How to Keep Committee Members Engaged and Energized in Volunteer Organizations

This weekend I had the honor of being the opening speaker for the Junior League of Baltimore’s 2021–2022 Leadership Team! The Leadership Team consists of 20+ women who are leveling up their own development as chairs of the JLB’s many committees. For those that don’t know, the Junior League of Baltimore is an organization of women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women, and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable.

From my 9+ years in the League I gathered 7 key ways to keep committees on track and shared them with the new Leadership Team. I’m sharing them here because they are relevant for anyone stepping up in a volunteer organization or taking on more responsibility for managing others.

How to Keep Committee Members Engaged and on Track

1. ⭕️ The JLB is a leadership development organization, you’re here today not because you are at the peak but because you’re driven to keep climbing. Some people confuse leadership with being in charge, leadership is a journey of becoming, you always have further to go and more to grow. In this new role you have been called to lead.
2. 🚗 The JLB is 110 years old, this year we’re just on one leg of the journey not trying to get to the final destination. That should put how you prioritize success in perspective. It also means that it’s been here before you and it’s going to be here after you, which makes it an impactful place to succeed and a safe place to fail — you have room to stretch what you know today into where you want to be tomorrow, this may be your first time managing people, and you should acknowledge that journey with your committee members and your VP.
3. 🌟 Align on 2–3 goals this year to guide your work in the League. The goal is not to transform, or up-root, or re-do in a single year. Change takes time. Remember — a community grows great when leaders plant trees whose shade they know they may never sit under. This is a big opportunity for your growth and anything that is more than 5 hours a week should be on your resume, and you should think of this role that way. Make sure that at least 1 of those goals are about your own professional development.
4. 📈 Decide what KPIs actually matter to the League and your success. Is making sure that 3 email blast go out every month success or is keeping 80% of your committee engaged from end to end of the year success? In the moment the first is the one that creates the stress, but the later is the one that matters.
5. 📞 Successful communication depends on your creativity, flexibility, and empathy aka PICK UP THE PHONE. A volunteer responsibility is nobody’s #1 priority, we have to be okay with that. That means that emails will go unanswered, it’s how you respond to accommodate to meet communication styles that will be the difference between one or two people “doing all the work,” three or four people feeling left out, and successful collaboration. Sometimes email isn’t the way, you’ve got to pick up the phone and call or send a text.
6. 🎭 Don’t let the drama win. There are over 300 women in our League, you are not going to be BFFs with everyone, that is not the point. The point is learning to effectively work together towards our shared goals, and most often drama starts with a breakdown in communication. Remember to use the 5 Whys, the 5th is what is really creating the friction. In this role it’s not somebody, it’s not them, it’s not her, it’s always us — the rising tide raises all ships.
7. 🔋 Keep it fun! Nobody volunteers because they want more work to do, they volunteer because they want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, they want to build relationships, they want to learn a new skill, because they are ready to grow. It’s easy to take advantage of that enthusiasm early on, but over time if you don’t keep people’s tank full they won’t be able to stay engaged. Find ways to keep it fun and you’ll find that you keep your team’s batteries charged.

Bonus Committee Management Tactics

• Open every meeting with a ritual rather than jumping into the agenda. A favorite is to ask people to share a recent win in their life.
• Text your committee members about things that are not JLB related. Best way to get that intel is becoming a big Instagram person and following them all. Use that real life intel as your path to build relationships.
• Get a separate Junior League only email to reduce context switching and stay organized.
• Put your JLB role as a job on your LinkedIn, be proud of this work, and don’t let anyone gaslight you into thinking it’s not important.
• Remember “PAT” your Purpose, Audience, and Tone. Identify those three elements before each meeting or communication to align how and when to motivate your committee members.
• Create FOMO by sending pre-meeting emails with enthusiasm not just business and agendas, and send recaps with thank-yous and action items for all to see even if they did not attend the meeting.
• Delegation can feel like telling people what to do and makes us less likely to do it. If that is real for you, shift it in your mind to giving people the opportunity to self-select what they want to own when determining responsibility for tasks and action items. The ask is “who would like to own this?”
• The elevator pitch for the mission is that at the Junior League we learn to LEAD by SERVING the community and EMPOWERING each other. Keep it in that order.