Volunteers are magical; honor them
Volunteers are more like Gandalf than Harry Potter. Respect them, and don’t try to control them.
Volunteers are essential to the success of your campaign for a rail line, bus-only lane, bike lane, car-free plaza or anything else. Without volunteers helping out, you are limited to what you can do alone or what you can pay for. Having lots of volunteers is also a sign that the idea has a lot of support and potential power.
On the flip side, volunteers can also become frustrated & demotivated, get distracted by other demands on their life, want to go in a different direction, and all sorts of other things that end up with them saying ‘“no” when you ask them for help. I hope this does not come as a shock, but volunteers are people with their own lives, dreams, and demands on their attention. They aren’t a Harry Potter magic wand that will do a specific thing in response to you waving it a certain way & saying the magic words. They are more like Gandalf from Lord of The Rings who can do amazing things when given the opportunity & treated properly; but can disappear on their own side quest when you really were hoping they’d stick around.
It can feel a little scary to have your success be so dependent on something you can’t control. It’s ok to be nervous– you’re campaigning for a change you want– and the idea that that might slip away is scary. It can be especially scary for success to seem like it is slipping away when it was looking so close because you had so many engaged volunteers. You’re allowed to be nervous. But it is a classic mistake for you to direct that anxiety to your volunteers.
I want to be abundantly clear on this point. And I wanted my first post about volunteer recruitment & management to focus on this point rather than more tactical “how-to’s” (that’ll be later!). Here’s why:
When leaders do not recognize that volunteers are living their own vibrant & complex lives; and volunteers start disengaging with the campaign– then leaders tend to use emotionally abusive tactics to re-engage volunteers. It doesn't matter where they are on the political spectrum, how well meaning, or how “professional” they may be— bad leaders can often resort to shame, passive-aggression, and bullying to manipulate volunteers. That is immoral, don’t do that.
And even though it may be briefly successful, it heightens the fragility of the campaign because it further demotivates volunteers or drives them away. That can lead to a cycle of abuse and disengagement which eventually leads to collapse and a lot of hurt along the way. This is a huge part of why campaigns fail, why movements fail, and why people become disillusioned.
In future posts, I’ll write more about what is healthy, what does work, and how to do it, but I wanted to start with this caution. Because even well-meaning people can fall into those habits. You need volunteers, but you don’t need them like a flame needs a candle. You need them in the way that we all need each other. We are all in this together.
Want to talk about how to successfully recruit and engage volunteers? Email me at Carter@carterlavin.com and let’s schedule a session!
How I’m walking the talk these days:
A key part to recruiting volunteers is giving them the tools and support they need to succeed so Thursday night I printed 800 flyers for the petition, bound them in bundles of 30-50 and packed them along with some weatherproof baggies in my messenger bag for a bit of an adventure Friday. Friday morning I joined the Coffee Ride and in conversations with folks about the effort to make Oakland streets safer, if they said they were interested in the effort, I’d offer them a bundle of flyers. Some took a bundle and that’s great; some did not– and that’s fine too. Not everyone has to do everything. And as part of the time at the cafe, I had my bag of flyer bundles out and a person or two casually picked up a bundle to hand out without my asking. A good reminder that you don’t always need to foist ways to help on everybody, but if you leave the door open and make it really easy to help you– people will step up. I also delivered bundles to volunteers in North Oakland and East Oakland. While I was en route to the vigil for the neighbor who died by traffic Violence in the Laurel District I stopped by various stores on MacArthur Blvd to tell them about the vigil and drop off the bundles. Now lots more people are spreading the word to their communities in their way!
(Want help turning supporters into volunteers and figuring out how to make it easy for others to effectively help your campaign in their own way? Book a training session!)
Upcoming Free Training-- “How to Overcome the Opposition and Win a Bike Lane.” This Tuesday February 28th @ 5:30pm PT on Zoom. Register here.
Action/activist of note: Centro Hispano of Madison, Wisconsin did a “land swap” with the city which created a win-win where Centro can expand its vital community services while staying rooted and now the city can more easily build out the Bus Rapid Transit system to better serve that same community. It’s a great example of thinking creatively and communicating openly about the core needs of the parties and being able to develop something that works for everyone.
Meet your fellow transportation advocates at the March Open Discussion Zoom Happy Hour! This month’s topic: "What's going on with Slow Streets in your community, what's next and how do we build on their success?" Come share your thoughts, hear from allies, and make some friends. Join the conversation on March 22nd
Correction/lesson learned: This is a big weekend in Oakland; Congressmember Barbara Lee is kicked off her Senate run here Saturday with a big rally and today is the Black Joy Parade. I’ve been printing flyers and giving out bundles to volunteers and Friday night I was ready to print out another 800 but….I ran out of ink! Thankfully I had already printed enough for Saturday, but still– poor planning on my part to have run out. Heading to Office Depot now to pick more up, and if you want to help defray the cost, you can send a few dollars my way here.
Thanks for reading, thanks for forwarding this along, and most importantly– thanks for working to make the world better!
Sincerely,
Carter Lavin
www.carterlavin.com
