Every profession, every course, and every instruction manual starts with the basics.
I have been fortunate to have worked with, and volunteered for, many nonprofits throughout the years. Some are extremely well run, such as Feed My Starving Children (FMSC, pictured below) while others are a bit chaotic. Last week I agreed to help The Mankind Project staff a concession booth during the PGA tournament. How tough could this be? Hand out some burgers and pop, wash some tables. Easy right? Not so much.
I have been fortunate to have worked with, and volunteered for, many nonprofits throughout the years. Some are extremely well run, such as Feed My Starving Children (FMSC, pictured below) while others are a bit chaotic. Last week I agreed to help The Mankind Project staff a concession booth during the PGA tournament. How tough could this be? Hand out some burgers and pop, wash some tables. Easy right? Not so much.
The Don’ts
Having never worked in the food service industry, I didn’t feel ready for a customer-facing role. We were overstaffed. Most of us were just standing around, not knowing what to do, without an assigned job, and without any training or instruction. When the booth manager Gerri yelled “where are my hot dog wrappers”, I knew I had found my calling. My talents were quickly recognized and I was promoted to hot dog wrapping supervisor when some new volunteers arrived. Since I am a good and caring manager I supported their efforts to inject fun into the job – creating hot dog cheers while remaining productive. Yes, they were cheerleaders. For a short time I had to work the front lines – fulfilling orders for pop, sandwiches and more. There was no rhyme or reason to the stocking method and one of the cheerleader moms decided she was the boss. She was ordering everyone around. When my husband tried to hand a pop to another front line worker, she yelled at him – she insisted each person only work their counter, even though she had to walk through 6 or 7 volunteers to get to the correct cooler. After the cheer leader mom left, my husband, a master black belt, reorganized the coolers so everyone had access to the products they needed. I quickly returned to the back where it was safe. I was quite content to stock pickles and cheese. Meanwhile, Gerri was grumping around yelling into the walkie talkie for more pop. She got pretty upset when a worker from another booth came over and took an entire tray of hot dogs. There was definitely no inventory control in this place!
Suddenly, it was 2 pm and the cheerleaders were leaving en masse. They had staffed the registers all day. One grabbed me and said “We’re leaving; you need to run the register”. I was terrified. I hadn’t run a cash register since I was 17 and I didn’t know the products or the register layout. I felt like this……
I had been forced into a situation in which I was not comfortable, had no experience and no one to teach me. A person next to me took pity and taught me to use the machine. I kept counting change by hand, so I think I just rang up the same order about 20 times. I am 100% sure the till did not balance that day! I got out of that job as fast as I could – it was a disaster.
Lessons learned:
The Do’s
Contrast the PGA experience with the efficiency and effectiveness of volunteer management at Feed My Starving Children. This organization packages highly nutritious foods that are sent to Haiti and other countries in need. Children as young as 2nd grade participate and are quickly trained in the production process. “Chicken! Veggies! Soy! Rice!” became our mantra and measured out takt time! Each person was assigned a role – putting in a food ingredient, measuring the weight, heat sealing and packing. As soon as we were starting to run low on an ingredient, a person could simply shout “More soy!” and it would magically appear within seconds, thanks to volunteers working the warehouse. We quickly gained speed and improved quality control. The teams had fun competing to see how many cases we could each pack. At the end of the session we also were assigned a cleanup role. After the tools were staged for the next group of volunteers, we had the opportunity to sample the food to reinforce the importance of the work. We felt a true sense of accomplishment – this is probably why my family volunteers a couple of times each year.
Some great “Do’s” learned from FMSC
Do welcome your volunteers
Do explain the purpose and demonstrate the process
Do assign roles
Do check for understanding
Do find an alternate way for a volunteer to help if they aren’t comfortable
Do simplify the process so it can be learned quickly
Do thank your volunteers and help them understand how their work served the mission of the organization.
Whether you have a committee planning a company party or you are managing a group of volunteers in your nonprofit or community, we hope these tips are helpful and easy to implement. Have a great month.
Having never worked in the food service industry, I didn’t feel ready for a customer-facing role. We were overstaffed. Most of us were just standing around, not knowing what to do, without an assigned job, and without any training or instruction. When the booth manager Gerri yelled “where are my hot dog wrappers”, I knew I had found my calling. My talents were quickly recognized and I was promoted to hot dog wrapping supervisor when some new volunteers arrived. Since I am a good and caring manager I supported their efforts to inject fun into the job – creating hot dog cheers while remaining productive. Yes, they were cheerleaders. For a short time I had to work the front lines – fulfilling orders for pop, sandwiches and more. There was no rhyme or reason to the stocking method and one of the cheerleader moms decided she was the boss. She was ordering everyone around. When my husband tried to hand a pop to another front line worker, she yelled at him – she insisted each person only work their counter, even though she had to walk through 6 or 7 volunteers to get to the correct cooler. After the cheer leader mom left, my husband, a master black belt, reorganized the coolers so everyone had access to the products they needed. I quickly returned to the back where it was safe. I was quite content to stock pickles and cheese. Meanwhile, Gerri was grumping around yelling into the walkie talkie for more pop. She got pretty upset when a worker from another booth came over and took an entire tray of hot dogs. There was definitely no inventory control in this place!
Suddenly, it was 2 pm and the cheerleaders were leaving en masse. They had staffed the registers all day. One grabbed me and said “We’re leaving; you need to run the register”. I was terrified. I hadn’t run a cash register since I was 17 and I didn’t know the products or the register layout. I felt like this……
I had been forced into a situation in which I was not comfortable, had no experience and no one to teach me. A person next to me took pity and taught me to use the machine. I kept counting change by hand, so I think I just rang up the same order about 20 times. I am 100% sure the till did not balance that day! I got out of that job as fast as I could – it was a disaster.
Lessons learned:
- Don’t assume volunteers certain experience, skills or knowledge
- Don’t expect volunteers to figure out what they need to do
- Don’t put them to work without basic training
- Don’t forget to check in to see how they are doing
The Do’s
Contrast the PGA experience with the efficiency and effectiveness of volunteer management at Feed My Starving Children. This organization packages highly nutritious foods that are sent to Haiti and other countries in need. Children as young as 2nd grade participate and are quickly trained in the production process. “Chicken! Veggies! Soy! Rice!” became our mantra and measured out takt time! Each person was assigned a role – putting in a food ingredient, measuring the weight, heat sealing and packing. As soon as we were starting to run low on an ingredient, a person could simply shout “More soy!” and it would magically appear within seconds, thanks to volunteers working the warehouse. We quickly gained speed and improved quality control. The teams had fun competing to see how many cases we could each pack. At the end of the session we also were assigned a cleanup role. After the tools were staged for the next group of volunteers, we had the opportunity to sample the food to reinforce the importance of the work. We felt a true sense of accomplishment – this is probably why my family volunteers a couple of times each year.
Some great “Do’s” learned from FMSC
Do welcome your volunteers
Do explain the purpose and demonstrate the process
Do assign roles
Do check for understanding
Do find an alternate way for a volunteer to help if they aren’t comfortable
Do simplify the process so it can be learned quickly
Do thank your volunteers and help them understand how their work served the mission of the organization.
Whether you have a committee planning a company party or you are managing a group of volunteers in your nonprofit or community, we hope these tips are helpful and easy to implement. Have a great month.