Success Gauges

Growing and maintaining a healthy volunteer team is vital if we are going to accomplish the vision set for our team (reaching kids and families).  Whether you serve at a small or a large church or have kids’ attendance of 40 or 400 on the weekend; volunteer teams are necessary for the success of our ministry.

If you have ever had your heart skip a beat when text messages start rolling in on Saturday evening, then I know that you feel on a personal level, the importance of a healthy volunteer team.

Consider for a minute, that God will send the kids and families to you, that your team is equipped to minister too.

How prepared is your team?  Don’t think right now about environments, worship, learning opportunities, curriculum.  Just consider your greatest asset – people.  Is your team equipped for the kids and families God wants to bring to your location?

Numbers Matter.  In almost every facet of life, they are one way that we gauge success. 

• A solid number in the bank account = good emergency fund = success.
• Batting average higher than .300 = success.
• 10% annual raise at work (versus the 2% standard company raise) = success.
• 20 pound decrease on the scale = success
• 4.8 G.P.A. = success (back in my day a 4.0 was the ultimate success, but things have changed a bit)

We have established a team is critical to our success.  But, how do we gauge the health of our team?  What numbers can be our success gauges, to help us determine if we have a healthy team to carry out the mission and vision? 

Here are 3 sets of numbers you can track & monitor:

1. Average percent of attendance.  How often does your average volunteer serve?  Do they show up 50% of the time, 10% of the time, 100% of the time?  Because life happens, a good goal would be to look for 75% or higher.  That would mean if the ask is for your team to serve every single week, they show up 3 out of 4 Sundays a month.
2. Number of new volunteers onboarding each month.  If your church is growing and reaching more kids and families, your team needs to be too.  A consistent onboarding process to recruit and train new team members should be in place. 
3. Volunteer Turnover Rate.  How many volunteers ‘exit’ your team each month or quarter?  If you onboard 3 new volunteers, but 5 current volunteers fall off the radar, your team is not actually growing.  If you look around and do not see any high-level leaders, or high capacity volunteers, this indicates a need for some serious evaluation.  (I will have an upcoming post on leading high capacity volunteers, where I will dive into this more specifically, make sure you sign up to be notified when it drops.)

If you find that you are recruiting and onboarding volunteers but cannot seem to keep them on your team, there are a couple questions I would ask.

•  Do your volunteers know they are more than a number or someone to help check off a needed position on the list?  Do they feel cared for; pastored by the team leadership?   Are they serving intentionally alongside others that they will connect with relationally?  (Are they making friends???)

•  Does the volunteer know how their specific gifts matter and are making a difference?

•  Are volunteers equipped to serve?  Have they been trained adequately or just thrown into the fire?   Do they have everything they need, in a timely manner so they feel prepared for their role? 

• Is there enough support?  (I have had conversations with top-notch volunteers who have stopped serving because they left every week feeling overwhelmed. Too many kids and not enough help.  They felt like they weren’t/couldn’t be a success in their role, so they just stopped serving. 

Evaluation helps us know what is working well and what areas to shift our focus.  We cannot address things that we are not aware need to be addressed.    Do not panic if you find there is one or more area that needs your attention. 

It is not too late to course correct.  When you evaluate the health of your team, consider any less than favorable results as a warning sign. Start to pour some time and attention into improving those areas before they become ‘code red.’ 

With gauges in check, we are guaranteed to go further, faster.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” –Henry Ford