A Vision For Volunteers

I hear a lot of questions about how to motivate or inspire volunteers. How to really get them engaged. Frankly, if you want people to help you, you need to give them a reason to. The clearer that reason, the more compelling it will be, and the more people will want to be part of making it happen. This is why organizations need to have a vision. A strong vision provides the “Why”.

Simply put, a vision is an image of what the world will look like once a goal is achieved. How will people’s lives—your volunteers’ lives—be better? Whether solving climate change or having a clean teenager’s room (I know; solving climate change is easier!), you as the leader need to show as clearly as possible what that will look like and how much more pleasant life will be.

The clearer the vision you can present (what does it look like, sound like, feel like), the better your listeners can “see” it for themselves and believe in its reality. The better you can show them how they fit into that new world, the more likely they are to accept and take ownership of it. It’s not just telling volunteers how nice it would be in general; put them in the picture. Talk about how nice it would be for them to have a summer without smoke from raging forest fires; to walk down the street and know that everyone they see has a home. You know best what your organization provides; show in detail what your community would look like if it reached its ultimate goal.

Remember, a vision isn’t about what you need to do, or how; it’s the after. As Ari Wallach asks in his TED talk quoted above: “To what end?”

It is easy to get caught up in the minutia of what needs doing on a day-to-day basis. For example, you may feel that you need to find a way to get more people into your homeless shelter, but is that your real goal? Which is more compelling: having a homeless shelter that holds everyone who needs it, or a world where everyone has a home? As leaders, we need to see the forest, not just the trees that surround us. By providing others with the opportunity to see that forest, we give them a compelling reason to join with us. That is the importance of having a vision.

Just having a vision, though, isn’t enough. We need to ensure that it’s communicated effectively and often. Show them where we are now, and where we could be if we tackle the work ahead of us. As mentioned before, it’s easy for people to get caught up in the trees. Everyone needs to be reminded regularly of what we are truly striving for. Don’t keep it to yourself! Have a poster with the vision up in the workplace; talk about it during meetings; post about it on social media. Don’t worry about sounding like a broken record; the more people hear about and see the vision, the more real it will become to them.

One of the most compelling examples of a vision is Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.

• First the world as he lived it:
  
  “But one hundred years later [after the Emancipation Proclamation], the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.”
• Then his vision of the future:
  
  “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

What a vision that is! Racism hasn’t ended; not by a long stretch, but three of King’s four little children one day lived in a nation that elected an African American president. So what makes that vision so compelling? Clarity. Clarity of the world as it is (or was), and a very specific, focused, personal vision of the future. King’s vision was adopted by people around the world, and led to changes in government policy and personal belief. Yours can do the same, if you create a vision of the world as your organization could make it, with the help of volunteers.

When a vision is clear and involves people directly, people want to be part of making it happen. That’s how you motivate and engage volunteers.