Q&A: How Do We Create a Standard Volunteer Handbook?
Q:
Our team wants to create a standard “handbook” that ministries would use for their leaders, coaches, and volunteers. What have you used (or seen) that’s been helpful?
[Mallory Mueller, Clovis AM Connections Coordinator The Well Community Church, Clovis, California]
A:
This is a Q that I only wish I had a better A for. The handbook you speak of has been a back-burner project for me for a long time now, so there’s no finished project – or even project-in-process – to show for it. Five points from Gryffindor.
However, there are a few non-negotiables when it comes to creating a resource like this:
1. Collaboration
If a handbook is going to be “standard” anything, it has to bridge ministries and – if you’re multi-site – campuses. That means a truckload of collaboration with every ministry head, most staff members, and a lot of volunteers. A standard handbook across ministries doesn’t carry much weight if the family ministries team uses it but the worship team ignores is.
It also means that in most cases, your handbook is going to be pretty broad and will only cover the basics: onboarding processes, qualifications, and equipping tools that apply to all volunteers. Specific teams will certainly have specific addendums that apply to their systems, processes, and trainings, but even these should seek to match the style and tone of the standard playbook.
2. Standard entry points and progression
It doesn’t make a lot of sense for one ministry to have zero standards, trainings, or orientations for volunteers, while another ministry blows the annual budget to equip their people. While one is too little the other might be too much, I’m a big advocate for the onboarding and equipping processes to look similar to one another across ministries. That would also apply to levels of leadership, titles for team members, etc.
A really helpful book and model for this is Nelson Searcy’s Connect: How to Double Your Number of Volunteers. His “lakes and ladders” illustration is worth the price of admission. Mac Lake’s The Multiplication Effect: Building a Leadership Pipeline that Solves Your Leadership Shortage will also scratch that itch.
3. Week vs. weekend
Certainly, the qualifications to serve on the Sunday worship team might look different than the qualifications to serve at the pregnancy support center each Thursday morning. You can keep those differences in mind, even while creating a standard playbook.
4. Promote. Update. Promote. Update. Repeat.
Don’t go through the trouble of having a volunteer handbook if no one knows about it, or if it’s just going to gather dust. Review it at least annually if not more. Get the band back together – the folks who originally created it – and make sure the expiration date hasn’t passed. Consider a digital version that’s easily accessible to anyone with the latest version.
Helping your volunteers know where they live in the ecosystem is a kindness. Helping your staff know how all organisms in the ecosystem function together is a kindness. A standardized handbook can help with that.
Do you have a standard playbook that you’d be willing to share with the general public? If you do, pass it along and I’ll be glad to add it!
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