How to manage interviews to get to know prospects and share the volunteer vision

This is the third in a series of blog posts on everything related to volunteers.  In the last one we talked about different ways of identifying and recruiting volunteers directly and indirectly.

In all four approaches (direct registration, indirect registration, direct reports, indirect reports), we ended up with a group or "pool" of potential volunteers.

The next step in the process is to interview these people.  The purpose of the interview is threefold:

1. Establish a relationship with the potential volunteer.  Ask questions that show you are interested in who they are, not just what they can do for the ministry.  Help them feel appreciated for their willingness to serve.
2. Pre-qualify them.  Listen to their story and ask clarifying questions to see if they have the background, experience and desire necessary to serve in this role.  Are there any red flags?
3. Share the vision.  Help them understand the difference that their time investment makes in the lives of those they serve and the church as a whole.  The picture of the body in 1 Corinthians 12 reminds us that every ministry role makes a difference.

Sometimes the only interaction is a thank you email with a link to do a background check.  This may be sufficient for people you already know and who know and are already committed to you. 

Use the Registration Confirmation Email box under Registration > Settings to build this email template.   

Sometimes this interview is in the form of a survey that someone fills out and turns in.  This survey form is likely a combination of member attributes (ex. ministry interest, spiritual gifts, previous experience) and registration attributes that may be more open-ended (ex. Why do you want to serve in this role?).

Build this form by choosing Member Attributes and Registration Attributes (create them under Groups & Events > Settings > Registration Attributes) on the same registration settings page.

But, the best approach by far is a personal interview either over the phone or face-to-face.  You may set this up with a schedule that volunteers can choose times from or simply by personal interaction.  The most important thing you can do to optimize the value of the interview after you complete it is to go to the potential volunteers member profile and enter a note summarizing the interview and assigning a follow-up.

This note is now available to remind you and all other staff level users of your conversation.  The note system will also notify Carole of the assignment and send a reminder to complete it.

Finally, use your group as a dashboard to track these interactions.  This gives you a single place to track everyone at this stage in the volunteer process.  You can even use it as a task list by sorting the group view based on the follow-up date.

If you have a ton of potential volunteers you may feel overwhelmed by the task of interviewing them, but people are not tasks to be checked off.  We developed Churchteams to be used as the single source to help you manage the tasks related to volunteer interviews, so that you can give your time to what's most important.