Ask ministry leaders about volunteers and you get the same three answers, over and over. One of them is much easier to do something about than the other two.
of leaders hear “I'm too busy” when they ask people to serve.
The most common recruiting struggle in the survey.
Right behind it: needing better ideas for recruiting strategically, making announcement after announcement with no response, and hearing people say they don't feel qualified.
Pick any, so answers total more than 100%.
Nobody can hand a volunteer more hours in the week. But of leaders hear people say they don't feel qualified, and that one has a direct answer: show them exactly what to do, and walk with them the first time.
That's where training comes in, and it's also where the gap is. of ministries don't offer any regular volunteer training.
Again, the burden falls hardest on the smallest churches, where the person who would run the training is usually running everything else too. Leaders in ministries that train report less exhaustion themselves. Read “The Training Gap” →
You can't give people more time. You can give them more confidence.
Asked what makes it hardest to keep volunteers long-term, leaders pointed to two things almost equally: schedule conflicts and burnout.
Specific encouragement, meals and snacks, and handwritten notes lead the list of ways ministries appreciated volunteers this year. Still, said they haven't had a plan for appreciation at all.
Pick any, so answers total more than 100%.
The cheapest one on the list, the handwritten note, tracks with less discouragement for the leader who writes it. Read “The Handwritten Note” →
“Too busy” is sometimes the whole truth and sometimes the polite version of something else. This survey asked ministry leaders, not the people they're recruiting, so it captures what gets said at the door rather than what's happening behind it.
Based on responses. Recruiting struggles and appreciation are pick-any questions; keeping volunteers and training frequency are single-choice.
Comparisons are simple cross-tabulations with no controls. Every figure is generated from the response data rather than typed by hand. Explore every volunteers question →