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How to Get Your Great Staff and Volunteers to Stay

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Engaged at work

How can you keep staff and volunteers excited to come to work?

A guest post by Sybil F. Stershic, Quality Service Marketing

True or False?

1. Mission matters in a nonprofit organization.
2. The people behind the mission – a nonprofit’s employees and volunteers – also matter.
3. Employees’ and volunteers’ passion for the mission ensure their commitment to a nonprofit organization.

The first two statements are true. While the third statement may be true in an ideal world, the reality is, while passion is critical, it’s not enough. Here’s why.

Every nonprofit will attract employees and volunteers who share a special affinity for its mission. People typically don’t work for a nonprofit for the money or glory. But a noble mission doesn’t guarantee a great workplace. If employees’ and volunteers’ work is not respected, and if they’re not given the tools needed to do their work, they’re not going to stay.

Bottom line: once engaged doesn’t mean always engaged.

The good news is, keeping staff and volunteers (including board members) engaged doesn’t involve anything complicated. It does require an intentional and ongoing application of internal marketing – a strategic blend of marketing, human resources, and management to ensure people have the resources and reinforcement they need to do their work. (Don’t be concerned with the “marketing” term as you don’t need to be a marketer to apply this approach.)

How to engage employees and volunteers with internal marketing

Internal marketing basically connects employees and volunteers on three fundamental levels:

• To the overall organization – to ensure everyone who works in the nonprofit understands its mission and goals, where they fit within the organization, and what’s expected of them in helping it achieve its goals.

• To the people the organization serves and those it works with in the process (such as donors, community influencers, advocates, etc.) – so staff and volunteers know who is important to the nonprofit and how to serve them.

• To fellow volunteers and employees – so they understand their individual and collective impact on the mission, along with how best to work together.

You can build these connections through a range of organizational activities that include but aren’t limited to: new staff and volunteer orientation; training; team building; and group meetings to share important information on new programs, policies, strategic plans, funding and organizational updates.

Nothing truly extraordinary – just whatever it takes to provide the necessary tools, attention, and reinforcement that enable the people behind the mission to do their best and know that their work is valued.

Even though I advocate “internal marketing” as a framework for engagement, it doesn’t matter what you call your approach to engage the people who work in your organization, as long as you are intentional and proactive in your efforts.

Remember, an inspiring mission may attract talented employees and volunteers to work with your nonprofit, but it takes much more to get them to stay. People need to feel they matter as much as their work.
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Sybil F. Stershic, author of the award-winning Share of Mind, Share of Heart: Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits, is a respected thought leader, speaker, and facilitator who specializes in engaging employees with internal marketing. Active as a volunteer leader in many organizations, Sybil is a former chairman of the American Marketing Association. For more information, please visit her website and blog at Quality Service Marketing.

In the Beginning, Our Nonprofit…

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creation story

How do you tell your creation story?

One of the stories that nonprofits should know how to tell is what Andy Goodman calls the creation story. This story shares who started the organization, why it was started, and when it was started.

Your staff, Board, and membership can be informed and inspired by the story of “how we got here.” Here’s a creation story that made a difference to me.

When my wife and I came to Temple B’nai Brith in 1990, about half the members were retirees, in their 70’s and 80’s. The other half were people in their 30’s and early 40’s, with almost no one in between. The temple had existed since the early twentieth century, but by the time we arrived, the way it ran was so different, it was essentially a new organization.

We asked the younger generation, “How did you get involved in running a synagogue, in partnership with people old enough to be your parents?”

They told us:

We liked the people. We liked the building. We started spending time here on Saturday mornings. Eventually, the older generation came to us and said, “Look, we’re not getting any younger–you’re going to have to take over this synagogue.”

That came as a shock. It was surprising enough to some of us that we would even attend a synagogue–let alone run one!

The younger generation got together and decided we would present our elders with a demand they probably wouldn’t accept. We said, “If we take over this synagogue, we’re going to count women and men equally for all purposes. Ritual, membership, voting, you name it.”

The older folks thought a bit and said, “Well we’ve never done it that way before ….” (and we thought we  were off the hook!)

And then they said “…but we know a lot of places are doing it that way now, and we know you young women will take it just as seriously as the men, so…okay. What else do you want?”

And we couldn’t think of anything else! So now, it’s our synagogue. And we love it.

Look at what this story told Rona and me about the organization we were joining.

  • It’s based on friendships between people of different generations.
  • Members run it.
  • Members are committed to it.
  • Egalitarian values steer it.
  • Change is a part of its identity.

Because we knew the story, we knew what we were getting into: what we could expect and what was expected of us.

What’s your organization’s creation story? What does it tell the people who work there about why it exists and how they should act in the future?

Brandraising, by Sarah Durham: a review

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When you create your communications strategy, Sarah Durham says, it’s  like raising a barn.  You need a lot of people working together. You’re better off with the whole picture in mind before you hand out those hammers and saws. And you’re better off building from the ground up.

barnraising photo In Brandraising, Durham recommends that nonprofit organizations trying to make their communications more effective take time and take the long view.  Begin by examining your organization.  Is everyone clear about:

  • Vision: the future you are crying to create
  • Mission: the role you are playing in creating that future–as distinct from the roles other worthy organizations are playing
  • Values: what you believe and care about, so that if they changed, you would be a very different organization
  • Objectives: what you will do this year toward achieving your mission
  • Audiences: who you are trying to reach, for what purpose
  • Positioning: “the single idea we hope to own in the minds of our target audiences” (for example the March of Dimes = fighting birth defects)
  • Personality: how you want your audiences to experience your organization.

How much time do you spend at your nonprofit talking about these things?  Probably not much.  So, does everybody at the organization understand them the same way?  If you’re really fortunate, perhaps.  But taking the time now to make them explicit–and make sure they’re shared–will pay off sooner rather than later.

Getting these “organizational level” pieces strong and sturdy lets you come up with logos, colors, taglines, and key messages that truly express who you are.  The more your staff, Board members, and committed supporters are involved in putting the pieces in place, the better they will be at using them consistently when they write, talk, post, tweet, blog, or take photos or video about the organization.

Knowing your agency will only take you so far.  Durham insists that nonprofit organizations must know your audiences and how they experience you.  That means knowing a) the touch points where you come into contact, b) what your audiences (clients, donors, media, policymakers) expect from you…and c) what they actually find when they turn to you (or you turn to them) for help.  Don’t guess at this.  Do the research to find out.

When you have put all these pieces into place, you’re ready to choose your media and your messages and create a calendar and (crucially) a budget.  Durham’s final chapter gives good advice on how to make sure you keep reinforcing the brand you have built.  Even when new staff and Board members join, you can build an understanding of your organizational identity right into the orientation process.

Durham recognizes that not every nonprofit has the means to do a complete brandraising, especially all at once.  She includes a section on “When You Can’t Do It All.”   She also offers cheaper alternatives throughout the book, including sending surveys to your audiences instead of shadowing them in the field, or developing certain items in house and saving your consultant budget for where you need an expert or outside perspective.  Smaller nonprofits may have to be creative to apply some of her advice.  But there’s a lot of good advice in these 170 pages.  Some of it will be useful to everyone.

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