Volunteers, You Have to Ask Them
I was in a situation today that had nothing to do with Little League where I overheard a hard working individual complaining that nobody was stepping up to help him. He was complaining that he had to do everything and that nobody had volunteered to help.
My response? Did you ask?
I am so often amazed when people complain they are getting no help but they never ask anyone to help them? My experience has been, if you ask, people will help. If you wait for someone to volunteer, you might get lucky, but likely you will do everything yourself.
A good example of this is how we do our concessions assignments. We used to give a list of assignments to each team. The team was responsible for filling them. This usually meant they weren’t filled or the team mom did every slot. There were exceptions, but very few.
We decided to try something different a few years back and it paid off this year with record profits! Enough to build a batting cage on our softball fields! Instead of waiting for others to volunteer, we made a schedule that included one slot from every parent in the league. We made sure not to have conflicts w/ other teams and wherever possible, assigned parents that already had practices scheduled at the fields.
Our participation shot through the roof! Rather than ask for someone to volunteer, we assigned a spot to them. Most people showed, some swapped, and a very few didn’t show. This is much better than our normal response across the league and we are very happy with the system.
The moral of the story? Don’t assume people will help, ask them, because if you ask, they will. Who could say no when they know they should be doing it? Don’t ask? Easy for me to avoid you, ask me, I have to say yes.
How do you recruit volunteers?
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