s a way to say, hey, you are part of our team, not apart from. Providing visible symbols of belonging is another way to indicate membership, like shared t-shirts, name badges or lanyards, different colored t-shirts. Even. 

Another way to build community and with this sense of membership is to invite volunteers to staff meetings and social gatherings so they feel inside the circle inside they feel like they are a member of your organization. So those are just a few examples around that first pillar of membership. Let’s talk about the second pillar of building a sense of community. 

And that community building is, the second pillar is influence. So, influence feeling that you matter to the group and the group matters to you. So, in this case, members feel empowered to make a difference. Group norms encourage participation and power sharing. So, with this, it’s about being on a level playing field. 

When you’re building community with other people, it’s hard to do so when some people have more privilege and power than others, it makes it more difficult. People don’t feel as trusting. People don’t feel as in as they are part and parcel of that team. So how do you build this sense of community using influence, a second pillar for building community? 

One is you can ask volunteers for input in program planning or service delivery and act on their suggestions. I make this recommendation often in many discussions around design. It’s amazing to me that organizations will design programs and never ask the volunteers who are on the front lines if they have ideas. 

Often, they are working more closely with your clients than you are. Especially if they’re delivering services. And so they are, if they’ve been around for a while, they have expertise to share. Second area of community building or example is giving volunteers, small leadership roles, team leader, trainer for new volunteers, et cetera. 

That’s a simple way to. Give influence to allow other people on the team to have influence. Third way is to hold regular feedback sessions where staff and volunteers co-create improvements. So, I lead a lot of journey mapping days with my consulting clients, where we will map out the volunteer experience and often, I’ll recommend that they bring volunteers along, some volunteer leaders to that session so that they can have input as well. 

And then a fourth way is to celebrate when staff adopt ideas suggested by volunteers. So, this is pointing to the fact that we are celebrating shared power, and so through influence we are. Allowing both staff and volunteers to have influence over outcomes. So that’s a second way. Now, a third way of community building. 

The third kind of pillar is integration and fulfillment of needs. The community meets member needs. So, we’ve got to make sure that our members’ needs are met. Now, we talk a lot here about volunteer satisfaction. We talk about matching volunteers with the right roles. Well, we also want to know what volunteers’ values and goals are, and within the team, is there some sense of those shared values and goals? 

Now, obviously the mission of the organization is something that folks can get around together. Also exchanging of resources. So emotional support, information, skills, or help are also an integration and fulfillment of needs. That third pillar of community building. Some specific examples might be to offer training that benefits both volunteers and employees, like trauma-informed care or conflict resolution, those kinds of things that benefit both sides. 

That’s a way of feeling that the team is integrated and it’s a need that they may need fulfilled. Celebrating successes jointly is another way highlighting shared. Wins at staff volunteer recognition events. I’ve always been a fan of integrating both staff and volunteer recognition events, especially if you’re a smaller organization that shows folks that. 

They are partners in crime Together, they are integrated. They are working towards the same solutions, and it’s a way for volunteers and staff to appreciate each other. You can also connect volunteers and staff with mentoring or peer learning opportunities and. Making sure that shifts tasks and roles match people’s skills and interests, especially our volunteers. 

We assume that when staff, paid staff apply for a role, they have an interest. But sometimes when we bring volunteers on, we’re not sure what their interests are. So those are community building examples around that third pillar of integration and fulfillment of needs, which is a requirement to build a sense of community. 

Now I want to take a, a quick break, but after the break, I’m going to share two more pillars of community building and give you more examples. I want to share also some key takeaways and some past episodes where we’ve talked about community building. So, let’s take a quick break and I’ll be right back, and I’ll talk about more pillars of community building and how we can integrate them into our volunteer fueled organizations. So don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.  

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Okay, welcome back. Let’s continue our chat about tips on community building using the five key pillars of building a sense of community. And remember, before the break we talked about, uh, number one membership as a pillar to building a sense of community so that membership is feeling of belonging and. 

Vacation with the group. The second big pillar was influencing feeling that you matter the group, and the group matters to you. The third pillar in building a sense of community is integration and fulfillment of needs. The community meets the members’ needs. The fourth pillar we’re going to talk about is shared emotional connection. 

Now, this may be one of the most obvious to most of us that we form bonds through shared history, experiences or events, and this might include celebrations, rituals, or traditions that strengthen the connection. A sense of we’ve been through this together. If you think about my trip on the to the Inca Trail, I remember our final morning we arrived in the fog at the sun gate. 

And the Sun gate is on a sort of cliff that over an outcrop that overlooks where the entirety of Machu Picchu and Hua Picchu, which is the big. A mountain, a big stone right behind the settlement of Machu Picchu. And I remember as the sun came up, it started to clear away the fog and you could see little bits of stone buildings and you could see the green terraces. 

And slowly but surely, everything revealed itself and it was such a great way to wrap up the final day of our trip together. Some of us couldn’t say goodbye, so we got down to the town below Machu Picchu and went in the mineral springs there and hung out for a little while longer. But as we were going through, you know, it was great to have that end experience, but only because we felt a sense of community with one another. 

It made that experience have so much more meaning. And I think the trail guides try to give people that experience if it’s possible. And it is often possible because that is an area that is foggy frequently in the morning. And so, we had this shared experience that we could always think about and remember together, and we could think to ourselves, we’ve been through this hike together now. 

The hike wasn’t easy. We had a couple of people. Halfway through the first day, turn around and hike back and go back to Cusco because they didn’t believe that they could make it. The altitude is difficult on your lungs. It can make you feel kind of a little bit dizzy; can make you feel fatigued. 

Of course, I got there a few days earlier and got acclimated, but it’s not an easy hike. You get up to very high altitudes, and so it’s not easy for everybody. And so, we had that sense of we’ve been through this challenging hike together. Now, if you were to do community building in your nonprofit around volunteers, here are some examples that can help create a shared emotional connection or reveal an emotional connection that people share. 

So, hosting annual picnics, volunteer appreciation parties or milestone celebrations with staff and volunteers together. That’s that really staff volunteer, team building type of activities. What happens at these activities is people can have fun together, have conversation, time for conversation, and they start to realize that they have a connection, a shared emotional connection. 

Also, you can share stories of impact that show how roles. Contributed to the success, both employee and volunteer. You pair volunteers and staff for shadow days to understand each other’s work. Remember, we’re trying to create a shared history, shared experiences to help people talk about you can, even if you pair for a shadowing day. 

You can even provide a discussion guide some things to, to ask to get to know you, and then organize small group activities like potlucks, team building games, or storytelling circles. This is another way to, to start to share emotional connections and bond. When I hiked the Inca Trail during mealtimes, we would often share stories about our lives. 

We were from all parts of the world and we had no problem coming up with stories to share one another and jokes to have. And after the first day or two, you started having shared jokes and insider jokes. So, it really is kind of fun to see how people can build a shared emotional connection just by interacting with one another. 

The fifth pillar of building a sense of community is shared responsibility and commitment. This is an expanded pillar for McMillan and Chavez’s paper in 1986. This fifth pillar wasn’t there, but it’s important for us now. It’s shared responsibility and commitment that members share responsibility for sustaining the community and act for its wellbeing. 

So, this is really a commitment to the community over the individual. So, there’s collective ownership. People step up, contribute, and care for the whole. There’s accountability members hold themselves and each other responsible for upholding community values. So, this is really about a commitment. It’s not just about, hey, we have an emotional connection. 

We understand each other. We’re getting mutual needs met. We are. Feeling like we’re in it to win it together, but it’s also that we are committed to making sure that this community is sustainable. So, community building examples might be in the volunteer context, might be co-creating a community agreement that outlines shared values and behaviors, inviting volunteers to help onboard. 

Or mentor new volunteers and share the responsibility of sustaining the team’s culture involving volunteers in strategic conversations. Ask how they see the program evolving. That’s a way when people have a say, they have a deeper sense of responsibility to help enact that vision. And recognizing and celebrating when staff and volunteers go above and beyond to help each other and the mission. 

So really recognizing people for effective collaboration or working together. So those are some ways to build community and that sense of community in that fifth pillar of shared responsibility and commitment. We’ve talked before about community building on this pod, and I want to share a few episodes that I’ll post it, links in the show notes so that you can check out if you really want to dig deep into this idea of community building in Volunteer Nation, episode 138, building Community in an uncertain and sometimes scary world. I talk about how to build community.  

In episode 27, I talk about my secrets to building a sense of community with volunteers. And in episode 1 64, I talk about moving from volunteer compliance to building your nonprofit community. So that’s a paradigm shift around community building. 

So, I’ll link to those in the show notes, check those out if you want to dig more into community building. Let me just review what are the five key pillars of community building and think to yourself, how well are we doing at these? Because you do and can take proactive steps to build community. So, the first pillar is membership. 

That feeling of belonging and identification with the group. How well are you doing on that? Peace and could you do better? The second pillars influence feeling that you matter to the group and the group matters to you. How well do your volunteers feel like they matter and that the organization believes they matter as well? 

The third pillar is integration and fulfillment of needs the community meets member’s needs. So how well is the community, not the organization, the community of people meeting? The needs of each member, whether they be paid staff or volunteer. The fourth pillar is shared emotional connection bonds form through shared history experiences or events. 

So, is there emotional bonding happening and to what extent between volunteers and staff and within that community of people? That are working towards your mission. And then fifth is shared responsibility and commitment. It’s that final bonus pillar members share responsibility for sustaining the community and act for its wellbeing. 

So, what’s the level of commitment of volunteer to volunteer? Volunteer to staff, staff to volunteer staff to staff? Is that commitment there? Do people feel a sense of community if they don’t? These are the things to work on. It’s not rocket science. It’s not a mystery. The research has been done. And it’s clear that there are concrete actions that you can take to build community. 

You don’t have to do everything at once. Consider the area where you might make a difference quickly. The low hanging fruit. You know, a strong sense of community. The re really the key takeaway is that a strong sense of community comes when volunteers and staff feel like partners. Not separate silos, small intentional actions that you make across these five pillars. 

Build trust, belonging, and commitment. And this in turn, leads to greater satisfaction, productivity, and intent to stay both on the part of volunteers, but also on the part of paid staff. And so, I hope this little, short episode on community building has helped you think through what steps you can take. 

Because feeling connected to one another and being in community with one another is one of the most. Powerful ways that you can ensure sustainability, productivity, and that your mission is met. So, I hope you like this discussion of community building, maybe a little bit of a different take, kind of parsing it out. 

What does it really mean? And if you liked it, I hope you’ll share it with a friend or colleague who could also use a little bit of new information or fresh information or inspiration around building community. And of course, as always, we love your ratings and reviews. So please rate and review us within your app and come back next week, because we’ll be here same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Take care everybody.