Churches often help accomplish so much good in a local community. They are generous with their time and money. But, like any organization, many people want to serve but don't have any idea where to begin.
Even if churches have great service opportunities, they don't always see a lot of participation. If you're a church leader, perhaps you've heard, "I would have helped but I didn't know about it." Communication and keeping your congregation informed is a regular challenge. Another challenge that presents itself is creating an easy way to sign up. Some churches simply provide the name of a contact person during announcements. The problem is that you must track that individual down - provided that you know them.
Online sign ups help simplify volunteer recruitment and reduce administrative work for your team. Here are a few tips to help you improve your church outreach efforts and get your congregation more involved.
With needs in so many areas, it's hard for people to consider all the details. And there isn't always a clear way to recall and respond to the opportunities.
To solve this dilemma, you need a way to centralize your volunteer information and make it more accessible. Cramming all these volunteer needs into the announcements won't suffice. Instead, it's better to create a single location where this information is housed and accessible. With our portal page feature, you can customize a single landing page and post all your service opportunities as individual sign ups. You don't need a developer to build a page for you. Our easy-to-use tool provides a simple customizable platform to post all your congregation's volunteer needs.
This makes it easy for church members to visit the page and find all the opportunities posted in a single location. All your communication, such as emails, social media content or announcements, should point church members to this page. You can even embed it on your church website. Over time, your congregation will learn to visit this page any time they want to view the current serving opportunities in your church. This creates an easy way for people to stay informed and engaged.
Additionally, a sign up provides a call to action as an easy way to respond. Congregants can sign up any time and share the link with others. This ensures your response rates improve.
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Once you've created the sign up, be sure to promote it appropriately. To do this, you'll want to focus on channels that you use to communicate with your congregation, like social media and email newsletters. If your church has a calendar full of events, focus on the largest and most impactful serving opportunities. The others need to be communicated to specific sub-groups within the church or simply listed on the volunteer portal page. This way, you can segment your communication and determine what opportunities should be communicated to the entire church and what can be communicated to specific groups within the church.
Celebrating how people are currently serving is an even better way to emphasize your mission. Highlighting various volunteer roles and wins can reinforce and encourage the values of your congregational culture. Consider creating a sign up to host an appreciation event or find other ways to celebrate.
Building service into your church culture is one of the best ways to create motivation that leads to action. Be sure to foster a culture by celebrating wins, highlighting volunteer efforts, and helping to churn a desire to serve. Put up images of people serving or develop a slogan - all of these are ways of keeping the mission of serving in the forefront of people's minds.
