I was recently on a
Southwest Airlines flight and witnessed one of the most amazing volunteer moments I’ve ever seen. When it came time for the midflight snack of pretzels and peanuts, a woman on the flight stepped up and volunteered to pass out the snack. And here’s the amazing thing … they let her! No application, no waiver and no complex training classes. They simply handed over the basket of snacks and said go for it! Watching this whole thing go down, I couldn’t help but think about how difficult we make it for people in the church to volunteer. Here are a couple of observations from that moment that I think are worth the church considering.
1. Create Entry Level Volunteer Opportunities
Handing out snacks isn’t the most complicated job on the planet. Just about anyone can do it, right? That’s kinda the point. Creating simple opportunities for people to jump in on allows them to safely test the waters and take another step at their own pace. Don’t worry; leaders will always rise to the top. And it’s important to keep in mind that volunteering is different than leading. Who knows, that woman may end up as the next great flight attendant at Southwest Airlines.
2. On the Job Training
It took very little to no training for this woman to perform the role of handing out snacks on that flight. Realistically she’s probably seen it done a hundred times before. Modeling and coaching in real time is a great way to train, and it doesn’t take hours of time out of the lives of your volunteers and take them away from their families.
3. Throw Away Your Complex Volunteer Application
The flight crew didn’t make this woman fill out an application to work at Southwest prior to letting her hand out snacks. I know you think that having a multipage thorough application is responsible, places a high value on volunteering and is helpful. But it’s actually creating an obstacle to people volunteering in your church. While there may be a few volunteer roles that require a background check—for example, working with minors—in actuality there’s only a very limited amount of information that you need from potential volunteers, which can be quickly collected in the on-ramping process. Especially if you’re intentional about creating easy access entry level volunteer opportunities (like handing out snacks).
4. Make It Fun
Southwest is notorious for being a fun place to work. And when the staff has fun, the people on the flight will have fun too. And hint, hint … they’ll want to join in. If your church isn’t a fun place to work and your staff isn’t having fun, chances are you’re going to have a difficult time attracting volunteers.
Disclaimer:
Dear Southwest Airlines,
If you’re out there and reading this, and I just got the flight crew who allowed this woman the opportunity to volunteer in trouble by outing them, I apologize. Really, I guess I should apologize to the flight crew. But I think what they did was stellar!
